The FastDay Forum

Seems like all of us are happily maintaining or suffering in silence. Time for some updates For me, it's turning into a regular 6:1 strategy, which is enough to keep me within limits and hopefully providing some slack for the weeks to come.
Keep up the good work and enjoy your maintenance as much as possible

Well, a few weeks ago, I revised my target range to 100-108lbs because I had dropped some more weight that feels related to my intensive physiotherapy and I trusted that this would self-correct as I didn't want to adjust my eating schedule or typical eating routines.

I've been mostly around 100lbs until last Thursday when I weighed-in at 105 lbs, with an additional few friends bringing it higher and just within the top of my range by Saturday.

No off-plan eating, no nothing, - just my usual bizarre, periodic, unaccountable gain after a long run of being at the low end of my range. But, as you may all know, this is not the first time it's happened (November; February). In addition, my knees are pretty swollen so I wouldn't be too surprised that a fair amount of this is fluid.

Where will the upward trajectory stop this time? After the big jumps there has been a small retreat to approx. 104lbs today. My face is so swollen that I can't breathe through my nose and I had a bad pressure headache that took 3 days to clear (not a migraine, fortunately, but still causing nosebleeds).

At some point, I'll date track this to see if it's now happening on a regular 6 week cycle as it feels that way (6 weeks low, followed by 6 weeks at the upper end of the range).

The physiotherapy continues to consume all of my notional free time but I record my weight to maintain my watchful monitoring.

I've written out this detail for several reasons.

Our experiences of maintenance, even amongst our relatively small numbers, is wonderfully diverse.

As I need an 8lbs/4kg maintenance range and my gains/losses happen very rapidly, I don't meet the exacting criteria of some definitions of weight maintenance that specify a 2kg/ range rather than approx. 8% of body weight.

I'll be interested to establish whether these weight gains/weight losses within my range have a cyclical pattern (it feels that way) or if they stabilise over time.

I am maintaining between 140 and 142lbs.
The strategies and knowledge I've gained from people like @carorees are of immense help, as I now know that maintenance doesn't happen by happy chance. It has to be worked at, daily.
But, I am happy to work at it, as there is no way I'm going back where I was.

I'm still maintaining at the top of my range, my two secret weapons are still skipping breakfast and daily weighing. If the scales move up I will have a careful day- I try to do 18/6, but I am trying not to get too neurotic as sometimes the weight will disappear before I've made an effort to help it on it's way.

I'm now at the bottom end of my maintenance range, but I want to shift a few more pounds ahead of a holiday in June. I don't fast when on holiday and always put on half a stone. Fortunately it always comes off again when I get back to fasting.

Even in maintenance, I fast three times a week. It just seems to suit me. I also still count calories on the other days, though maybe one day I'll be able to be a bit more relaxed about it!

My maintenance strategy is pretty similar to @Merlin's in that I skip breakfast so I can afford a 'treat', (usually something sweet for me! ) most days. I weigh myself regularly but don't stress if I see a couple of extra pounds as it's usually due to an excess of carbs or natural bodily fluctuations and if the numbers continue to rise I know a few days of eating mindfully and watching portion size will soon have me back at my happy weight. I also keep moving as much as possible, simple things like getting off my bum and walking round while tv ads are on all helps to boost my daily step count! All in all very happy with where I am at the moment as I feel good and seem to be at a natural weight point for my petite frame.

I've been able to maintain without having to fast regularly but during the week I am mindful of limiting snacks, portion sizes and drink plenty of water, herbal tea and more vegetables at dinner. I weigh daily, go to the gym 2-3 times a week for weight session/HITT and daily commute by bike to work (3km each way). Pity though that I'll never get rid of my flabby arms and stomach. Only the other day I realised I was 37kg heavier when I was pregnant 13 years ago so my skin has well and truly stretched.

I'm still finding my feet - I do seem to unnecessarily get my knickers in a twist about maintaining. I think that is because I'm having to work hard at it as @PennyForthem describes whereas it was not difficult to lose the 23lbs and I have happy memories of the experience.

Hi @Lizbean I think anyone who has dieted successfully will tell you that maintaining that loss is no where near as exciting as achieving the loss. There is no daily/weekly/monthly reduced weigh in to look forward to, no measuring your waist or hips to see that they are shrinking, gosh it was such a high when that was all happening, wasn't it? What do we have now? Weighing and measuring are no longer any fun because nothing changes, if you are lucky. Some sort of eating regime has to be continued just to stand still, how exciting is that........mmmmmmm! This is where it can, and for a lot of folk does, go horribly wrong. If people think that returning to what is their idea of 'normal'eating will not increase their weight when it always did before then they are never going to change anything and change is the only way forward. It is very hard to accept that what was your 'normal eating' was, in reality, 'overeating' but I am afraid that is the hard truth of the matter. As @Pennyforthemsays, for her there is no going back so, change it has to be and I am firmly in her camp.

Good luck,

Ballerina x

I forgot to mention that we have 2 dogs so I walk a lot, but it's not part of any strategy it's just what I do on a daily basis come rain or shine, and it was very definitely rain this morning!

Thanks very much @Ballerina it's really helpful to receive an honest reality check-in. I feel like I have just visited the Dr - in a good way This is my first weight loss experience and my first experience at maintaining so it's all new to me and I rely heavily on all you good folk to learn. How fortunate for me to find fastday forum at the right time.
@P-JK Thanks for opening up the May thread "Seems like all of us are happily maintaining or suffering in silence" - put me down for an in-betweenie at the moment, I know I can maintain if I can find that steady journey that works for me.

I'm into my eighth month of maintaining. My range is between 134 and 140lbs. Weigh daily and usually find myself around the 137lb mark. Breakfast is a thing of the past for me now. Don't miss it and am quite happy to wait until lunchtime (or sometimes 3/4pm) before I break my overnight fast. Rarely do a 'proper' 5:2 style 500 cal fast these days, so I suppose I'm best defined as a 16:8'er. Working well for me so far. Fingers crossed it stays that way because at the weekend I finally threw out the remaining size 18, 16 and 14 jeans and tops lurking in my wardrobe! I've held on to some size 12 jeans , just in case, but need a belt to hold them up properly. If I'm still maintaining this time next year they will be going as well and I will perhaps finally believe I'm a size 10 (well by M&S standards anyway ). Good luck to all maintainers in May.

Yea, Thank you , Danku Well, P-JK, for opening the May Maintaining site. After my Lenten Fast I am again trying to maintain so as not to gain masses back. It is tricky. Especially as my body (our bodies) does not lose or gain logically at all. I was OK after my Long Lenten Fast, but have gained since, while trying to maintain. Still going more carefully as before. I love my breakfast of berries and yougurt and Muesli, so I eat breakfast, but skip lunches.
I try to be fairly low carb - though not as rigorously as when I was really low carbing (it stopped working for me). I try to fast once a week to maintain. Thought just after my Lenten Fast I fasted twice a week to have a softer landing to Maintenance.
Then I had a visitor and didn't fast at all.
So this week I decided to fast on Tuesday and Thursday. Today (Wednesday) I was REALLY SURPRISED that I had lost 800g over night. Down to a neat 52 kg. Wow! I am very pleased about that. So many times the weight don't shift...
But now I feel encouraged, my 'goal weight is 51.7kg, so maybe this time the maintenance will work! .
Sorry about the long outburst....

Fasting today resulted in a nice downward weight today. Officially only 0,5 kg, but a bit more today. Fasting still works

Since my return from holidays I have had several fast days in an attempt to shift the 3kg I want to lose, but my weight has not changed. I was getting fed up with feeling hungry on fast days, and tending to eat a bit more than the 500 cals once I started eating. I was also slightly exceeding my TDEE on non-fast days.

Then I finally got around to reading the "Don't go hungry" books by Amanda Sainsbury-Salis. Amanda's theories on how (and why) our weight increases and decreases - or stays about the same - on the whole made sense to me, and I have been able to associate a lot of my weight history with these.

So I have decided to follow her approach and see what happens!

For those of you unfamiliar with her approach, I have summarised it in the "wobbly" thread.

I am not finding it easy to tell how hungry or how satiated I am, but I am getting better with working out what my body is saying I need to eat. I was already eating lots of vegetables and fruit, and have reintroduced grains (particularly brown rice and wholemeal bread) into my diet.

Early days, but my sugar/ chocolate cravings seem to be reduced. (Of course, I understand that better eating behaviour can just be the result of trying something new.)

It is possible that my non-fast day overeating and occasional bingeing might be due to the famine effect where, according to Amanda, even if you have enough calories, if you don't have enough nutrients, your body pushes you to eat more to try to get those nutrients. The theory is that by eating what my body wants, and stopping when I am satisfied, I am less likely to eat more than I need.

I realised that on my non-fast days, my main concern was about not exceeding my TDEE. I also tried to leave a few calories for a treat each evening regardless of whether I actually fancied that treat or not. So now I am concentrating on listening to what my body is telling me - well, trying to!!

I used to worry about how to manage my food intake when on holidays - how would I know how much more to eat when I was very active or how much less to eat when not active. I tried to keep to around the TDEE, increasing it a bit when I was active but finding it hard to eat less when not active. Now I am hoping if I listen to my body it will do the adjustments for me!

As an example, and as reported in an earlier post, I did find the lettuce leaf sandwiches started to pall a bit day after day when on an active holiday. When I finally "gave in" and had bread - boy, how much better I felt and my husband will attest to how much improved my mood was.

Now I do realise that a lot of you who are successfully maintaining are doing this by listening to your body and eating appropriately (and that this advice is given in this forum, though maybe not so strongly as other advice??) but for those people who are struggling, perhaps if they were able to better read their body's signals, that would help more than adding in more fasts and cutting out more foods...

I am not denigrating the fact that fasting is a strategy for weight loss and maintenance that has worked for many. Most people in this tent do seem to have found a fasting strategy that works for them - wonderful! But clearly it is not working for everyone.

[Btw I do have a "concern" that I am actually below my natural weight - certainly my current weight is lower than the weight calculated in the formula carorees provided somewhere (probably in the fasting library too?). This could also be a reason I struggle to maintain - my body wants me to weigh more!! Time will tell...]