The Maintenance Chatbox… come and share your success with us!

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The Maintenance Chatbox… come and share your success with us!

This topic contains 11,627 replies, has 174 voices, and was last updated by  hermajtomomi 5 months, 4 weeks ago.

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  • Morning All,

    I’ve been away for a few days, visiting my Dad. He does two 24 hour fasts per week to maintain his weight but, in my opinion, is still an overeater in between (and on his fast day evening!). And he is definitely a feeder of others (he will ask how much you want, and always give you more).

    As a result, I am heavier than on arrival, and generally just feel stuffed and a bit bloated.

    Awful to say, but… I’m going home today…Hurrah! He has one last opportunity to forcefeed me and then I might just water fast til tomorrow (although that will depend on whether OH has prepared a meal when I get home!).

    I enjoy my food, just not 3 times a day now, and certainly not in such large quantities, and I really really don’t want to eat pudding every night!

    I’m really really looking forward to not eating for a while, and then eating light (and no sugar) when I do eat.

    Happy maintaining all!

    Welcome back Happy
    I guess you know now why you needed to find fasting originally? Childhood eating practices are pretty instilled, aren’t they! 🙁
    Still, your dad is amazing still doing 2 fasts a week after all this time. Go dad!
    Enjoy getting back to normal maintenance. 🙂 P

    HappyNow,

    wishing you a safe, happy journey home.

    What I get from your lines is that – what I call – the FD spirit is deeply rooted inside of your everyday life. Can there be something better happening? 🙂 And the occasional stuffed experience makes it very feelable.

    I remember times when permanent pudding, ice, chips translated “love” and “comfort”. Those times have gone for me as well. Thanks to the sustainable FD experience.

    M

    Hi P and Mahalo,

    Yes, childhood eating! What caused the problem in the first place 🙁

    And I do now get very frustrated with his attitude. Overfeeding your children/ loved ones needs to be classified as ‘abuse’, not ‘care’ or ‘love’ or ‘nurture’ !

    GrumpyNow 🙂

    Poor grumpy. And poor dad just doing his best 😉
    Drive carefully. P

    Happy,

    there are some thoughts on my mind that I would like to share. I just want your explicit go to do so. So please let me know whether you’re interested in my perception.

    There is always room to be grumpy, too, without any other response than “I know what you mean/feel and can relate to it – with or without words 🙂

    M

    Hi Mahalo,

    Feel free to speak (write) your mind! It’s good to see things from someone else’s point of view.

    Home now, and looking forward to actually being hungry next time I eat!

    Good to know that you arrived safe 🙂

    I come from an emotionally abusing background, both parents. So I know both the deep pain and anger/feeling of helplessness that comes with this. Last year I had my final break-through in facing the truth about my childhood. Without going into details. My wish to let go of all that stored and saved external energies (= fat cells) came from that inner work with myself. I was ready to manifest it on the outside, too. Finally finally finally.

    When I read your post I instantly thought of: boundary and their violation. I perceive this dynamic as an old one. A parent feeds. He projects his hunger/not getting enough on to his “child”. Where has the grown HappyNow gone to in that moment? Where was the queen of HappyNow Kingdom, the only person who really decides when to eat what amounts. (As I said, I am just telling you what I thought in that moment. I do not mean it in a judging way at all. How could I…)

    I can not cope with the way my family treated me. So I closed my kingdom’s borders many years ago and withdrew completely. It was just too toxic for me. I had to shut them off to get a chance to heal.

    What helps me a lot is the “turn-around-tool”.

    Lastly that would be: I am feeding myself (and am really angry about it), because I allow someone else to violate my natural borders of feeling full and satisfied. I am feeding the other person’s (most likely unconscious) desire/need/hunger to rule my body. For my “best” which is definitely not my best because it feels bad… When I do not speak up for myself nobody will.

    I think this little girl (or boy) that still lives inside of us needs our adult self – our inner father & mother – to protect us.

    I know that is very easily said.

    Does that make sense?

    Best,
    M

    Hi Mahalo,

    Yes, the 12 year old is still inside! And parents can always transport you right back there by treating you as that 12 year old rather than the 46 year old you are.

    I end up liking myself a little bit less when I spend time with Dad. I always thought it was because I get irritated with him, and feel guilty for then being sharp and shrewish. But more likely it’s irritation with myself because I allow him to make me feel like the little fat girl with no control over her own life (including what she ate!), and I don’t like feeling like that girl.

    Anyhow, I’m back in my comfort zone now and an adult again! And resolving, as always, to be a nicer, more patient daughter next time 🙂

    Hi Purple, Happy, and Mahalo,

    Interesting thread! I come from an abusive background as well, though both parents have passed (the last one in 1994), so I haven’t had to deal with them for some time now. I’m sorry this is such a pain. However, Happy, I don’t know if you might want to “just say no” next time–at least for one of the meals–to see what effect (if any) it has. It’s just a thought, but it’s something I tried when my parents were still with us. I hope it helps. If not, feel free to chuck it in the bin.

    Jayney

    Family dynamics are fascinating. My 4 adult kids slip back into roles they took on as little kids when they are together. Different interactions, depending who is present, but certainly not as they would with their adult friends. I guess within families we know exactly how to press each other’s buttons!

    I, too, slip back into being the little sister with my brother. I hate the way he tells me what to do, even now, and still thinks he has to look after me and make decisions for me. Grrrr….

    Loving upbringing or not, we are all subject to the memories of learned behaviour from childhood. We just need to remember, we can change that behaviour.

    Freezing cold. Very hard to not overeat (it is a non fast day). Clear soup to tide me over until dinner time tonight. 🙂

    Cheers P

    Hi All,

    Don’t worry Jayney, I do say no! Often, and loudly. Holding my own has never been an issue, I’ve been fighting to be heard in a family of men for a lot of years!

    My Dad hasn’t changed. I have changed. My irritation is with me, with my response to his ‘feeding’ habits, and that I allow him to make me feel and behave like a child again (when it’s simply him saying ‘you should eat now, because you must be hungry, you didn’t eat breakfast’!).

    Poor Dad, he doesn’t understand why him making breakfast when I don’t want it would make me so irritable!

    As you say P, we can change our behaviour and response. I’m still working on that 🙂

    Yep. And I’ll work on my reaction to my brother 😉

    Good luck with that P!

    I should say that I don’t consider in any way that I had an abusive background. I have always been Dad’s little girl (and at least one brother would say horribly spoilt!).

    His overfeeding is what he does to all his guests, I’m not special in that respect. I always have a lot of food in for guests too, I just don’t push it on them in quite the same way!

    Although he fasts twice a week, fasting hasn’t affected his non-fast days or food preferences. I don’t think he can quite get his head round my free-style eating! And he definitely can’t understand that you might not want a pudding after your evening meal!!

    He deserves sympathy really, for having me as daughter!

    I’ve always love the approach your dad has towards fasting ….eating cheescake on fast nights! You’ve got to love a man like that. Mr P would too if I let him!!! P 🙂

    Hi All – I won’t get involved, this time, in the family-dynamic discussion – many of you know a bit about mine (not particularly pretty) and I’ve spent a lifetime allowing myself to be made whole despite it. I’ve talked about it with skilled, loving people; I’m proud of the fact that I haven’t passed it on to the next generation; but have recently realised (at 70!) that continuing to dwell on it hurts only me (one perpetrator is dead, the other in denial) so I have to refuse to allow it to damage me further, and that means that although it still jumps up to bite me sometimes, most of the time I must work deliberately to let it go – just as other people have (I hope) managed to let go of any harm I may have done to them. But love to any and all for whom this thread may have reactivated painful stuff.

    So – the real focus of this post is pudding! We allow ourselves pudding twice a week – Friday day off, and Sunday feast day – and it’s always been the first thing to go at times of cutback. But I have to declare indignation about one friend, who declares loudly that ‘a meal is not a meal without a pudding!’ – (and we’re not talking about a piece of fruite here, folks, but a good old-fashioned calorie-rich something with custard) She puts away about 3500 calls a day by her estimation, mostly healthy but many of them sugar-based – is 5’7″ tall, weighs 112 lbs and has a body fat %age of 18!!! She says she has simply been this way since childhood. There is simply no justice in life! It leaves me wondering whether some of our issues with eating arise from a sense of entitlement/jealousy – the ‘if you’re having dessert /ice cream / chocolate, the I want it too, even if I know I don’t need it and it may actually harm me’ syndrome? I believe it’s what the young call FOMO – ‘fear of missing out’ – any thoughts?

    Hi Fast,

    FOMO, it’s a new one on me, but yes! As kids we always watched closely to check cake was being cut to the mm to ensure we each had our fair share! And I have been guilty in the past with OH of eating more than I want or need, because if I don’t have more now there won’t be any more later! Better to overeat than let him eat it all! I’m learning to let that one go… Or hide ‘my fair share’ from him 🙂

    I hide my share!! 😉

    Our kids had a ‘one cuts, the other chooses’ rule! Drawback is it works less well once you have more than 2…

    So relieved you both have strategies for making sure OH doesn’t get more than his share just because you eat a smaller amount at any one time – I thought it was just me! Coming to the conclusion that either men are just inherently thoughtless and greedy, or women are ditto devious and greedy – and I am just plain selfish – but I’m obviously not alone. Thank you, friends!

    Ps what are you doing up in the middle of the night, P?

    Hi Fast,

    Yes, if two of us were present we used I cut, you choose too! Not quick, necessarily!

    On the subject of hiding food…! It doesn’t seem to occur to men that they could save some for later. If you haven’t eaten half of something on the spot, it’s obvious that you don’t want anymore. Ever. Delayed gratification…it’s just words to them 🙂

    Mind you, H, in my young professional days I shared a flat with another woman, who had to be treated with great care at mealtimes: if you stopped eating and put down your fork, even for a second, her fork would simply come over and help itself – probably to the nice bit you were saving for last! – with the words ‘don’t you want that?’ (She later became my SIL, and still does it!). But I agree, it’s the male inability to imagine ‘I don’t need that now, but might enjoy it later / recycle it for breakfast’ that’s the real problem – either you want it now, this minute, or it’s up for grabs and fair game…

    I stay up after I turn into a pumpkin on Weds nights Fast as there are a series of funny shows on tv midweek 😉 Love a good laugh!

    Mr P and I always share a single treat when we indulge. I have to cut it in half and move mine onto another plate as I like eating my dessert or cake/slice while I’m drinking my cooled black coffee. He woofs his down and, of course, thinks I don’t like mine!!! Mind you, we are the exact opposite with mains. He pushes the veg around the plate as if it is poison. I adore veg 🙂
    Thursday fast day here and I have a sourdough loaf in the oven. Smells devine! That will test my resolve!. Have a good one folk. P

    Perhaps you should try stealing his veg – or would he not mind?

    Perhaps they are protecting us from overeating by reminding us that 90% of the pleasure to be gained from a food item comes in the first two mouthfuls. After that, apparently the pleasure ratio drops rapidly, so you can afford to let it go, while maintaining healthy weight and feeling virtuous at the same time. ( Only problem is, I can think of at least a dozen foods of which that is definitely not true, straight off the top of my head!)

    Enjoy your fast, P. Just finishing our Thursday one – a day early because we have been invited to supper tomorrow. Have just watched the Great British Bake-Off for the first time ever: most definitely a mistake, on a fast day. Oh my, all that cake! Thank goodness all ours is in the freezer!

    I do finish up OH’s vegetables! Although I don’t steal them from his plate – it’s generally me who put them there and I’d like him to eat them! And it’s always funny watching him sulkily pushing them round his plate…!

    I’ve fasted today, although probably third TDEE not quarter, but I think it will be enough to undo any damage from the last week. Having weighed myself this evening, it appears that much of the apparent gain was water retention and food in transit anyway 🙂

    Ditto Happy. If I stole his veg he’d never eat any. Like a little kid….no dessert until you’ve eaten ALL your vegetables! 😉
    Well done on the early fasts girls. P

    Oh boy amazing how the conversation on this forum turns around to become what fits with where you are at! I have just come back from 5 days with my son and his family where I overate to the enth degree due to emotional stress. So just as discussed here all my old habits kicked in (habits I thought I had stopped since 5:2) and terrified of weighing myself this morning.,but as we have all experienced our idea of a pig out has changed – still 400g below my top- can’t believe it! I lived on chocolate, ate birthday cake, chips, bread that I can’t tolerate! My DIL always says my son reverts back to the ‘son’ role when I’m in the house ie mums here, she’ll do that. We are such funny complex beings!

    It’s all roleplay, isn’t it Carol? Of course you didn’t go over the top! You know what you are doing. Enjoy being home and in control of your food choices again. 😉 P

    Thanks P! 🙂

    Hi Carol,

    Great to hear you survived relatively unscathed! I’m also under my upper limit, phew!

    It would be an interesting exercise to tot up our actual calories consumed while away, and see how closely reality approached to our perceived pig outs. Did we consume more calories and our bodies are just working more efficiently? Or did we just consume different calories, and the fact of having eaten different (and more ‘treat’) food made it feel like overeating?

    Whichever, if only my brain had worked this way pre-5:2, then perhaps I wouldn’t have got fat in the first place!

    You’re very cerebral this morning, so early, Happy!
    It IS interesting what we perceive as pigging out now, compared with the past. Speaking for myself, I don’t believe I’ve become a more efficient fat burner, I know I show much more restraint and usually choose more wisely. A little voice in my head actually asks “Do you really want to eat this?” and most of the time now the answer is no.
    I said MOST of the time. I relented today, 2nd fast of the week, got to lunchtime and joined friends in a small bite to eat. Fast dinner tonight. Don’t you love the flexibility of 5:2/6:1 in maintenance? 😆 P

    Hi P,

    I’m not sure about cerebral! I haven’t got answers, only questions.

    I do think though that the flexibility you mention is a really important part of the whole maintenance equation.

    Maintenance isn’t all about fast days, it’s about those decisions and choices that naturally slim people make.

    Do you think we’ve been maintaining long enough that we could call ourselves ‘naturally slim’… 🙂

    I hope so! 😉

    Only if you NEVER watch ‘Bake-off’! I spent last night (after a FD and my first ever sight of the damn programme) lusting over the sort of cake I wouldn’t normally give a second glance – not my taste a at all. This morning brought a short trip up the motorway to the dental hygienist, accompanied by a little thundercloud in the passenger seat who proceeded to tell both me and the hygienist that her services were a totally unnecessary rip-off – despite her telling him they were essential if he wanted to keep any teeth, and my telling him they were essential if he wanted to keep any kind of love life, since I find yucky teeth a major turn-off. Stopped on the way home to inspect the second phase, newly opened, of a very classy M’way services stop and drink coffee – and ended up consuming precisely the sort of cake mentioned above, with cream. A treat is fine, don’t misunderstand, but this was – at a guess- 500 cals’ worth of stuff which was pleasant enough but not outstanding, and certainly not what I’d normally choose for an indulgence.
    Next Wednesday evening the TV stays firmly OFF, and a good book will be enjoyed. Otherwise ‘naturally slim’ will lose all meaning again. (And nb, I was always not just naturally slim, but actually naturally skinny verging on scraggy – until I got fat. So can’t be taken for granted – ever, I’m afraid!)
    Off for a walk to work off all that sugar…bye for now….

    Oh dear Fast! Bake Off can definitely do that to you. They do some interesting savoury pies too though! I think the key thing is shop bought/ mass produced will always be a disappointment.

    No words of wisdom re your thunder cloud, though I’m definitely with you on dental hygiene!

    Thundercloud left his appointment, as he always does, saying how lovely his teeth felt and what a nice young woman the hygienist is. I knew he would, which is why I didn’t take too much notice of the brewing storm: it’s actually because he gets really scared of situations with either too many people or people he doesn’t know all that well, and it comes out as Grumbleguts with knobs on. This afternoon has been all sunshine and baa lambs (metaphorically) but clouds are descending again as we are preparing to go out for supper with a very old friend and her (rediscovered after 50 years apart, but newish to us) partner. Not DH’s fault -consequence of young man who hit him head on at combined speed of 100mph and knocked out his L frontal lobe – no point in arguing the toss, just needs masses of TLC. He’ll enjoy it when we get there, and I’ll have to drag him away!
    The cake was actually home-made and very good – service station is supplied by our local farm shop, would you believe – but just the sponges, creamy variety which would normally make me go ‘yuk’. ‘Bake-off’ actually had me salivating over Black Forest gateau….shades of Berni Inns and Mateus Rose!
    And I enjoyed my walk – 4 miles, 8335 steps, 352 calories burned and heart rate pushed up to 133. More important, and hour’s quiet meditation and enjoyment of the green space which we are fortunate enough to have around where we live. So a good result all round, really.

    Fast,

    I know your DH’s accident is no laughing matter, but it does make me wonder what excuse my OH has for his grumpiness in the face of appointments and social engagements…

    Glad your equilibrium was restored by a walk. I went for a run. I hate it while I’m out, but feel great when it’s over!

    Re: your new services. We have Tebay services on the M6 in Cumbria, family owned with good food and a great farm shop. So yes, I would believe you!

    Hi girls
    Fast, your posts got me thinking…ah…Mateus Rose…in those lovely bottles. 🙂
    I am also a girl who was skinny all my life and ate whatever I liked. Quite a shock to realise I had become fat. I must be a slow learner!! It did take 20 years!
    I usually catch trains into the city, for various cultural activities, every week. Yesterday, the trains were not working. At least I got to walk to the station and back to find out. What was interesting, though, I had to drive in and find and pay for a car park. Normally on a Thursday, I have no trouble fasting while my friends are eating. Yesterday I ended up eating (albeit a very small amount). I really missed the long invigorating walking I normally do in the city. I ended up going out for a very brisk, cold run before “dinner” to get me through the fast day. It worked. I felt SO much better, despite being freezing cold.
    My dad was right….exercise cures everything! P

    H, it’s the family from Tebay – which we discovered by accident some 10 years ago, and where we have stayed in the past, and enjoyed their fabulous breakfasts – who have now opened these on the M5 – northbound opened last year and southbound has opened within the last month. Such a treat! And their use of local food, including our farm shop, so good for local business and morale. We are hugely glad to see them.

    Yep, P – if I’m having a ‘blah’ day, I’ve finally learned that the answer is either a walk or a workout session : works every time.

    Our evening has been lovely, spent with friends who live 5 minutes’ walk away across a large field surrounded by trees. Just walked home with masses of bats flying round our heads – presumably after the moths attracted by the headlights on DH’s scooter. Fabulous!

    Glad the evening worked out well, Fast. I don’t think I would have been too happy about the bats, though! P

    I love bats, P – but maybe English bats are cuddlier than Aussie ones….

    Our bats, “flying foxes” carry deadly diseases. P 🙁

    Hi Fast,

    I love our bats too! I keep hoping they’ll roost in our house.

    They will bite if you pick them up P, but that’s what any wild animal would do. They look quite large in flight, but in reality they’re tiny. Our commonest species is less than 5cm long, nose to tail. And they’re mostly no bother.

    Look up Hendra Virus and you’ll know what I mean 🙁 P
    What do you call an Aussie cricketer who’s good with a bat?
    A vet. 🙁

    Hi All,

    Sorry to be away so long, but it looks like life will be like that now. If I post at the weekend I’ll be happy.

    Fast, I completely respect your decision not to get involved in the abuse thread, and hope to get to that point some day myself. Regarding your friend, if she’s one of those rare types who can eat what she likes and not worry about weight gain, more power to her. I wish I was in that boat, but I’m not, so different rules apply.

    When I used to live 35 miles northeast of Seattle (where I live now) our cat caught a bat and presented it to us. The problem was it wasn’t quite dead, but couldn’t really fly either–just flopping around getting blood on the floor). It was a small one as well.

    Have a great rest of your weekend one and all!

    Jayney

    New on the site, but not new to intermittent fasting. Started the 5:2 diet 10 January 2014 at 202 lbs with goal of 160 lbs. I reached my goal on 16 September 2014. It is now 9 August 2015 and this morning I’m 161 lbs.

    My problem is I still don’t know the best method to maintaining my weight. I have no knowledge of nutrition and am totally confused by all the information on the internet. Concerning nutrition here is all I can find that everyone agrees on: less food with added sugar, more vegetables. On everything else there is conflicting opinion and I mean everything.

    So to maintain my weight I have set what I call a trigger point. That trigger point is 161 lbs. When I reach that weight I immediately go on an alternate day fast for one week (4 fast days). That works for me, but I’m hoping to find some information on nutrition that will make going on the alternate day fast less frequent. Any help would be appreciated.

    Hi all,
    hi jairlie and a heartfelt welcome here 🙂

    trigger point sounds very good to me! I am very new to maintaining and have just experienced an inner void because my goal and focus are gone now that I reached the 63/62 kg. Oh my… to maintain a weight is something more challenging and tricky I feel now. My result was: five (even MEGA) cheat days in two weeks 🙁 I was constantly craving fat, carbs and sugar. Damn. And complied with my cravings. As if I wanted to – half- or unconsciously fill the void again…

    I biked a lot to compensate all my “sins”… like a 2.000 kcal breakfast this morning?! Gee… that is my kcal supply for a whole day. I have to stop that immediately and will. Tomorrow another water fast, maybe even two days in a row. Then: no more hoards like chips, chocolate, cookies, ice-cream and stuff like that. I had too much of it here.

    Now back to your introduction/question, jairlie. What I can recommend from my experience with food combining: enough protein is important. Eaten in the evening without carbs (or only a few carbs from veggies) makes your body work in your sleep and burn the protein by burning fat at the same time, too. So light evening meals are always a good idea – both in maintaining and melting fat.

    Enough water is a way of nutrition also and/or doing without high-calory-beverage. Can you drink 3 liters of water a day?

    There is something out there called the optimum nutrition food pyramid. Maybe you can find some inspirations there, too?

    The reason I was so calm the past days are my struggles. Can some of you relate to what I wrote? Do you know these kind of flashbacks?

    Have a nice Sunday all
    cheers M

    Hi Mahalo,

    Maintenance is definitely harder than weight loss! And I think most of the long-term maintainers can probably recognise the void you mention, as we transitioned from losing weight to maintaining.

    Basically though maintenance is just gain a bit, lose a bit. I think most of us have a maintenance window. When you’re at the low end you relax; when you’re at the top end you get a bit stricter.

    When I first reached my goal I was so worried about relaxing 5:2 and waking up fat again. 16 months on and it hadn’t happened yet!

    And yes, there are still days of overeating. Is it fat cells trying to refill? Or is it just part of fasting, feast and famine? Whatever, you can fast to compensate for those days. And actually those days are probably not as bad as they would have been pre-5:2 and probably aren’t as frequent!

    You sound like you do some serious cycling. If you’re a few hours on your bike you’ll easily have burnt off that big breakfast anyway 🙂

    Hi Jairlie, I think it is common to find maintaining more challenging than losing, because we don’t have the weight loss we are working towards, hence no reward. The way I maintain is to enter everything I eat into the ‘my fitness pal’ app so that you have an idea of what you can eat ever day and still stay within your TDEE or very close to it. Basically I fast one day a week. The other days of the week I generally eat within my TDEE. On the weekends I relax a bit and will eat more than TDEE. My FD is a Monday. Most times now I am still below my trigger point but fast anyway because I want the benefits of fasting and I also want to maintain the habit of fasting. I have been maintaining this way for the past 10 months. As Happy points out our idea now of a feast day is quite different to what it was ie we are actually consuming much less calories. I drink 1-2 litres of water a day (this often fails on the weekend). However, I am struggling a bit at present because I have started eating just for the sake of eating and so am not staying within my TDEE as often as I want to. Not sure what I am going to do about that because I am still within my wriggle room but just a little higher than what I was. No drama with the weight really but just no need to keep stuffing my face when Im not hungry. Any wise words of wisdom from any other maintainers on this issue is very welcome!

    Ditto Carol.
    I wonder if it is because, for you and I, it is winter? Maybe we are hungrier and feeling the cold? I figure, if we are within our “wriggle room” we can eat more during winter and sit at the upper end, then will naturally eat less in our summer. Maybe our bodies need that extra kilo to get through winter?

    Lately I, too, have eaten much more of foods that I haven’t touched for a couple of years. 🙁 But with a good fast on Mondays and another half-hearted one later in the week, I am still maintaining within the limit easily.

    As Happy said, for a long time I wondered when the fat would come back on! It hasn’t! So “bingeing” these days, is probably not bingeing at all. 😉

    Welcome Jairley
    I think most of us on this thread agree that maintenance is a constant experiment. It is all trial and error, but keeping that “trigger point” in mind seems to be the way to succeed long term.

    Cheers from a cold girl on a Monday fast 🙁 P

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