Five weeks ago I was so excited about my progress and posted in the mini-goal thread. It was the first time I celebrated what I had accomplished since I started losing weight.

Since that time my efforts have stalled through my own actions. For the past month I have been much less disciplined and eating things I normally wouldn't. For the past two weeks I haven't been tracking my calorie intake. I haven't been playing DDR (dance, dance, revolution) for a couple of weeks. I used to check these forums every day and hardly post or read here any more.

I'm not in weight loss mode but maintenance mode. I've gone from 208 to 212 back down to 210. I'm eating much better than I did when I was 255 and gaining weight, but I'm not creating a caloric deficit through diet and exercise.

My motivation is slipping. Just the other day I was seriously considering maintaining at my present size. I'm so much happier with my size and body now. But when I am honest with myself it isn't where I want to be. I really want to be at most a healthy, active size 12/14.

I don't quite understand this but my motivation started slipping right after I celebrated my successes. I really hate the fact that when I stopped to congratulate myself part of me decided that meant I was done. Before then it was push, push, push to my final goal.

I know some or a lot of you have had these problems. How did you deal with it?

I probably shouldn't chime in here, because, well frankly, I didn't experience this. When I made the decision to get healthy - that was it. I wanted the normal WEIGHT. I wanted it ALL. Certainly I felt waaaaay better long before *goal*, but I didn't want better - I wanted BEST.

I was done settling for second best, not when first was well within my reach. I settled for decades for an inferior quality of life. It was time for me to find out what it was like to be my OPTIMAL. I didn't start this little journey not to see it through. My feeling is, why should I settle for being obese or overweight? What, I'm not entitled to be in that healthy weight range just because I started off so large? Nope. No thank you. I'm done settling. Why settle for better when you can have best?

All I can say is, if you think it's fabulous now (& it IS, I'm aware), you ain't seen nothing. Nothing. It gets better and better. I say go for it. Find out who you were intended to be.

And one more pretty important thing - chances are if you are not focused on weight LOSS and optimal health - that you will most likely GAIN the weight back.

The changes that you made to lose your initial weight - those were intended to be permanent.

If we're not focused and dedicated to eating well and exercising, it's just waaaay to easy to slide back to the behaviors that got you overweight in the first place. It's most likely just a matter of time.

I say jump back on that wagon. Go back to dieting one - oh - one. Get back in the groove. Give yourself one perfectly on plan day. Repeat. I bet you'll be delighted to be there and wonder why in the world you ever ventured off.

first, congrats on recognizing what is going on, and on reaching out to connect on the issue again.

second, i think i know what you mean about reaching a goal and celebrating it and then having things go sort of haywire. this has happened to me before, too. i'm not sure i've really figured it out yet, so my thought process may not be helpful. but some of the things i think it may be connected to, for me at least, are fear and self-sabotage and rebellion. i can be kind of defensive sometimes, and have a tendency to rebel. it's hard to predict when this will happen. it could be the "wrong" person saying something to me about losing weight (even if they are trying to be supportive). it could be a person saying something with the wrong kind of energy around it, like instead of "really" being supportive, their comments are actually about some kind of need they have to be controlling in a way. but it can also be something positive, like reaching a goal and celebrating it. go figure. i think the reasons for this are that i want to feel like i have a choice and i don't want to feel pressured or obligated to do something, and this can oddly extend to even things that i want to do and have choosen. so those things, combined with fears (of failing, of succeeding) and a self-sabotage mechanism to alleviate all the pressure, and i can get way off track. but i am trying to remind myself that i am choosing, again and again, every day, every meal, every workout. i am choosing. and i am free to choose otherwise. i think for me realizing that i am free to do whatever i want to helps to relieve the pressure and makes me feel like it's my choice, not because i choose it a long time ago and now can't get out of it or "have to" keep doing it, but because i choose it again and again. it gives me a sense of freedom to realize this. and i need that.

anyway, i don't know if any of that will be helpful to you, but it's what i've come up with so far when dealing with similar situations.

congrats on all the hard work you've done to get this far! and good luck!

In the past there was a period of small weight loss, followed by a long period of no loss, and I repeated that several times (it was a lifestyle thing, not consciously dieting) and the good news is this way of loss seems to set different "set points", so if you gain, then it is only to that point where you were for a period of time, don't know if this is making sense and I don't have scientific data at my fingertips, but I did read something about this years ago. Please don't be down on yourself, it's just time to start again!!!!

It's ok to be in maintenance mode for awhile. Your goal thread said you lost 43 pounds, that's quite a bit to have lost already so you could be getting burned out and just need a bit of a break.

You know, you won't be motivated every day of your life. Even when you get down to goal, some days you might not feel like eating right or exercsing...but you just do it. Just get in the habit of doing it,motivated or not. Just don't slip up like I did and regain 30 pounds.

You know, it's taken me over 4 years to get where I am today and many factors have contributed to that - vacations, life, pregnancy and occassionally lack of motivation and bingeing. All I can say is that time after time I always returned to the basics and just kept going. This last phase has been different though and more like robin's experience. I just want it and nothing is going to stop me. Sure there's been some frustrations along the way, but nothing that lasted more than a week. YOU just have to want this. Someone had a great quote awhile back about motivation, I wish I could remember it, but it was something along the lines of motivation will get you started, but habits, accountablitly and commitment are what get you to the goal line. Motivation will always fade and this is something that I've had to come to terms with because durning maintenace it's not about motivation anymore, it's about the life changes you made and the commitment you've made to yourself.

Long story short, you've done great so far there's no reason to beat yourself up for maintaining and sticking to a healthy lifestyle, now just decide that you WANT this and you're going to get it and start today! Good luck to you

I'm happy to report that I'm back on the weight loss wagon. I'm glad my lapse didn't last longer and I didn't have a greater weight gain.

I've started weighing food and counting calories again and exercising through DDR. I'm back down to 208.

I also took some pictures of myself and realized that as good as I feel about losing 45+ pounds this is not the size I want to be the rest of my life.

It was good to face that I haven't been focused enough. I think I very easily could have kept going on as I was and the weight would have crept back on.

Thanks for all the support!