Hi there
@Spl@ - Apologies for getting to this late in the game, but I'd headed off up the wooden hill early last night.
Firstly, well done for taking this particular bull by the horns, and discovering a way that has allowed you to achieve your shorter term goals, in terms of trimming up etc. It's a fantastic bonus that your family have embraced it too, with similarly pleasing results.
Moving forward, the slowing and stopping the weight loss train can be a challenge for some. Dome find it frustrating that their weight seemingly finds it's "happy place" when the person's "happy place" would be a bit more trimmed, and some of us find we could be inclined to become the disappearing man/woman.
In my own case, I didn't have an awful lot of poundage to trim off, and indeed, I never, ever set out to lose weight. My sole focus was to get my bloods into range and maintaini t, but along the way I sure as heck skinnied up. I have zero idea how much weight I actually lost as I deliberately didn't weigh myself at the outset (and was not weighed on diagnosis) for reasons which are unimportant in this context, but when my clothes started hanging on me I started to like the disappearing love handles then became a bit concerned about the bones appearing a bit too often in not always the most complimentary places.
On my journey to stabilise, I took it very steady and built a structure around my approad. I'm a data monster, so it was sort of natural for me.
The first thing I did was simply ate a bit more of everything. As I was in the Tropics at the time, and salads were a natural food choice, eating a few more lettuce leaves of tomatoes wan't going to materially change my carb intake. That didn't work.
Next, I added in more cheese, but this time I did it in almost doses. I decided what size my dose would be and that's what I added, every day, without fail. OK, that was a bit boring, but it was an easy way to control the increase and be able to review exactly what was going on.
When that didn't fully do the trick (things slowed, but didn't stop) I added nuts - again, by dose. That actually just about halted the weight loss, but reinforced the fact that my body doesn't like too many nuts!
So, anyway, by then, at least I knew how I could halt weightloss, and that then allowed my to experiment further with food combos.
It took me several weeks, probably months to really stop the weight shifting, and as a result I ended up right at the lower end of the normal scale, and that's pretty well where I have stayed.
My findings have been that once I sorted out the maintainence I just tend to sit in a range of +/- 1.5kg, varying on a daily basis, based on all the usual factors - hydration, plain old food on board (ahem) and so on.
I often post that people should do as you have done, and plan well ahead of reaching a point where not only do they not want to trim up any more, but that it isn't in their best interests to (accepting of course that BMI is a very blunt measuring tool). If one conciously halts the weight loss a little before the ideal point, that person probably knows how to go back and trim up a but later, should they choose to do so. It also sometimes takes our bodies a little while to catch up with our losses, in terms of how we look and also how others see us.
When I lose weight, it goes from my lady-bumps, backside and my upper chest, so the extend that curves aren't what I might be known for these days, but things are better as my body has redistributed some of what little fat is has left.
It's quite a complex time, Spl@, and a time to be very patient. I have always believed that for many people maintenance is harder than the initial loss, but it can be done.
I'm now just over 5 years into my journey. I skirt at the very low end of the healthy BMI range. I'm 160cm and weight 48-49kg, depending on the day, but I still manage to get through 2000-2500 calories a day. To this day, my OH often sits opposite me at the dining table and asks,............. "Where does it all go?", as I wolf my weigh through more than him.
Top tips: Plan early and be patient.