Keeping muscle when you’re eating less
Nobody at the pharmacy counter mentioned muscle. What I asked my prescriber, the dumbbells by the sofa, and why protein goes first on the plate, with no numbers attached.
The Quiet Part
After goal weight
Maintenance routines, plateaus, the fear of regain, and long-term conversations with your care team.
What I track now (and what I stopped tracking)
The spreadsheet era is over. What I pay attention to in maintenance: energy, strength, the reference jeans, five minutes on Sunday. And why I still weigh in, just less.
The long-term conversation with my care team
Nobody told me what happens after it works. The seven questions I brought to my prescriber, how the talk went, and why I won't tell you what to decide.
Nobody claps for maintenance
The attention stops when the visible change stops. On the loneliness of month fourteen, finding two people who get it, and marking progress nobody else can see.
The plateau that lasted eleven weeks
A long stall, the theories I collected, what my prescriber actually said, and what finally moved things, which was mostly time. Stalls are not verdicts.
The fear of regain, and what I do with it
The thought that it could all come back is reasonable. Here's how I keep it from driving: a short list I actually watch, one conversation with my prescriber, and four minutes.
Maintenance has no finish line, and that’s the problem
Weight loss has structure, urgency and a scoreboard. Maintenance has none. The scaffolding I built instead: a Sunday check-in, a floor, and a few signals that aren't the scale.
Week six is where people quietly quit
The plateau, the side effects that changed shape, the euphoria that faded. What I did that week, what I asked my prescriber, and why week six is the real start.
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