Last week I went to Martha's Vineyard with my DIL and two grandkids-- we left Tuesday and came back on Thursday-- and I registered a 4 pound gain! Yeah, yeah, we all know it's not fat, but it's WEIGHT and even water weight makes your clothes not fit right and your face puffy--at least it does on me! A week later, I finally lost it plus one more pound.
I just keep plugging on the diet--I'm highly sodium sensitive and gain and lose water weight constantly. I eat mostly Paleo with a bit of whole grains, fruit and Greek yogurt plus things like peanut butter. I'm a very boring eater, most of the time.
Exercise, I think, is really helping. I run --at my age, amazing, since I just started running in May, with C25K (I'm almost 63) around 4 miles 4 times a week. One day I do strength training with a personal trainer. Yes, it costs big bucks, but I'd kill myself trying to use machines at the gym. And I don't need more cardio--I need someone to tell me how to do strength training. So I pony up.
I lose about 3 pounds per month --4 on a good month-- on 1200 calories or less per day. This was one of the big revelations to me -- I can't eat very many calories per day. The combination of being older and short(5-1) really limits me. Forget about "eating back my exercise calories" -- I don't lose a thing when I do. Plus not I'm down to 136-- a loss of 48 pounds in a little over a year-- so I can't eat as much as when I started.
I don't care how long it takes any more--I just wish I'd done this a decade ago. One of my best friends who I've known forever said yesterday, "We DID lose it 10 years ago-- and 5 and 15 and 20 years ago." But this time I mean to make it stick.
Hang in there-- you can enjoy being thin for a lot longer than I can!