A Wendalyn update, I have 4 years of MAINTENANCE experience under my belt now & only 36 more YEARS of maintenance YET to go!
Yup, that's right, I figure once I reach 80 years old, I'm gonna eat whatever the **** I wanna eat & I'm hoping I still have my chompers (teeth) then!
ha ha ha Anybody else with me on that one?
For me another year of maintenance, came another reccuring sports injury also, which SUCKS!
So once again I have to change things up on my exercise front, since having a tennis elbow injury puts a kabosh on my weightlifting & also my 100 pushups, not to mention no more playing competitive volleyball or fastpitch anytime soon!
Grr, Grr, Grr .... this particular injuries BITES! This sucker is taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R to heal. After this round of cortisone shot wears off & if I'm still in PAIN, surgery will be next for me. I hope it's NOT time for me to hang up the ole sports bra playing athletics anytime soon, however, I CANNOT continue playing with injury after injury anymore either....
I'm still holding my own & I'm still sporting all of my jeans & short shorts, so MY way is working on the food & exercise front 4 years later! I just had a weigh in & blood pressure check when I got my cortisone shot.
Weight 147, with jacket, jeans, shoes & breakfast in my tank!
Blood pressure 100/60
Dr. told me I have blood pressure of an athlete & I look the part too!
...Not too shabby for 44, eh? It was nice to hear, I left with an extra bounce to my step.
Wowsers, I have read umpteen posts about binge eating as of late, so I thought I would share this. My first 2 years of maintenance I veered off the tracks numerous times to wineville & chocolateville, but I always got myself back on track eventually. But why did I veer off time and time again? Well, it took me a few years to finally figure it out. For me- it boiled down to I was being too fricken strict with myself. Yup, true story.
When I didn't allow myself sweet treats here and there, it backfired on me time and time again because I went HOG WILD on sweets. It was a vicious cycle and lemme tell ya it SUCKED! Infact Einstein said it best, INSANITY- doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Well duh ... something had to change.
My binges were always cycle related, yanno HORMONES from ****!
My binges were always pre-menstrual binges & another binge during ovulation too. I had severe cravings for sweets (doesn't help that I have PMS-C also) & by being too strict with myself eating squeaky clean, hence came the veer offs to get my wine & dark chocolate fix (hellloooo binge bender)! By my 3rd & 4th year of maintenance I figured out I need to change things up, so I INCORPORATED my wine and chocolate & anything else I wanted (in MODERATE size portions, key word M-O-D-E-R-A-T-E) daily/weekly which keeps me on the train tracks with no need to veer off to wineville or chocolateville any longer & in doing so, it tames my inner PMS-C beast!
So yeah, fricken finally, I figured out what works for ME! This is my new "SWEET SPOT" in maintenance & lemme tell ya, just how SA-W-E-E-T the past few years have been!
Of course the majority of my eats are healthy foods with the EXTRA'S thrown into the mix for SANITY SAKES! My days are way more BALANCED now since I include the EXTRA stuff that keeps me on an even keel month after month & it makes it far EASIER to continue cruising down the train track now that I changed things up & included the so called FORBIDDEN FOODS!
For me, the LESS I focus on my food, the EASIER it is for ME to maintain. Basically I eat when I am hungry and workout daily, the simplicity of doing these 2 things is enough for me & my maintenance.
Most maintainers would probably cringe
knowing that I am NOT a food journaler, nor am I a daily/ weekly weigher, or a strict calorie counter either, yup I'm a REBEL, I won't let food have that much control over me. I weigh in once a month if I remember & prefer to go by jeans-o-meter instead, my calorie counts are a rough guestimate at best & this works for ME! I don't let food and exercise become an obsession as I honestly don't have time for them to be. I'm far too busy, living my LIFE & busting @ss working. I'm a dbl entrepreneur and running my 2 businesses is more of a priority to me, so I think of FOOD as just FOOD and EXERCISE as just EXERCISE & they are both something I do daily to maintain my weight. When I fuel myself & get my exercise on those 2 things are good enough for ME & make my maintenance way less mental!
Maintenance is NOT a one size fits ALL world, what WORKS for ME would NOT work for others, you have to figure out what works for you and as the Nike slogan states, Just Do It!
Of course I am AWARE that weight gain can happen at anytime, none of us are EXEMPT. Even though I did not have a huge amount of weight to lose in the first place & being I actually have never been OVERWEIGHT let alone OBESE, I'm pretty much a maintainer minority round here, so I mainly lurk, being I feel I am not in the BIG LOSS LEAGUE.
Anyways, I'm pushing onto year # 5 & I'm hoping for NO MORE INJURIES this year!
~ Wendalyn
My 4 years of Maintenance
I feel you on the sports injury, I'm stuck with two of them right now myself and it's really cramping my style. I hope it resolves soon! And I highly recommend soft tissue massage for tennis elbow. Put some lotion on your arm, then take a pen or something else that is smooth and straight and rub it up and down (up = toward your shoulder, down = toward your hand, the pen should be aimed left to right) over the irritated area. Don't push too hard. It will usually feel a little crunchy and turn bright red, but if you keep doing it the crunchiness and redness go down.
Congratulations! I like your style! 
