Hello all! I have been lurking in the maintainers forum for a while now. Ever since I was approaching 130 pounds, the weight has been coming off slowly, and the inches too, and I have started to feel more like a maintainer, and so I have been here reading posts, gathering inspirtion, and reading for advice.

So here I am: I am pretty close to maintaining, so I should start thinking that way. I find myself resisting it to some degree, since I still want to lose pounds/inches and see where my goal eds up (120, or 125? Size 4, or 6?). But most everything will be the same: I'll eat the same way, and exercise the same way. Why is this concept such a mental block for me? As much as I enjoy my workouts, I think the idea of idea of exercising like this, or close to it, FOREVER is what is freaking me out. But the thing is--I love it. I love biking to work, I love the jelly-muscles I get after yoga class, I love the it-hurts-so-good 'high' that I get after HIIT on cardio or after a class at the gym. I even love waking up a little sore in the morning, because it means I know I pushed myself the day before. So why is it freaking me out? I think we start to lose weight by convincing ourselves that it's not forever, as a way to 'trick' ourselves into doing it at all, and then at some point we have to switch over to realizing that it IS forever. ...Seriously, if I went back to half-hearted only-when-I-fell-like-it exercising, and eating like I did before--well of course I would gain weight. And besides the fact that I truly do enjoy exercising, and enjoy challenging myself, there's also the fact that I really like looking the way I do now. I can try on clothes and like most of what I try on, and look good in it. I am making it a 2009 goal to really kick up the dating, since being overweight is no longer an excuse, and I really like that I can confidently put myself out there. So this is where I want to stay. Like it or not, this means I am going to keep doing this forever, and that makes me a maintainer.

So here I am, a maintainer!! Thanks for letting me letting me join you all, fellow Maintainers, and thanks for being an inspiration!

--Kyla

Welcome Kyla!
You are in the right place and you seem to have "the hang" of maintaining-- it does look very much like what you do when trying to lose weight.

Kyla! We're glad you're here.

Instead of focusing on forever, maybe just think about today, tomorrow, and next week? It sounds like you genuinely love what you're doing (and the results! ) so maybe just put the thoughts of "forever" and "always" out of your mind and have fun?

PS -- I think this is the same thing that freaks people out about getting married!

Welcome! I'm a new maintainer, so I continue to be inspired by these guys every day! It is hard to think 'forever'. I'm working on changing things around periodically so I don't look at forever, I look at 'for the next six months I'll focus on xxx, then yyy" etc. Well, exercise wise at least. I'm a calorie counter and weigher forever I'm afraid!

I was much less freaked out by the thought of getting married than I have been about logging my calories and having to get up an hour and a half early to exercise every day!

Thanks for the welcome! Yes, I think it's important not shift perspective so I don't look at like it's "forever". So I've thought about some good goals for the 2009 goal thread, and I'm going to focus on those. I don't want to lose momentum not that I'm close to where I want to be, um, forever.

So I'm attaching some photos showing my progress. The first is when I was on vacation last February--I was at my highest weight in two years. I was letting the winter blues get in the way of exercise, and I was on vacation and eating everything in sight. I came back and got motivated by the high number on the scale! The second photo is at a friend's wedding in June. I had lost 10 pounds or so at this point, and was pretty pleased with myself. And having a pretty dress doesn't hurt. The third is while I was on vacation with my mom in October. There was about 10 pounds lost between the second photo and the third. I have lost a couple pounds since then, and over Christmas my mom said, "You've lost some more than a 'couple pounds' since October." No, but I have toned up some since then.

Anyway, this is where I am. Hopefully, now that I've finally posted over here in Maintainers, maybe I'll post more than lurk. Thanks for the support!

For me instead of thinking "Oh God, I have to do this forever" I think "Yay - I get to be slim forever!"

Make it a positive instead of a negative.

I'm actually finding it surprisingly easy - I even lost weight over Christmas!

Hey Robsia, that is a great way to look at it. We get to be slim forever. Hurray!