Hi all,

I am soo close to my goal weight, I can feel it. And yet I am scared. I am scared of if I will be able to keep it off this time, scared of whether or not I will look how I want to look at goal. I am also scared of possibly being disappointed at reaching goal.

I dont know why I am feeling this way! Did any one of you maintainers go through this? How did you deal with it?

I know that as long as I continue to do everything I did why losing weight, the weight will stay off. I'll never let myself go more than 2 pounds over goal again. Exercise is the main thing to help you keep the weight off. You need a positive attitude. If you think you might not be able to, you are already telling yourself you are giving yourself permission to fail.

I'm nervous too...although I have 30 lbs to go till I reach my goal weight. I know that the easy part is losing it and the hardest part is keeping it off. Do you have any maintenance classes that you can plug into near you? A healthy cooking class or something that will help to keep you on track? I understand your fear....just keep doing what you have been doing while losing. Its a lifestyle change right?

Take your time and think about what you want with maintanence. My final range for weight has shifted over the past 6 months and that is really okay. I kept eating healthy, in a very satisfied manner, with occasional splurge meals, and I continued to lose. I posted this process in goal. Today is a year of CC of me.

I weigh daily (when in town) and record every bite. I have gotten rid of MY trigger foods so no place to go off the tracks. Fat will not just hop back on me. It won't hop back on to you either if you stay off the isle of denial.

I'm not a maintainer, but I wanted to comment on this thread.

Your fear is exactly like the one I have already of either a) not being able to stay small once I get there, and/or b) not actually being able to get there because the loss just randomly quits one day.

I realize that I'm kind of thinking of weight loss the way a lot of commercials and people view it: like magic. It comes and goes and you just gotta grab it when you can.

That's not true. I know it isn't true. Unless I have a medical condition that prevents it, there are things I can do to control how much I weigh. Now I just have to convince my subconsious of that.

I'm afraid too for the day when I have to keep it off forever. That's going to be the really hard part, but at the same time I can hardly wait to have that problem, because that means I made it and can really begin.

Just keep doing what you know works and will keep you healthy. It's normal to be afraid, now it's just working through it. I'll tell you what I tell myself all the time: Just remember that this is who you are now, and that's not going to change because you won't let it.

Maintaining is very hard for me. I've never done it before now and was a professional yo-yo dieter in my past life. I guess you can say that I'm still a yo-yo dieter. I think it's Jay that refers to my kind of maintaince as "Yo-yo dieting on a very short string". That pretty much sums it up. I don't really like the way I have been doing it. I would love to eat 1800-1900 calories every single day until I require less because of old age (making my activity level less)...then eat less and so on til death do food and I part. BUT, For some reason I haven't found myself disciplined enough to do that yet. I "diet" until I'm a few pounds below goal, and splurge my way back to 140. Repeat. It's worked for 16 months now, but I still have the fear that someday I might say WTF and give up. I sure as heck don't want that to ever happen, but unfortunately history does seem to repeat itself sometimes. I love being fit, but being fit hasn't changed who I am on the inside.

Maintenance is hard work *for me*. Sometimes I feel like a failure because other maintainers here seem to never have these problems. They just do it and it comes naturally. I still want junk, I can still eat a whole lot in one sitting, (My stomach didn't "shrink" like some claim theirs have.) I'm still a fat girl at heart...just in a thin body. Which makes it worth the effort!

Bottom line is, I'm still obsessed with food. I still want to eat everything and never gain weight. I know I can't or I will gain weight, and I don't ever want to live in the pain and misery of being super morbidly obese again. I don't want to live in the pain and misery of going up even one dress size...lol I've spent too much money on clothes in the last year!

Remember it is ok to be scared, it is healthy.

When you touch fire and it burns you, then you become scared of touching fire. Important little safety mechanism built into our brains

Just let the fear motivate you, instead of letting it transition into negative self-talk that can sabotage you.

Congratulations on your progress! Remember that maint isnt when the diet is over, its just when the weight is lost. Commit to your health for life and you will get thru all obstacles.

Lori, where you and I separated at birth? I too am obsessed with food! And I screw up, with food, on a pretty regular basis. The difference is that my screw-ups are not as big and farther apart than before. Just last night, I was jonsing for dark chocolate, which I knew DS15 had in his pocket from Youth Group and I stole 2 minis from him--well he willingly gave them to me. I rarely miss a workout and I usually hop right back on the wagon afterwards. I refuse to give up.

I think I'm *obsessed* with food as well. But I have turned it around. Well, yeah, obviously. I used my love of food to my advantage. That's why I'm always shopping, chopping, dicing, cooking, planning, preparing, eating...

For me, maintenance has been harder for one reason and one reason alone. I let the *other* stuff back in as my splurges. And that has made it harder.

I did find it easier when I was losing and completely banned *that* stuff. There was nothing to contemplate. I wasn't doing it. There was no gray. It was all black and white.

LoriBell, this is basically what I do. I keep my calories exactly the same as when I was losing. Then I have my splurge day, and yes it's a big one and sometimes it's been more than a day. I've had a couple of incidents over the years where it's been a week and had a 10 day stretch one time.

And than (duh) my weight goes upppp and I take it down and than I have a splurge day and it goes upppp and I take it back down. Repeat. I really need to re-think how I handle my splurges, or do I??? I'm not so certain.

Anyway, to the OP, fear is a good thing. It'll keep you on your toes, keep you aware and keep you honest.

But of course you will be able to keep it off, provided you keep UP the good habits. And these habits will just keep getting more and more ingrained in you.

Keep your desire to be thin, fit and trim STRONG. Real strong. Keep it a priority. Become passionate about living this way. And then to not maintain your loss will be - ludicrous.

Oh, you ladies are so wonderful. Thanks for all the postive vibrations. This forum is really a blessing.

Hello All,

Here's another scaredy cat who's obsessed with food. I've really enjoyed reading through all your comments, and can so relate to many of them. Since my history is also one of yo-yo dieting, & I'm fairly new with maintaining (this time), I'm still doing everything I did to lose the weight.

I found a WOE that I think I can live with, & my current plan is to continue with counting calories, keeping a food diary & utilizing The Insulin Resistance Diet linking method, while slowly increasing calories at around 100 daily for a week at a time until I feel comfortably like I am in a 'maintaining zone'. I will probably have to continue this vigilant approach forever, since I drift so easily into eating too much & then gaining.

Good luck to us all.

I also go to the Lori Bell School of Maintaining. I have a "red line" that I like to stay below, but vacation eating is an issue, and sometimes I go over that red line. But once I'm back from vacation, I'm really on plan all the time with both eating and exercise. I've managed to maintain my weight loss for five years now so it seems to work for me. Like Robin says, the key, for me, is that desire to stay fit and healthy and looking good--it keeps me motivated to make sure I never regain that 100 lbs. A healthy dose of fear is good.

These women have put it all so wonderfully!! I want you to know that you are not alone & that the fear is normal. I'm 4+ months into maintenance, and PETRIFIED of regaining. I know I do not have it in me to pull myself up by my own bootstraps one more time, and I'm always on the lookout for the event in my life that throws my healthy plan out the door and starts the all-too-familiar cycle of regaining.

BUT, the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it all sounds. Why would I have worked so darn hard if I didn't want this to be a permanent lifestyle change? And truthfully, if time & stress are the issue (and they typically are), isn't it true that by regaining, I'll need MORE time to devote to losing weight and it will increase my stress to see my clothes not fitting and my health declining.

I think we all have to decide on our life-long game plan for proactively managing our weight. Maintenance is harder than losing for me thus far - there is far less gratification in seeing the number stay the same than in watching it go down!

My plan for life includes: daily weigh-ins (I'm a person who loves the aisle of denial as someone else mentioned), calorie counting & journalling (every single bite), regular exercise (4-6x/week), keeping trigger foods out of my house, having a top redline number that is close to my goal weight (actually, for me, it IS my goal weight), and focusing on whole foods & healthy choices. It sounds like a lot, but really, it is about doing something purposefully vs. hoping to just magically maintain (which won't happen).

This forum has been a lifesaver for me. I may not participate all that often, but I am always reading about the successful women here who have lost & maintained. They are my inspiration & I learn so much from them.

You can do it.

I think the best way to approach it is that you KNOW you may gain in the future but if you do, you know you can get back to maintenance. That it isn't some illusive goal that can only be reached once.

My example, I had a baby. I can't possibly stay 125lbs while 9 months pregnant. When I hit 165lbs, I was 40lbs above maintenance!!! Very scary after 6 years. I'm still struggling with the last 10 but I'm not "scared" of it - I know I can do it.

We need to accept that things in life may affect maintenance (pregnancy, medications), just keep in mind that it can be done again and don't freak out if you have to reach maintenance more than once. Life does throw curveballs and it has nothing to do with lacking discipline to stay in maintenance.