Do any of you do this?

Tomorrow makes 2 months that I am maintaining and since hitting goal I weigh every morning to keep myself accountable. I am currently at my low but yet every morning I weigh and pray for an even lower number.

I don't really want to lose more weight but I miss that joy and elation I get from seeing a lower number. Will I ever experience joy from seeing the same number day after day? Am I being weird?

Maybe, just maybe, you have not given this new weight a long enough try.

Or maybe you do want to go lower. I reset my goal downwards 3 times. It is your decision. No one can tell you what weight you feel the best at and knowing this takes time. I use a healthy BMI range as my absolute guide, which for me covers about 40#. Somewhere in those 40# I can chose a weight range. But even these ranges are only guides.

I have a feeling this is going to be me too. I'm already thinking about it. But I am going to buy new clothes in just 10 more pounds! I can't go much beyond where I end up because I don't want all my new purchases to look as ridiculously baggy on me as the pants I'm currently sitting in! I look like I should be sporting a diaper in these drawers.

Have you purchased new clothes to go with your new trim self?

I did in August....now they are all too big I have tried taking some to the tailor to get altered but can't afford to do it all at once. My next shopping trip is not until July

I look really good in my workout clothes as I bought some new ones a couple of weeks ago. I have no idea if it's the slightly baggy clothes that has me feeing this way.

It may well be! I posted some pics of myself in the 100 lb club. (I think you saw them. ) I was having a "fat" day when I posted those. Well I think maybe it's because my clothes are all too big. I posted some workout clothes pics because, well, they fit!! I just bought them. I feel awesome at the gym, and sloppy the rest of the day. But I am not spending another dime on clothes because the season is almost over and I am just 10 pounds away from goal. I can deal!

But you? You're at goal! You deserve clothes that fit!

But how does one do that exactly? It's difficult, isn't it? You get to where you want to be, maintain for a while, and then it seems most maintainers end up continuing to lose, purposely or just while settling in. It's hard. I can't see maintaining for any real length of time before buying new clothes.

I think for me, I'll be hitting goal entering Spring/Summer wear, so I can purchase Spring/Summer clothes. I think I'll hold off on winter clearance items and reassess where I am for Fall items.

Yes, I do feel like this, but I am not so straightforward with myself as that, so it's a little more complicated.

I don't care if I stay at about the same weight, and I don't care about dropping any sizes, but I want to look different when I look in the mirror. I want some things on my body to have less slack in them.

(Yeah I know, this probably requires further weight loss, but I never said I was completely rational where it comes to body image or wishful thinking.)

I think I'm describing a body composition change, rather than a drop in weight.

I'm trying to see it as a good thing, that I've freed myself from magical thinking about the number on the scale.

I have replaced it with magical thinking about exercise, that is, that I cannot possibly miss a planned session & will go crazy to rearrange my life to ensure that does not happen.

My coming vacation plans are going to test me & I am telling myself I must try to think of that as an opportunity for "active rest" or changing it up.

My own special personal craziness is so hard to grasp. Just when I think it's gone, and I'm just like other people, and am chilling in all areas of my life, it morphs & takes on another form & a new fixation & thing to be rigid about.

I SO know how you feel!
I called it goal 5 weeks ago and the first couple of weeks of maintenance I actually lost more and got a huge buzz. This last 3 weeks however have been up and down, up and down, and I'm finding it really hard to get my head around. I've spent so long getting the loss buzz, actively trying to keep seeing the same number is weird, and if I'm honest, makes me sad. I miss seeing those numbers going down and knowing all the hard work was worth it....

Well at least i know that i am not the only one.........

Will we ever be truly content?

Yes - I have been maintaining a range for 2 years now, which is great. However, I have the heart-of-hearts goal for 10 more pounds. However, I am very comfortable with the amount of food I eat now and the amount of exercise, so I have not done too much in terms of really doing what it takes to take off 10 more pounds or even if I could keep it off once I get it off.

You may be truly content on the day you realize that being lighter is not going to solve any more problems for you.

One has to ask, WHY do I want to weigh less? If there is nothing wrong with your weight now and you are healthy, then where does that desire come from? Is it some strange idea that it's better to be smaller, ever smaller? Is it a desire to wear a size 2, then 0, then... ? Is it because you think "just five more pounds" will solve the body areas you don't like?

Not saying that it's good or bad, only that it can become an obsession.

Jay

And this is exactly where I do NOT want it to reach.....where every waking moment is consumed with a number...be it weight, calorie count, dress size, body fat % etc...

So interesting...I've been maitaining in lower 140s since November, but I've been secretly hoping that I'll drift into the 130s somewhere since January. Why? Because I'm hoping that I'll wake up at 135 lbs and I'll have the tummy I've been dreaming of...but you know what...I won't...I gained too much weight to begin with and without surgery I'll never have *that* tummy. I still struggle a little everyday not to re-enter "weight loss" mode to find out though. And yes, I do miss seeing the new low weight, but I'm kinda over it. I think in time you'll be content. One thing that helps me a lot is buying new clothes. The feeling of shopping wherever I want and buying any style I want is a great feeling. Also challenging myself with new fitness goals helps too. But I do wonder what the 130s would feel like...hmmmm...J/K

Saef, have you ever seen the blog The Great Fitness Experiment (http://thegreatfitnessexperiment.blogspot.com/)? It's great; very funny, informative and, most relevant to you, the author has also battled a series of "overly rigid, overly controlled" eating and exercise behaviors that she writes about rather extensively. I highly recommend it.

Thanks, neurodoc, I will take a look at this.

I really don't read any blogs regularly, though I've followed links to them for individual posts. No offense meant to anyone who blogs, but I'm just not crazy about reading peoples' diaries or journals for long periods of time, unless they're by Samuel Pepys or Virginia Woolf or Anais Nin or Anne Frank or "Go Ask Alice" ;-) -- or -- well, you get what I mean. Some sharing is more interesting than other sharing; some oversharing can get narcissistic. For me, anyway, they're usually best taken one post at a time, with a lot of absence in between.

I've been maintaining for over, gosh, 8 months? I've stepped out of my maintenance range (125-130) only a few times and in both directions. There were a few days when I was 123, 124, etc and there have been a few days when I was 131 (which ticked me off considerably more than being too low). For the majority of the time I've hovered between 125-127 which I'm happy with. I'm currently closer to 129-130 after holidays and some binges related to major stress, and I'm trying to drop a couple to get back more comfortably in my range. But I don't really see that as losing more weight, it's still maintaining.

Over these months of maintenance, I AM happy with my weight of 127ish. I am being honest when I say that I don't want to be any smaller (I'm a size 0, don't know how much smaller I could get...I'd have to go naked). I am right on the good side of "quite thin" and "too thin" and that's where I like it (thanks to media brainwashing, I'm sure). So no, I don't want to lose weight. BUT, like you, I miss the thrill of getting into smaller sizes, seeing smaller numbers, etc. I still calorie count, still exercise, still live exactly how I did when I was losing but I seem to be missing the pay-off of new low numbers. But I have to remind myself that I'm absolutely getting the pay-off! Staying thin IS the pay-off. It's the ultimate pay-off. It's what I was working for this whole time. So sure, bouncing around between 125-130 isn't as exciting as going from 183+ to 125 in less than a year, but it's what I've always wanted. So I'm happy with it.

That being said, I did lower my goal weight several times, and I know many people do. I had never been a thin person. I didn't know what 150lbs would look like on me because I hadn't been that weight since I was a 5th grader. So that was my original goal weight. It was in the normal BMI range, it was a good solid number, it didn't seem TOO far from the 180's (a lot closer and more realistic than the 120's). Well I got down to 155 and realized I still had a looong ways to go. So my goal became 145, then 140, then 135, etc...all the way down to 125. Never in a million years did I think I'd get that low. I didn't just want to quit when I wasn't 100% happy just because I'd reached a number I'd pulled out of thin air. I had come so far already, I didn't want to quit until I was completely happy with my results.