It is difficult to communicate the Realities of Long-Term-Weight-Loss-Maintenance.  I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

I am a Reduced-Obese person who has been successfully maintaining a large weight-loss for more than 13 years, which is a very long time.  For the past 7 years here at DietHobby I’ve been demonstrating my involvement with that maintenance process.

One idea that seems to be uniquely my own was the choice to consider Dieting as an ongoing Hobby, and I’ve written a lot about that already. In fact, I’ve written a great deal about most of the Dieting issues that interest me.  I’ve posted hundreds of articles, pictures, videos which are all still here, indexed and available for review Individually, in the Blog Archives, in the Blog Categories, and also under specific Section Headers.  See the Contents Directory for more details.

Just like there are different stages of Dieting, there are different stages of Maintenance.

Unless you’ve actually spent a lengthy amount of time on one or more Diets, you cannot truly UNDERSTAND the experience of Dieting. 

Understanding Maintenance also requires ACTUAL LONG-TERM EXPERIENCE of being personally involved with the Maintenance process.

In all this time, I have not personally run across any other “reduced-obese” person who has lost from a “super-obese” BMI, down to a “normal” BMI and has been successfully maintaining that weight loss for 10 or more years. Not in person, not diet-book authors, and not online.  And yet I’ve been diligently searching for quite a long time.

People who are NOT involved with dieting … either on a diet or planning to be on one… are seldom interested in receiving extensive information about the benefits or pitfalls of dieting, let alone the maintenance issues that occur after successfully dieting.  

Most of the people who ARE involved in the process of dieting, focus on their weight-loss goals; hope for an easy “maintenance”; and don’t want to face potential maintenance issues until after they cross their goal “Finish Line”. 

The task of Maintenance during the first few years immediately after a large weight-loss is usually more difficult than most dieters expected, and the last thing new MAINTAINERS want to hear is that the process is not going to get any easier … and that, in fact, it will probably become MORE difficult as time goes on.

So… I’ve learned that most people NOT dieting don’t want to hear about the realties of long-term Maintenance.

Most People ON diets don’t want to hear about the realities of long-term Maintenance. 

Most People WITHIN the first, second, or third year of reaching their weight-goal don’t want to hear about the realities of long-term Maintenance. 

It is difficult to find a successful dieter who, after many years of morbid obesity, has been maintaining a “normal” BMI for more than three consecutive years. Such people are rare and therefore almost impossible to find and connect with. This sometimes causes me to feel very alone.

Posting here at this DietHobby website is a part of my personal dieting hobby.  DietHobby is an online Scrapbook of information that I find to be personally interesting and helpful.  For more than 13 years, as part of my dieting hobby I’ve involved myself with various online diet forums, and one of the main reasons I created this DietHobby website was so that I could easily explain myself in depth when participating in various discussions by using links to helpful articles that I had previously researched and written. 

Over time I’ve discovered that doing this isn’t as simple or as helpful as I expected.  Various forum members (usually those who were not involved in the original discussion) sometimes erroneously considered my linked articles in DietHobby to be “spam”, and objected to them. 

Members who were involved in discussions with me often ignored the links, or chose to read only a few highlights of an article which caused them to miss the point entirely. 

I’ve had many years of involvement with numerous diet groups and online forums, and at present, most of the time I find that involving myself in forum discussions results in a lot of repetition about issues that I no longer find interesting or personally helpful to me. This past year I’ve been reducing my engagement in that sort of activity, and expect that I will continue doing so in the future.

My dieting hobby appears to be working, in that I am still successfully maintaining a very large weight-loss.  I plan to continue on …working to restrict my food intake while logging it all into a computer journal; tracking my calories and weights; experimenting with various diets;  reading books and articles;  following the various online posts that I find personally interesting or helpful; and posting here in DietHobby whenever I wish to do so. 

Although I expect to greatly reduce my VISIBLE online forum involvement in general, I plan to stay personally available to interested members here at the DietHobby website, through posts, comments, and private messages.


At age 72 I am becoming more and more weary of the entire maintenance process, however, I plan to continue on with it as long as I am able to do so. 

Many of you have followed me and my progress for a very long time, and I will continue to occasionally provide updated personal information here at  DietHobby.

Today’s post will be included in the BLOG CATEGORY, Status Updates, which exists to make it easier for those who follow me to watch how things evolve as time passes. I recently ran a diet experiment from Memorial Day through Labor Day, and will soon be doing a Status Update post about that. 

Although Today I am feeling very alone here in long-term maintenance, I do appreciate and value each and every DietHobby member and visitor, no matter what your current dieting status might or might not be.

Originially posted on 9/4/17.  Bumped up for new viewers.

My personal
ongoing choice is
to count calories because I find it far less difficult than trying to stick to a restrictive diet that tells me exactly when and/or what to eat. 

Part of my dieting hobby involves experimentation with various diets, ways-of-eating, lifestyles, including those eating methods which call themselves non-diets.

However, even when I experiment with other specific diet plans which don’t involve calorie counting, I continue to count and record my calories. 


For the past 10 (13+) years, I’ve used a computer food journal to track my calories, and I do that all day, every day, no matter what number the day’s total calories turns out to be. 

If any substance goes into my body, it goes into my computer food log.  Accuracy or lack of accuracy is always an issue when counting calories, but I do my ultimate best to weigh, measure, and record consistently and accurately, and I am willing to trust that my personal best efforts are good enough. 

After having successfully completed more than 3800 consecutive days of counting calories, I feel qualified to say that it is possible for a person to establish an enjoyable, ongoing calorie counting habit.

Some of the Benefits of Counting Calories are:

I have Freedom of Choice. 



 I am free to choose the food I eat. I know that good food exists and I feel comfortable seeking it out without guilt. I base my food choices on what I need and want, keeping moderation in mind, and the needs of my health as well.

I don't believe in depriving myself, but I take responsibility for my body, allowing it to enjoy the pleasure of taste, as well as proper nutrition. I know that there's no such thing as bad food unless of course it has spoiled, tastes bad, or doesn't otherwise live up to my expectations.



 I am Absolved From Allegiance to Others.



I am not beholden to a book, a piece of paper, or a meal delivery service. I am also not tied to a celebrity trainer, DVD, medical professional, or specific diet such as low-carb, high-protein, low-fat, or high-fat to reach or maintain a healthy weight. I no longer blame, nor do I need, others for my own personal food choices.

My loyalty is to my health and well-being, so I matter most when it comes to what I choose to eat. I seek out assistance, help, and support, to inform my decisions, but I have no guilt or shame for not following others’ advice …or even my own advice 100% of the time. 



  I am a Self-Governing Body. 



I have the power to change my eating habits if I desire to, and I take steps that feed my ability to regulate my food intake. I set up checks and balances in my life to ensure that my lifestyle is an environment that sustains my healthy eating habits. I consistently look for ways to improve on my own food choices and take the initiative in cultivating new ways to eat.  

I don’t accept what others say is healthy for me. I am thorough in making sure that what I eat, and how I eat, is up to my standards regardless of what menus, the news media, or others say. By choosing food according to my own caloric needs, taste preferences, and nutritional needs, I am a self-governing body. 



 NOTE: Originally posted March 30, 2015.  Bumped up for new viewers.

Completed:
having all parts or elements; lacking nothing; whole; entire; full; finished; no further work needs to be done.

Give this possibility a chance. It is possible to function well, energetically, beautifully, without feeling inferior. It is an Insult to Life to continually feel that you are inferior, less-than, unworthy, or worthless.

Never forget that whenever you are told that you must “Grow” or “Achieve” or “Accomplish” or “Acquire” to become superior, you are receiving a lesson that you need to improve, to be of better quality.  What you are actually being told is, “You are less than”.   Because, what does an instruction to become superior imply? It implies that you are inferior.

You have great regard for people who tell you, “Grow! Rise! Climb! Go! Progress! Gain superiority!”

You never ask them: “Why you are insulting me so?”
You never ask them,
“Am I so inferior that you must constantly tell me to grow and progress?
Am I so ugly that you are constantly telling me to make myself up and appear beautiful?
Isn’t telling me that I need to wear make-up an insult?”

That’s how the intelligent mind functions. It looks at the obvious fact. If somebody near you constantly tells you to go and brush your teeth, what does this obviously mean? It means they think that your breath stinks.

The world is constantly telling you, “Go wash your face, you are not all right”. And you take that as a compliment. “Oh, these are my well-wishers, they are telling me to wash my face”.
 
You never ask: “What’s so wrong with my face?”

And the more someone humiliates you the more regard you have for that person.

Someone will come to you and say, “You can rise up to the stars!” Don’t you see that this statement means that right now you are in the gutter?

But you will say, “This one, this expert, this guru, he is my well-wisher!”

You don’t ask, “Why do I need to rise up to the stars? What’s so wrong with me where I am?”

They say, “You can attain this and that!”
But you never ask, “And why do I need to attain?”

So ….you wear size zero designer clothing,….. now you are complete. All your life you have been chasing that completeness, but incompleteness has only been your own deep assumption.

Why are you holding on to that assumption? What makes you stay there? Throw it away.

This is what an intelligent life is:

‘“I will not accept this stupidity.
What are these advertisements telling me?
What are my family and my society telling me?

I am perfect as I am. Perfection is my nature.
I may not be skilled, yet I am perfect.
I may be at the bottom of the table, yet I am perfect.
My language skills may not be good, I am still perfect.
My body may not be lean or fit, I am still perfect.
My health might be poor, yet I am perfect.
If, in comparison, I may not look as attractive as others, I am still perfect”.

Hold on to this.
This is completeness.

The Source does not produce imperfect goods. The one from whom you come does not produce anything imperfect.

Everyone is beautiful, perfect, complete and divine. No one here has anything wrong with him or her.

Accept yourself unconditionally.

Do not hold grudges against yourself. Do not impose conditions upon yourself. Do not tell yourself: “I cannot rest until I achieve this or that”.

You are wonderful as you are; just realize your nature. Just live in your nature of perfection.  None of us is  "unfinished", or a "work-in-progress".  Each of us is Complete at this very moment.

Your only fault is that you do not live in your nature. You created an assumption; you began living in that assumption; and that is the reason you suffer.

Live in your nature; you are perfect. Reject everything, everybody and every medium that tells you that there is something wrong with you. No, there is nothing wrong with you, there can be nothing wrong with you. No matter who you are, or what you have done, you are perfect as you are.

Always, already, unconditionally; you are complete.

Walk in that faith, live in that faith and laugh when somebody wants to give you some other message.

Realize that any person who gives you that other message is ultimately following their own self-interest; out of concern for their own financial advantage or their own emotional well-being.

Before you love anybody else, love yourself unconditionally.

You are beautiful! Fall in love with yourself. This Valentine’s Day buy a loving card for yourself.
Tell yourself, ‘I am complete, already, always’.