Hey everyone,

I hope the holidays were fabulous and the new you starting today is well on its way to happening.  I lost 137 pounds maybe three years ago total now.  I dropped about thirty more after I started my maintainence.  I am free and traveling a lot now of days between chemotherapies.  So when traveling the biggest problem someone can have is maintaining their weight.  Whether you are on NS or off, the baseline priniciples you are learning here still are important to keeping your weight stable.  I have a big rule I follow.  I will never gain or lose five pounds again.  With that rule and the principles I apply from my weight loss here, I have been successful in maintaining.  So what do you do that is so important that will be important to you forever.

1.  I can't stress this enough JOURNAL your food.  When you start integrating your diet to go to maintainence, you may use an outside website to do this but always forever do it.  I keep a loose leaf small notepad in my purse and if I eat it I write it down.  It keeps me honest. 

2.  I know my calorie limit and I don't care if it is a holiday or my birthday or whatever I stay in it.  You will be surprised what you can eat and maintain.  I can eat over 2,000 calories a day now and not gain an ounce.  But I never go over the max amount.

3.  Eat low glycemic, high fiber, low fat foods.  Make sure foods are whole and chose your food wisely for the nutrients that you need for energy.  Eat to live and not live to eat. 

4.  Six meals a day are better than one.  Always be ready to keep a steady blood sugar level at all times.

5.  If I eat any sugar based food like fruit, it is always usually accompanied by some kind of protein, yogurt or cheese etc....  No sugar spikes.

6.  Down the water forever.  I choose 74 oz.  everyone is different.

7.  Exercise one hour a day six days a week.

8.  Make sure to sleep eight hours.

9.  One glass of alchohol is enough in any evening.

10.  Enjoy the company you eat with, eat slowly and weigh yourself at least weekly.  Don't panic if you see the scale up a few pounds if you followed your rules.  It will go back down.

Anyway,  Hope some of this helps someone.  cheri