How much energy and time do you think it takes to successfully maintain a LC weight loss?

I've been musing about this lately. Since getting back on track in November, I've been spending a good 30 hours a week on line, thinking about LC, reading, etc. As I read tales of successful maintainers, they also seem to continue to stay committed to the LC community, focus on their food a lot, preach the LC WOE out there in the real world, even change careers so that their daily life is all about LCing. They create websites, they write on-line articles, they open LC businesses....

I realize that anyone who hit goal, left the board, and is successfully maintaining won't be here to answer this questions but what do you present maintainers think?

How much time do you spend focused on this WOL? How much time do you think you would need as a minimum to maintain your loss? Do you know of anyone who has maintained LC weight loss for over 5 years without staying involved in the LC world? Can LCing become truly automatic without putting any hours at all into it?

Thanks in advance for answering.

If there are addiction issues and you're in recovery, I don't think you ever or can ever stop thinking about it.

Does it ever get easier? Probably not, but I think it becomes more comfortable as you learn to think in new ways. There is always some interesting tid-bit, squirreled away in some part of your head.

LC is now automatic for me, but recovery practices are not. I have to make an effort to work with them every day.

Karen

thanks, Karen. actually I find the addiction & body image work kinda fun in a sometimes tender/owie way but sometimes energizing way. And you're right, the food issues become more and more automatic--like shopping the perimeter of stores, walking by the tons-o-baddies table at work without even considering stopping there, ordering steak and salad neither the fries nor bread thank you. I think I'm trying to work out a fuzzy view of my own future...what's the perfect balance of attention and just letting it be? The closer I get to my goal, the less I think about loss and more about "lifestyle," the curiouser I become about what that lifestyle is. Possibly just another control issue raising its insistent little head, but I thought I'd take a peek into the maintainers' lives and see what they did. Never hurts to model oneself upon the pros!

I couldnt be specific about the amount of time I spend thinking and reading about low-carbing but in my case I know it is actually far more now than it was when I was losing weight. In the 1st place I spend I would say 15 hrs a week in this forum alone. I research things on the net and I take books out of the library all the time. For me its because I want to become really well informed about low-carbing and nutrition in general because I hope to make a career out of my knowledge. I have already gotten into heated debates with health professionals who dont agree with my WOL. And to me knowledge is "power"

I think when you've done it a long time as I have, it becomes a way of life - if you allow it to that is..lol. I pretty much don't think about it anymore and know the carb content of the things I eat most frequently. It seemed daunting at first, but it gets easier and you start to know what you should and shouldn't eat. I suppose though, as dieters, we fixate on it no matter how much time goes, more than those who don't have to diet fixate on their food!

Hi raz -

What I'm finding is that I have to continue to be vigilant...persistently consistent about the way I eat.

Certainly the meal planning is easier, and the uncertainty about what's okay and what isn't is gone. This makes it much smoother and more natural.

I still spend a LOT of time on this WOE and my workouts. I think its because I still need to establish goals and meet them. Its about more than the numbers onthe scale now.

Lisa