u/Deep_flu

When you're losing weight, your goal is simple: stay in a calorie deficit. After doing that for over two years, it became my normal.

Now that I'm maintaining, I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to switch my mindset. Some days I'm genuinely not hungry enough to hit my maintenance calories, and I have to remind myself that undereating isn't helping me anymore.

It's strange because for years, finishing under my calorie target felt like success. Now, if I consistently finish under, I'll slowly lose more weight when that's no longer my goal.

I always imagined maintenance would feel like, "Great, I can finally eat more!" Instead, I'm finding it takes as much intention as dieting did, just in the opposite direction.

Has anyone else struggled with that mental shift?