View Full Version : Maintaining Weight

10-15-2010, 11:21 AM
So here's my personal background...

In High School I was a very athletic person. I played on two sports teams, lifted weights almost daily and had a super fast metabolism. I was very muscular and really kept weight off just fine.

When I went to College a few things happened. 1) I started working out a lot less and began to live a sedentary life style. 2) I started eating like crap. 3) I had a hardcore amount of stress which also contributed to weight gain. 4) My metabolism noticeably slowed a bit in my 20s.

Since I started graduate school I decided it was way out of hand and I've been working on loosing weight for about six months. The first four or so months was getting my body used to being mobile again and starting to clean up my diet. I began walking a bit, then jogging. Only a few days a week at first, and then I started to get in the habit of every day. When I trusted myself to be diligent I started p90x. Even though the program was nothing "new" in the way of loosing weight the structure has helped me a lot. I've been following the diet to a T. I've been met with great success. I've lost about 17 pounds so far, inches, and gained a lot of muscle.

Okay welcome to present day and here's my question:

I have one month left of p90x, which I'll do and follow the diet and workouts.

When I'm done with p90x I was thinking of re-starting the program and mixing it up. Combine some p90x+ workouts, add some cardio days, ect... So when I'm done with the program I'm not worried about continuing to work out.

What my question is involving is the diet side of things. I've already hit my target weight with about 1 month to go. So I'm not interested in loosing any more weight. If it happens then that's fine but I'm not going to stress my diet hardcore like I have been in order to loose weight. My focus shifts to maintaining my weight.

But I also don't want to go back to eating like shit.

So what do people recommend for maintaining weight? What's good to consider carb wise/fat/fruit ect... I know the easy things to cut out, like limiting/removing sweets. I never liked soda and never drank it, ever, so that's not an issue. But it's more the day to day diet beyond the obvious things.

What's worked for other people? What's good to consider? Ect..

Thanks for any help!

10-15-2010, 12:04 PM
pretty much anything listed in the p90x diet guide you got :P also check the michi's ladder thing out too. :D

ive been on the the same nutrition plan. to me i feel fine. im really just saccraficing some junk foods. nothing really huge if you ask me.

10-15-2010, 12:50 PM
If all you are concerned with is your weight, ie the number the scale shows when you step on it, then the key criteria is the number of calories you consume each day.

Calories burnt vs calories consumed = weight change

The actual specifics with body composition changes, like losing fat or gaining muscle will be far more affected by what you actually choose to fill those calories with.

Like Kas said, you should already have a good idea of what is "good" to eat, going by what is included in the P90x diet. Futhermore, the nutrition sticky should have some other useful suggestions.

From there, just get a good sense of how many calories you are eating each day. Does this number of calories cause you to gain weight? Reduce it slightly. Does this cause you to lose weight? Increase it slightly. Keep fiddling around with it until you are happy with the results. This is not a quick fix, but an ongoing effort to keep in mind.

My personal suggestion would be to make sure you keep protein high enough, eat clean carbs, and make sure you have enough fats in your diet. Fats don't make you fat, too many calories makes you fat. Instead a proper nutrition of healthy fats helps make sure you make proper utilization of body fat (lypolisis) and keeps hormone productions healthy and normal.

Hope this helps a bit.

10-15-2010, 01:08 PM
So would it be safe to say that for maintaining weight it's more important to look at calories than what you're eating?

Example, primarily in p90x you could have basically as many veggies as you can eat (so long as they're not covered in cheese or butter.. I WISH) So should I be mindful more of calorie intake with regards to weight maintenance?

10-15-2010, 03:07 PM
no nutrition still needs balance. as long as you work out consistently, you can get away with cheat meals < but i wont :p >

10-15-2010, 06:49 PM
Hmm, actually you should probably try to maintain your proportions. If you stop working out, you'll start to drop muscle which will definitely drop weight since its denser, but you'll also start losing your proportions along with the muscle.

"So when I'm done with the program I'm not worried about continuing to work out. " I just sort of noticed this statement and if you stop working out, your body will stop creating muscles to replace the muscle cells that get damaged over time.

But for maintaining your figure, you don't have to work out quite as rigorously, just enough to maintain your muscles, but, to not gain or lose body fat, you just have to adjust your calorie intake. Just take a quick chest/waist/hips/thighs/calves/arms measurement every 2 weeks or so and adjust as you see necessary.

10-17-2010, 12:49 PM
generally rule of thumb for me, is i'll try to eat cleaner foods if I can, try to stay in a place where I'm not hungry or I'm not full, and having things like "EAT THIS NOT THAT" book really helps do wonders since it shows you where and what to eat in most chain restaurants on the go. As long as your eating generally well everything else will be taken care of in the gym, and if you have severe cravings on something go ahead and eat it for your sanity and your body. If you have extreme cravings it usually means you need some type of nutrient that's in that food. Otherwise if you really have to be good try taking a multi-vitamin and eating something else and it usually works for me to remove a craving "(usually when I'm too lazy to drive across town for a stupid craving)

10-20-2010, 12:15 AM
To keep weight to keep the record of your caloric intake each time and take a walk, if it is difficult to exercise regularly. Check the labels on foods provided to control the excessive intake of fat.