Weight Loss Maintenance At Six Months In

 Weight Loss Maintenance At Six Months In

I posted the following comment over at The Hawaii Plan this morning, and I thought, 'Gosh, I could turn this response into an entire blog post!' So, that's exactly what I decided to do.

Here is the comment, in response to a question about how readers were doing with their health and fitness goals:

I always have small 100 calories packets of plain almonds with me everywhere I go. They really are the perfect food for quick, clean energy, both mental and physical. I highly recommend.

I have kept my lost weight off for over six months now. It's simple but hard (!)- I weigh myself each and every morning, and continue to make a daily food plan. The food plan is the most important component for me. Once I walk thru my day, mentally, and plot out my daily allotment of food/calories, I'm highly likely to stick with it.

I'd like to say it gets a lot easier, but in my experience it does not. I just get to finally enjoy the rewards of being thin along with the ongoing need to self discipline.

Fit is easy- I walk miles and miles and love it. Turns out it was never the exercise that was an issue. It was the food.

I'm now approximately six months post reaching my goal weight of 108 pounds. Unfortunately, unlike breaking my sugar addiction, where the sugar cravings have pretty much disappeared, I still think about food a lot.  I'd thought, hoped, my general food cravings would dissipate, but they have not. They are still alive and well, and they are still an unpleasant chatter in my brain that generally begins in the late afternoon and continues on for several hours. Generally, by about 7 PM, I can shut them off and finish the remainder of my day in peace. 

My self discipline, pretty much finely honed with regard to food at this point, generally allows me to ignore the chatter and stay with my food plan for the day, but it is beyond annoying that I'm still having to fight food noise.

The difference between fighting the food noise now, in maintenance, vs fighting it while working to lose weight, is my rewards for ignoring the noise are immediate and numerous.

• I have a new wardrobe of smaller clothing that both fits and makes me feel great while wearing them. 
• I very much continue to enjoy iced black coffee as my pick-me-up treat.
• My social life is extremely robust, and the compliments from the folk I'm with at an event seem to flow effortlessly. Those unsought compliments are just as enjoyable to my psyche as a sugar-laden dessert used to be, but with no negative downsides. Meaning, ha, my clothes still fit the next morning!
• I like the way I look now in photographs, so no more agonizing over how to 'hide'.
• I no longer grab for my ubiquitous 'butt wrap', a staple of my pre-weight loss life. It's beyond a relief to no longer agonize over the parts of my body I disliked.
• Clothes shopping is now a joy, and the primary way I reward myself when in search/need of a mental pick-me-up.

Here is a sample of one day of my Food Plan, which I prepare each morning after viewing my Calendar for the day:

• 4/20 Daily Food
• Breakfast: 200 (Date bar)
• Snack: 100 (Almonds)
• Lunch: 270 (Trader Joe bean & rice burrito w/salsa)
• Snack: 150 (Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup berries)
• Dinner: 200 (Wine, deli cheese slice, 4 crackers, 1 cup baby carrots)
• 
  
• TOTAL: 920

I continue to review my stats in the Mayo Clinic online calorie calculator to ensure I'm in sync with what the results return for my age, gender and current weight, and yep, 920 calories, plus additional for whatever I've burned via exercise, comprises the entirety of my daily calorie allotment. At this point, food noise notwithstanding, I can say that I'm used to it and no longer fight it. So that is at least progress!