Reflections

My weight was already above goal before we left for Hawaii. So you can imagine after vacation the weight gain and the plane ride home was quite uncomfortable. I had lots of hours sitting on a plane to reflect on myself, my weight loss journey, and now my maintenance journey.

It will be five years in March that I reached my goal weight of 175 pounds. While I am currently not as close to that weight as I have been in the past, my weight loss and maintenance have still been successful. Living in a smaller body for the last five years has allowed me to become attached to things I didn't know were so great. I had missed being able to cross my legs comfortably. I liked that I knew my summer clothes would fit each year. I didn't mind sitting in the middle seat on the plane.

Suddenly that last one didn't feel quite as good as it once did. It was like I could feel all my extra weight and I was totally uncomfortable sitting in the middle seat this time around. One positive though, I am more aware of weight gain post-WW then my pre-WW years.

Having time to reflect on this made me realize that while I can try and rack my brain about what has changed over the last few months, in all honesty it is ME who has changed. I look at maintenance as phases. In each phase of your life there might be some differences that cause you to change the way you approach your maintenance journey. Whether these choices are helpful or hurtful they can and will impact the journey you are on.

I used to be so obsessive about weight loss, calories, exercise, etc. Even Kenyon has mentioned that I'm not as obsessive as I once was. When I brought this up in my meeting a few weeks ago my leader pointed out that I had to be that way in order to lose the large amount of weight I needed to. Through my first year of maintenance I was still a bit obsessive as I was hoping to lose more weight. I even got below goal 10 pounds and lived at that phase for about half the year. Then a new phase began.

I held my own for a few years until my back problems began to surface. I always knew I would keep my weight off barring no major complications. An injury can be tough to overcome and I didn't do the best I could have. Yes I was in pain and upset I couldn't exercise but I didn't need to eat those emotions. Obviously if I could go back and re-do that phase in my life I would make different choices. Unfortunately I can't so there is no point in dwelling on it.

I have developed a bit of a lax approach to maintenance and that clearly isn't working for me either. While I don't want to be obsessive again I also need to not be so lax. I have been working really hard on controlling my food these past two weeks and it is reflecting on the scale. I also feel really good about my food choices and weighing the options of “is it worth it” before I eat it. I've also been doing a lot of pre-tracking and looking up PPVs ahead of time with a game plan before eating out.

I'll share with you my recent minor freak out.  To be continued....