Excellent. Excellent. Excellent post! I couldn’t agree more with every word, but one paragraph simply jumped off the page at me. This one:
“But I’ve come to realize, over the years, that weight loss and weight loss maintenance are all about choices. And all choices have price tags. You can boil it down to a simple question: are you willing to pay the price? So you want to lose 100 pounds … are you willing to invest the time in the gym and effort in meal planning and calorie counting that it would take? Are you willing to say NO over and over again? And do it for the rest of your life? On the other hand, let’s say you’re craving a hot fudge sundae … are you willing to pay that price, whether it’s the scale going up or two hours of cardio?”
Like Meg, I’ve decided that the maintenance life boils down to choices. Over and over again – sometimes it feels like several times an hour -- I must decide whether I’m going to eat the right thing (or not at all) or find – no, make -- an opportunity to squeeze in some exercise. Fortunately, there’s an immediate payoff: I feel great when I’m living well. I feel at ease in my skin; I sleep well; I don’t have that overstuffed feeling, which leads to real mental grief; and as a result of all that, I suffer fewer pangs of stress. And that alone is priceless.
Thanks for sharing Meg. As usual, you gave me a lot of great grist for the mental mill.
That was so inspiring!!!! I'd known you injured yourself this past year, but I don't think I knew the extent of the consequences of not weight lifting!
So many of your words rang so true! And I'm pleased to have someone like you to light a candle and show me a way... maybe not my way completely, but a way...
I'm playing around with my own mantra of sorts, and will hopefully get it in my sig soon... The key to my weight loss and healthy living (so far) is: Commitment to conscious control, with the understanding that choices have consequences.
Congratulations Meg! You are a wonderful inspiration to me and sometimes your posts are the only things that keep me going! You don't know me, but I am always around reading various posts, and yours are a huge inspiration when I need it the most! I admire and respect you so much, just like so many others. I am usually a lurker, but I just had to tell you how much your presence here means to me. Thank you so much and congratulations again!
Thank you, Meg. Thank you for the kick in the butt and for putting such a journey and experience into words that help the people around you in a really big way.
Congrats on your maintenance! I am so glad you and the other maintainers post threads like this. It's really valuable insight for someone working on learning to maintain! I'm coming up on my six month anniversary ( I can't believe it's been that long already!) and your wisdom is a gift!
You are my HERO!!!
Thank you for being such an inspirational role model.
YOU are doing just GREAT.
Happy Anniversary, and i think you are giving yourself the greatest gift off all each end every year... of living YOUR life YOUR way.