[brudev07]

Hi all,

Firstly, thank you so much for reading this. I have a quick question, and I'd appreciate any advice anyone has. About a year ago I met my original goal of losing 53 pounds. Since then I've lost another 10 pounds or so. But then I decided that I wanted to weigh 125 (I'm 5'5''). And now, how much I've lost doesn't matter. All that matters is that I can't lose those last 10 pounds. I don't know why those pounds won't go away (I still follow the same plan that I started on 65 pounds ago) but that isn't what my question is. I know that my 'bad attitude' about my weight loss isn't helping anything, maybe not even helping me lose more weight. Does anyone have any advice for how I can worry less about the weight I want to lose and concentrate more on congratulating myself for the weight I have lost?

Thank you again.

[junebug41]

Hmmm... I can relate. I seem to kiss the last 10 goodbye only to say hello to them again months later. I think I will always fluctuate a few pounds and I admit, it's easy to get completely hung up on the number (hey, it was easy to do when I was losing every single week, working my way down!).

Now it's post-holidays and I do need to lose a few, but I've learned to accept my body at certain points. If I'm sticking to my plan (reasonably) and working out consistently and fitting into my 6's, than 140 is JUST FINE. I noticed a turning point when I took up running a couple of summers ago. I was NEVER a runner and also a smoker, so I was satisfied in gauging my success with my level of fitness- and it worked! When I lived in Tennessee over the summer, I ran every single day, sometimes TWICE a day even though I was eating all kinds of good foods and was at a stable 142. I also LOST a pants size while I was there. I learned a very valuable lesson.

I think it just boils down to reveling in the things I couldn't do before and testing and working my body in ways I never imagined (and being in a size 6 rocks at 130 AND 140. It makes no difference). Mandalinn82 has some good things to say about not always trusting the most *convenient* method (the scale) and looking at things like inches lost, years at maintenance, fitness level, body fat... there are just SO MANY ways to gauge success!

P.S. CONGRATUALTIONS on how far you've come!

[JayEll]

Hey!

Right now you have a normal Body-Mass Index. And if you weighed 125, you would also have a normal BMI. So that does make it harder to lose those ten pounds.

You would need to increase your activity level beyond what you are used to doing now, and you'd have to stay pretty strictly on whatever food plan you follow. Plus, it would take awhile.

I'm wondering why it is you want to go from 135 to 125? If you were never able to lose even 1 more pound, would that make you miserable? Why? I'm not saying it should or shouldn't, just that it might be useful for you to think about it. It could be you are putting yourself in a position where you'll always be unhappy, when you don't need to do that.

I think that sometimes people think that losing weight is going to solve more problems than it actually does. They think "Now my life will work," or they think they will look like a younger person, or like someone who has never been overweight. Then when they reach goal, they feel disappointed because there are still issues in life, or because they don't look like they expected. So, they set another goal. But there's no reason why being even smaller will make things any better... do you see what I mean?

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it--you would still be a normal weight, not too thin--but just suggesting that you might want to be really clear about expectations.

Good luck!
Jay

[junebug41]

Originally Posted by JayEll

It could be you are putting yourself in a position where you'll always be unhappy, when you don't need to do that.

Jay

That is definitely something I have had to face throughout this journey. We set this magic number and put a tremendous amount of stock into it, when the numbers our body come up with can often be very different than what our minds have set (and my body tends to know more about these things ). I gained a much greater satisfaction, for instance, when I found out that I had 17% body fat. At that moment, I didn't give a crap what I weighed.