I’m having a bit of a crisis and would value your input!
I lost 2 stone in the 8 weeks, reached a healthy weight for the first time in donkeys years and felt brilliant. I decided to move on to 5:2, ie 5 days of low carb but not calorie counting and 2 days of 800 cals. I’ve not eaten any ‘proper’ carbs, no rice, bread etc, and just increased the portions a bit and the fat content, more olive oil on salads etc. And I’ve gained 2 lbs in a week!
Now my sensible head says, it’s only 2lbs, don’t panic. But my sneering head say ‘ there you go, I KNEW it wouldn’t last, you are going to put it all back on again, after all that hard work, all for nothing”.
Any thoughts? Have others had a small weight gain after ‘relaxing’ a bit? I REALLY don’t want to slide back again. Should I go back to the 800 cals?

tell your sneering head to shut up!

I think if it was me – I would try a week of 800 and see what that does then try a variation until things level out. maybe 4 days on 800 and 3 of not counting cals, work yourself back up?

The fact that you are not ignoring the 2lb gain and are looking for a healthy way forwards proves your sneering head wrong. You are seeking to control this and not let it get out of hand.

Remember that weight will fluctuate and even when we are only trying to maintain it will go up and down a little. Don’t worry too much you are healthy now, and by taking a bit of care you will remain so!

Thanks Izzy. Good advice from you as usual. I WILL tell it to shut up. Or words to that effect!
I guess I’m just disappointed that I don’t have it all under control like I thought I did. This is where the mindfulness comes into its own I suppose. As I’ve always said, it’s (relatively!) easy to lose weight, I’ve done it hundreds of times. It’s keeping it off that’s the problem. And I thought I had cracked it. Oh well.
Come on Janet, pull yourself together ( shouts into mirror) you can do this!

you do have it under control though, that’s the thing. It’s 2 lb’s and before you know it those will be gone again. This could just be a natural fluctuation as your body re-adjusts.

Out of control would be to gain 2lbs, do nothing. Gain another 2lbs, do nothing, give up, eat pasta, gain 3lbs, do nothing, give up again, (eat 16 hot-dogs, 27 servings of fries, 14 baked potatoes – and… just a small slice of cake please I’m on a diet… oh and a diet coke) THAT would be out of control!

You have cracked it, and you can do this, it will just take a while for you to build your confidence and find the balance of how much to eat to maintain.

You’re doing absolutely great Bissell and one week is totally not undoing all your hard work. You can’t undo your hard work as it already done and you deserve to praise yourself for your perseverance. Now it’s the next step in the process, working out how to maintain and what works and what doesn’t. I’d say there’ll be a few ups and downs along the way, but that’s normal enough as it’s a bit more random than following the plan of 800 calories that’s already tried and tested for us. But doesn’t mean we wont work it out for ourselves and then continue to do great.

Can imagine I would start freaking a bit if feeling I was going to pile the weight straight back on so I totally get your feelings. But I think I’ll do 5 days of 800 calories and 2 days of sticking to the principles and adding more healthy calories and see what happens. Still another week to go but then will start then. Will keep you posted! Definitely no bashing yourself for slidding or giving up or failing – you are way ahead of most people – have made it on the long journey of 8 weeks and the rest is just finding out what works. A process!

Not sure if I’m correct or not, but I feel that there will always be a bounce back up when coming off the 800. I’m only doing the 5:2, but I’m thinking I want to lose slightly more that I need to in the first instance in the knowledge that I’m likely to put on a couple of lbs when I go onto the Med Style

Only one other thought – have you investigated what your Base Metabolic Rate is, to see how many calories you actually need to maintain weight?

There are a few different methods of calculating this – you need to use your height, current weight, age and activity level as information – I used this site
http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com

and was somewhat surprised to learn that I only need 1382 calories per day. Thank goodness I’m not planning on adding in doughnuts, is all I can say.

I’m not eating that much currently, but it was quite helpful to know that figure. Surely if you keep the carbs down, average around the target maintenance calories, the weight should stay level?

Captainlynne has started a thread which is called, I think, TARGET WEIGHT, so that people can post to keep themselves on track.

Hope that helps 🙂

Thanks everyone. So great advice and tips there, I shall endeavour to follow them.

Nil desperandum