It's really hard to articulate - maintaining weight loss is easy in a way. I have good habits, I found healthy food I like, I'm really good at starting the day well with a good breakfast and bringing snacks to work and using the salad bar. I don't mind going to the store, I don't mind cooking. In my normal, planned, calm day-to-day, weight maintenance is easy.
I also really really LIKE eating healthy and doing good things for my body. I do a ton of reading, I'm interested in nutrition. I really don't want to eat the typical American diet anymore, it don't want a ton of preservatives, fake stuff and transfat. I can't believe I love non fat greek yogurt and fresh blackberries as much as I used to love scones. I can't believe how much I like natural peanut butter on a Kashi waffle. How much I love baked sweet potatoes, roasted cherry tomatoes, grilled salmon. The foods I eat feel very normal to me now, fast food seems weird.
I love the way eating whole foods makes me feel - I feel 100% physically better than I did when I was heavy (mentally too). The physical change is huge motivation to make this my new normal - I used to fall asleep everyday in my office after lunch, now I nearly zing with energy every day.
In another way, weight maintenance is really hard. Food is so much in the American culture, we are bombarded with ads, restaurants serve enormous portions with way too much butter, the aisles in the grocery store are arranged for maximum temptation. Lives are busy, convenience foods are....convenient. The social aspect is the toughest part - how do you turn down a sweet coworker who makes a lemon start "because I know how you love them?" How do I go to a catered 3 day work conference and eat just boring iceberg lettuce salads with limp pale pink tomatoes for lunch because the soup choice is cream and all the prepared sandwiches have cheese and mayo? How do I avoid the big cookies and brownies brought out every day of the conference at 3? How do I order at a restaurant? How do I turn down restaurants which I know have no healthy options? How do I decide if it's okay to have a glass of wine? How do I decide how many nights out a week is too many? (just a few of the hundreds of daily decisions).
While I was losing weight, it was actually easier in a way because everything was so black and white - I didn't eat this this and this and it was okay. Now that I'm maintaining, I have to balance some off plan items because I definitely don't want to live my entire life without chocolate molten lava cake. When I'm doing my own thing, it definitely feels perfectly normal, it only feels "tough" really when I'm interacting with other people (work, social, etc).
One of the biggest, most positives things I did with weight loss was lose the "black/white." Before, eating anything off plan was a sign of total failure, completely demoralizing. Now, I realize that life requires flexibility and forgiveness. I will be tempted, sometimes I will eat offplan, that's okay - as long as I get right back on track the next eating opportunity.
I used to beat myself up, hate myself, think I was a no will power loser, now I trust myself a little more. One off plan work meeting where I ate too much cheese/crackers is not what made me fat. My goal is to make 90% of my choices good, healthy choices and not overly sweat the other 10%. It has worked very well, my weight has stayed between 127-131 for almost 3 years with this method.
I did want to say, when I was heavy, I spent WAY MORE time obsessing and fantasizing about being thin than I do now that I'm thin obsessing about staying that way. At least my "stay thin" thoughts are mostly productive - what healthy thing will I make for dinner, do I need to go to the grocery store for berries for snacks? My "heavy thoughts" were pretty useless - "I wish I were thin, I wish I were thin, I wish I were thin."
Last edited by Glory87; 10-02-2007 at 10:57 AM.
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