[Meta] the goal weight rule is doing its job and people should stop complaining
the goal weight rule is doing its job and people should stop complaining, and here is what changes in practice if it goes ahead.
Stretched from seven to ten days and then to twelve over about four months. Appetite told me where the limit was before the scale did.
Wrote down what maintenance would look like at about week 67, before I needed it. Having decided in advance made the transition boring.
Maintenance is the phase with the least published guidance and the most individual variation, which is precisely why board consensus here is worth less than usual.
I will update this if the picture changes rather than quietly leaving it up.
best — the order this archive was captured in
None of this is a taper plan. What dose holds for you is a question for somebody with your history in front of them.
I would not treat a two-kilo range as drift requiring action. That is ordinary weight variation.
The habits from the losing phase are what carry it now. That is not inspirational, it is just what happened.
Appetite returning before the scale moves follows from the mechanism: the appetite effect is the proximal one and weight is the lagging integrated outcome.
Cosigning on planning it in advance. Deciding what maintenance looks like while still losing is much easier than deciding it in a panic.
appetite returns before the scale acknowledges anything
stretching the interval is not the same as reducing the dose
plan the maintenance phase before you need it
Body weight varies by a couple of kilos over days in stable people through fluid, glycogen and gut content. A range is not a trend.
maintenance is a phase, not a finish line
the trials that looked at withdrawal are unambiguous about what follows
find the dose that holds, then stop optimising