I've made changes to my Weight Range Maintenance Plan. 

Previously the top black "Unacceptable" area was 120 lbs and over, (now that "Unacceptable" area is 126 lbs and over); and the red "LoseWeight" area was 119-116, (now that "LoseWeight" area is 125-120 lbs)

When I grew near to my goal weight, I made a visual graphic of my plan to maintain my weight-loss, by creating a Weight Maintenance Chart much like the one shown above. This turned out to be a very effective way to set specific goal-weight-range numbers into my mind and heart.

I talk more how I did this, and why, in a previous article, "Setting A Goal Range". Read that article to see the original chart and the maintenance weights that I originally set for myself.

This graphic has been very helpful to me for the past six years, and I have worked very hard to stay within the maintenance weight ranges that I set for myself. However, this past two years, ... despite my very best efforts... I've spent most of the time hanging out inside the top red area and the top black area,and I've been unable to sustain much time at all inside my blue maintenance area.

So, I've finally accepted that my age and my activity level might never let me get and keepmy weight down as low as it was during my first few years of maintenance, so I've raised the top of my Maintenance Weight Range Plan by five lbs. I haven't changed the bottom ranges. These will remain the same because they are merely there as a reminder of the general weight guidelines for someone my height.

I fought against raising my weight range for a very long time,but have finally chosen to face my present reality, I haven't given up the struggle to get my weight back down to 115 or lower. I still hope that I can accomplish that. However, I'm tired of hanging out in my upper red and black areas. I am hoping that changing this graphic will give me an added mental push toward making the blue maintenance area my status quo again.

I've been very reluctant to make this change.  Not so much because of the actual 5 lbs,
but because of my fear that ... despite all my continued best efforts ... that my weight will continue to creep upward.

I've decided to face the truth, that my body isn't the same as it was 7 years ago. My maintenance weight has been about 5 lbs higher for the last few years,  so it's time to adjust my maintenance weight range to accurately reflect reality.  Although in a way doing this feels like admitting defeat,  it is actually a step toward success in my ongoing maintenance.

                                   
Our bodies are not Bank Accounts.
Although using financial metaphors often helps describe the dieting process, we don't get immediate feedback for calories eaten or not eaten, except from the immediate and temporary water-waste-gain-or-loss equation which is due to an excessive change in our salt intake, or our food volume.

Each of our bodies assimilates what we eat, whether it is food or a food-like substance. It uses or stores what it can, and discards, or tries to discard, what it can't.

This is a process, and it takes time. The process is complicated, involving enzymes and hormones, some of which haven't even yet been discovered. Although the process is similar for all humans, there are genetic differences between people, and this affects the way that individual bodies function.

That said, here is weight loss in a nutshell:

Eat less.


Find a calorie range for you that you can eat daily that

1.) Does not make you want to die, and

2.) Allows for a reasonable energy deficit
(meaning, you will consume moderately less than you are burning just by living and exercising).

You can start by finding out how much an "average" body like yours burns in its normal everyday state without effort. Just google: BMR and punch in your stats to get this number.  HOWEVER, this number is ONLY an estimate, and due to your own personal genetic equation, your body could easily burn far less.

Work to eat 250 calories less than that number per day.  Eating 250 calories less than your body burns every day will lead to a one-half pound per week weight loss (meaning stored fat loss)… but for most people…the scale will not reflect this loss accurately on a day-to-day basis.. and sometimes..not even on a week-to-week basis.

Move more.


Which essentially means: move more.  By move I mean move, in any way your body likes.  And by more, I mean more, as in - more than you currently do.

If you try to burn an additional 250 calories through exercise each day,  you could lose an additional one-half pound weekly.  HOWEVER, extra exercise makes the body more hungry and more tired. So if you eat a little extra because you exercised, or you spend more time resting during the rest of the day because you exercised, then exercise will be ineffective for weight-loss which is due to a release of stored fat.

Theoretically, a 500 calorie deficit will lead to 1 pound of weight loss from fat storage over a one week period. This is based on the general rule used by science: 1 lb = 3500 calories, so 7 days of burning 500 calories less than your calorie intake creates 1 lb of stored fat loss.

But CAUTION. This is a "general" rule, and the calculation is far more complicated than it appears.

Even when we weigh and measure our food, and track it in a computer program, it is impossible to calculate with precision the exact amount of calories our individual body eats, and even far less possible to precisely calculate the exact amount of calories that our individual body burns in exercise.. even when using computer exercise trackers such as a "Body Bug" etc.

Tracking food and exercise is valuable, but that information will never be precise, or totally accurate.

I used up my inspiration and energy in writing this long e-mail answer, so I'm sharing it here in this article. 

 Someone asked me the following question:

"Can you tell me how many carbs you limited yourself to
when you were on low carb?
Did it work well for you?
I seem to have more luck counting carbs."
 

Here's my answer. 

I think that low-carb is an excellent diet plan, and if it is a workable plan for you, go for it. Personally, whether I'm doing low-carb or not, I've found that it is necessary for me to track my food, and count calories.

All of my own research and experimentation and observation leads me to believe that Calories Count, even when doing low-carb, and IF there is a "calorie edge" to eating low carb, it is a very small one, probably not more than 100 calories a day.

I've seen that people who choose to eat more calories than they burn ...over time... while doing low-carb will still gain weight. Low-carb -- when it's VERY low carb -- tends to be more satiating, and more and more I suspect that --- over time --- it works primarily because people ingest less food.

My experiments with low-carb have been during maintenance at normal weight, so it can't be fairly compared with someone in the weight-loss phase.

I am intrigued by Gary Taubes' position about carbs, (see the BOOK TALK Section at DietHobby.com) and did a lot of experimenting with it in 2011.

I have experimented with what is known as ZERO carb -- which actually turned out to be around 5-10 carbs a day, because I choose not to give up my very small amount of plain, Greek yogurt.

However, during most of my low-carb experimentation, I worked to keep my carbs around 20 or less.

When I'm doing my "normal" - "balanced" food plan, my carbs are usually around 50-80 or less. For me, a normal, really high-carb day would only be about 100 carbs. It just turns out that way, because I don't have a large enough calorie allowance for more.

My own experience .. so far .. because I expect to be doing further future experimentation with low-carb
is that ... either because of the lack of variety in the food, or because carbs cause more cravings (& at this point for me I can't honestly say which)

My appetite tends to be satisfied at around 1100-1200 calories a day, which is just a tiny bit ABOVE my calorie allowance to maintain my current weight, and over a long period of time, would still involve a weight-gain, but I didn't lose any actual fat weight at that calorie level on 20 carbs or on zero carbs.

What happened for my body, was that my weight dropped between 3 to 5 lbs DURING THE TIME I was low-carb, but I feel very certain that this drop was only due to water-weight, because within a week or two of returning to a very-low-calorie, "balanced" diet of around averaging only 800 calories, and my weight quickly adjusted to the previous number.

This happened to me 4 different times, each time after more than a month of successful low-carb eating so I never experienced even a real fat loss of even 1 or 2 lbs,after weeks and weeks of low-carb eating.

That's the personal data I have so far, but it isn't conclusive, and I will be doing more experimentation.

My preference is to receive diet questions in the comment section of DietHobby.com rather than in e-mails, so that the comment and my answer will benefit all of the readers there.

Due to my time limitations, When I spend time writing a long e-mail answer, there's a good chance it will wind up as a future article, anyway.

Like it just did. 

             
Weight-loss and Maintenance of that weight-loss is hard work. This is a Truth that needs to be faced in order to achieve long-term success.  Everywhere we turn we see advertising statements about how quick and easy weight-loss is... IF you just buy and use that One Specific Product.

That product could be a food, a supplement, a diet plan, exercise equipment, clothing, a book, a video, or an idea. It could be just about anything that can be sold for money.

Those marketing lies are common, but seldom do we see in bold black-and-white the truth that no matter what product we might use,
weight-loss is slow and hard, and maintenance of that weight-loss is seldom achieved.

There are now quite a few "reality" TV shows concerning weight-loss. These consist primarily of a trim and muscled, naturally thin, person, setting forth difficult physical tasks for very fat people, then berating and encouraging those people in order to "help" them "start to live their lives".

I find this prejudiced-against-fat people statement particularly offensive, because fat people have lives that are just as productive and enjoyable as thin people.The quality of one's life depends on that person's attitudes and thoughts,
not on their physical size, or even their physical condition.

I didn't start "living my life" only when I was a normal weight,
I've lived my life for all my life, whether fat or thin.

Sometimes it seemed good, sometimes it seemed bad, but it is the only Life that I have here on earth (as far as I know), and it's been continuous since I was born.  It didn't only "start" after weight-loss.

The action shown in these television shows mostly involves physical tasks, including exercise.  Because, otherwise, for long periods of time, we would just be looking at people NOT EATING the amounts or kinds of higher-calorie foods that are currently considered socially acceptable and desirable in our culture.This would be about as entertaining as watching paint dry.

Everywhere you hear people being told to "change their lifestyle". Like THAT is a different process than dieting forever. But, it isn't.

Our lifetime eating habits are culturally and emotionally based, and are extremely difficult to change long-term. To make it even harder, habit and emotion are only part of the equation, because physical elements are also involved. 

The bodies of the "reduced obese" do everything possible to return that person to their previously obese condition. There are quite a few articles already here at DietHobby addressing this issue,and this will continue to be an ongoing topic here.

Accepting the rather unpleasant Truths about weight-loss and maintenance has helped me become successful in that area, and personally, I don't see how it is possible for an obese person to achieve long-term weight-loss success without coming to terms with those Truths.

   Just checking in to say Hello to everyone. This morning the scale said 116.8 lbs.  This is the lowest weight I've been since April, and I'm very pleased about it.  Especially since my calorie count has been about the same, ...which of course is really very low... and I haven't been exercising.

The only thing I'm doing different right now is my zero wheat experiment.  I've having some veggies and fruit, and even had some potato chips, so my carbs aren't super-low, ...that is...not super-low when we consider my calorie count totals. 

It looks like this house repair, construction guy intrusion, is going to go on for a couple more weeks. My little repair job is the kind that the construction company schedules in between other bigger jobs, so it's hit and miss, here and there, which I find difficult.

This past week, I've also been putting in 12 to 15 hour days on my computer dealing with small technical details on my videos which are stored on the companion Diethobby YouTube channel. Tech things to do with YouTube navigation and rating issues etc.  It isn't that technically difficult, but it involves hitting the keys over and over and over and over and over and over for hours and hours and hours and hours.

I've become obsessed with getting that organizational detail done, and hopefully after a couple of more days,  I'll have accomplished it.
 
 I'm also spending a lot of time as the YouTube Grandma answering the comments and questions of people
who are visiting the DietHobby channel.  I've noticed some new registrations here at DietHobby.com, this past week, and I think they might be people that I've directed here for more info and support re dieting and weight-loss.

Life goes on....as I'm always writing here. We have to be committed to our food plan and follow through even in the busy, stressful times in order to be successful with weight-loss and maintenance of that weight-loss. That's what I'm working very hard to do as well.

Today I'm rather lacking in inspiration, except for sharing my own life's details.  However, there are many very inspirational and informative articles in the Archives.
Take the time to read some.