I’m embarrassed to see the one year gap between my last post and now. I’m making a concerted effort to be more diligent going forward.
My last post was occasioned by the closing of the bricks and mortar Jenny Craig centers, including the one I had visited for 17 years. I have to say that the closure rattled my confidence. Could I maintain my 80 lb. weight loss by myself? I’m happy to report that the answer is “yes.” My current weight (132 lbs) is about 2 lbs above my all time low, but I think that’s okay. I like the body comp numbers I’m getting (27% fat, 49% lean mass), and I seem to have “settled” at this level. In psychology, we don’t talk about weight set points so much anymore. “Settling” points seems more accurate.
I get at least two or three emails a day from the newly reconstituted Jenny Craig, which I believe is being run by Nutrisystem. If my weight began to go up, I was going to start ordering food from them, but I haven’t had to do that.
Several things have contributed to the success of the “on my own” maintenance. First, I get on the scale every day. The past 17 years showed me that when I skip this step for more than a day or two, my weight goes up. If the number is up, I make adjustments. Even over the holidays, when I went up three pounds, it didn’t take very long to fix. Losing a handful of pounds that haven’t been around very long is usually easy. Looking at larger gains can be intimidating. My other strategy is to take a hard, honest look at the data from my Apple Watch. I simply don’t use that many calories, about 1700, despite walking my dog twice a day, weekly hiking, and doing gym workouts twice a week (hoping to find time to do more). I started using ChatGPT to suggest 1700 calorie meal plans, and the results have been fun to explore.
A happy surprise is that my 17 years of maintenance seems to have reset the system. It’s as if I have my own built-in Ozempic–I don’t want to overeat because it feels terrible when I do. I don’t recall having that problem when I was heavy. I’ll always be grateful to Jenny Craig, though, for teaching me how to eat like a thinner person.
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