My Maintenance Plan

The super structure of this diet has really helped me, and while I need to learn to eat like a regular person eventually, I think that maintenance is where the real work begins and is an opportunity for me to stabilize this weight loss physically, emotionally, and psychologically. I think I'll do better if I have some rules.

So. Here's my plan. This is based on a few versions of the official plan that are out there floating around (with my own twist/sanity check on things).

Week 1 & 2: eat similar to P2 with a few changes: all lean meats allowed (still organic, still no sugar or honey involved). All non-starchy veggies allowed (basically everything but potatoes, corn, peas, etc. All fruits allowed in moderate quantities. Eggs allowed. I'm going to shoot for eating 5x a day--3 meals and two snacks. Tiny, minuscule amounts of cooking fats (butter and healthy oils) only so I can start eating with my family again, but still no other fat (like salad dressing, mayo, etc). Still no fake sugar. Still minimal amounts of dairy (a few spoonfuls a day). I'm going to ramp up my calories slowly and not try to eat 2000 in the first week. Today, for example, after breakfast and lunch, I have eaten about 500 calories. No way I can eat 1000+ just in a snack and dinner, especially with the food restrictions I still have. So I think I'll try to increase my calories to around 1000 today and then increase by 200 or so a day and see how it goes.

Week 3: add in dairy (more milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, small amounts of regular cheese on salads, etc.)
m, diet soda if I want it, but I'm going to really try to stay away from fake sugars most of the time. Add salad dressing and more normal amounts of healthy oils and fats. Add mayo (for chicken and tuna salad). Add most soups that do not have sugar in them.

Week 4: add in small quantities: the starchy vegetables, hummus, beans and starchy legumes, nuts and nut butters, ketchup

Week 5&6: add slowly and carefully: whole grains and starches, popcorn, pretzels, still stay away from sugar and refined grains

No promises, but I'd like to try staying away from sugar and gluten just for maintenance. If I do have any, I want it to be very limited and deliberate, and I want to pay attention to how it makes me feel. I really, really, really don't want to be someone who can't have gluten or sugar--I cannot even stress how much I don't want to be that. But I'm trying to open myself up to the possibility that I am without prejudging it one way or the other.

But as I said, I think maintenance is going to be as much about the head game as the food game.  So here's the other stuff I'm gonna do.

1) Count calories, for at least the first few weeks. They don't want you counting calories on maintenance, but I think I want to just keep track. I won't let it dictate my eating...if I'm only hungry for 1200 calories, I won't force feed myself, and if I have an odd day of 2500 calories, I won't sweat it. But I just want to keep an eye on it. Since the point of this phases is resetting my metabolism so I can maintain this weight at a higher caloric intake, it seems important to have some vague idea of caloric intake. I'll be using Spark People for this. They recommend 1800-2200 calories to maintain my current weight.

2) Get strong and tone up. I think now that I'm eating more, I'll have more stamina for more exercise. I don't have specific exercise goals yet, but I know I'd like to do Pilates a few times a week and maybe start running again. I don't want to set goals that are too aggressive, because the next few months are crazy at work. This is something I'll think on in the next few days and try and set more concrete goals. I might start running again, but I might just wait until I lose the next 30 pounds (which will coincide nicely with warmer weather outside and spring triathlon training season). Thirty pounds overweight is still a lot of stress to put on your joints for high-impact exercises like running, even though obviously my stats are vastly improved.

3) Weigh every day, and try not to let this make me insane. I do want to try and closely monitor my weight so that I can act quickly if it goes up too much. I do not want to sweat it and feel miserable and like a failure if it does go above 200 briefly. Not sure yet if I want to allow myself to lose any weight. I thought the whole point was to stabilize your weight eating as many calories as possible, but lots of people are reporting losing a little more weight on maintenance (1-2 lbs per week or less). This is another reason I want to track calories. If I end up losing while eating enough calories (1800-2000 a day), then that's cool. But if I'm losing because I am slipping back to eating fewer calories than I need, then that's not cool. I've gotten so used to eating so little that I think it would be easy to slip back into that. So how about this for a goal: keep my weight between 190 and 200 over the next 6 weeks, preferably between 195-200, but I just might not be able to pass up the chance to lose more pounds if it happens for me easily.

4) Begin working through the Beck Diet Solution, which is a 6-week cognitive behavioral therapy approach to weight loss. I'll be using it for maintenance rather than weight loss, but I think it will address the brain part of my weight issue. It has an assignment to do every day. I'll try to do one every day, but I'm not going to get to it every day. I'll write about it here when I do it. I guarantee you that if I do nothing but this diet the way this diet is written, I will gain the weight back. I'm not saying everyone will, I'm saying I will. I overeat for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the reasons this diet supposedly addresses. I have got to get other coping tools in the toolbox so that I don't go right back to eating when I have a fight with R or a stressful day at work or a night of no sleep.

5) Keep writing about this when I can. I doubt I will feel the need to write with the same frequency, but I'd like to keep up at least a few times a week.

6) Sleep: try to get at least 7 hours of sleep every night; preferably 8.

7) Pay attention to my food and its taste. I had eggs for breakfast and olives in my salad for lunch. They were amazing! The longer I can hold on to this appreciation for the flavor of relatively healthy foods, the better off I will be.  The more I can pay attention to the flavor of less-than-healthy foods, the better I will be able to decide which ones I should make room for (mint chocolate chip ice cream) and which I shouldn't (Kraft mac and cheese).

I think I'll probably add to this as maintenance goes on. This is just what I'm thinking about for getting started. These are the things I'll be tracking in a chart and sharing here at least a couple of times a week.

Day	Date	Weight	Daily Change	Calories	Exercise	Notes
Day 1	12/14/2010	198.2	START

 So that's the plan! Wish me luck!