Welcome to maintenance

[kagiesen]

Hi guys

we thought we'd open up a section purely for maintenance. This is not the section for diaries, but one where you can get valuable information. Here you can ask general questions, get help, advice, ideas, tell us how you are managing, nip a weight gain in the butt, you name it.

The reason we split it up is obvious: maintenance is a completely different story. YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN! For the first time, nobody tells you exactly what to eat.

Some people find that Cohens has fixed their metabolism and equilibrium totally, and they might belong to the lucky class of people who can eat whatever they want and not put on weight. Mind you, their wants hopefully have changed a bit.

Other will take a while to adjust, to get used to this new freedom. Bear in mind, nobody is checking on you anymore, so it's trial and error. Trial and errors for me works the best if you continue to weigh yourself daily, until you know what and how much your body can handle. The usual suspects on maintenance are (although they are allowed): too much cheese, too much alcohol, too many carbs, bread, milk. You may find that others are really bad as well, and not worth it.

Some of us won't be able to handle the new freedom that well, and slide into bad habits again, habits that caused the weight gain in the first place. These people will have to continue to address their emotional issues of why they overeat or sabotage their success.

I am a bit of all three. I have done lots of trial and error, I weigh myself every day, my lowest weight was 57.3, my highest 59.7 (OMG, I nearly had a heart attack, so close to 60, which seems to be an emotional barrier!). I can eat much more chocolate than I had ever hoped, IF I stick to the maintenance rules. Milk doesn't like me. Alcohol I don't really care about, which is lucky! I never used to drink a lot until I came to Australia, haha. It's so easy to get used to. However, one rule: Alcohol only with food. So when I'm invited for dinner, I don't start drinking until food is served, before that I will have water. I still eat when I am not feeling 100%, so I am working on that as well.

I would encourage anyone who's finished to post in this section and tell us about how they are going.

Cheers

Katrin