I thought it would be worthwhile to open up a discussion about our biggest maintenance challenges. I'm wondering if we all have different struggles or if we have a lot in common. I know what mine is (that's what prompted this post! ) but would love to hear about yours.

Is your biggest challenge social events? The scale not going down? Compliments drying up? Staying focused? Getting complacent?

Let's talk!

Weekend eating. I also need to get to that place where I can say "NO" to the bad stuff that makes it's way into my life. My boyfriend is one of those "saturday=cheat day" people and I am not. I can go YEARS without pizza and he justifes it every saturday. I hate this, but I will happily take a couple of slices out of pure habit. I have finally made some headway with him as the scale is catching up to him a bit, so no more pizza saturdays- progress is in the making. If I'm going to have a cheat meal, I would much rather it be at a sit down resturaunt with options. And quality.

But yeah, if I could stop justifying eating the bad staff because "It's there, it's a party, it's saturday, my BF is doing it", I could live with that.

I'm about 3 pounds away from my original goal, feel pretty good where I'm at and while I'm not gaining, it kind of breaks my spirit, you know?

Other than that, I feel very good, especially since I've taken up running. I'm much more in tune to my body.

Thank you for starting this thread. I have only been maintaining for a few weeks and have had some ( a lot) of anxiety at times. Some of the hardest things for me...
Trust, trusting that I will not wake up having gained all the weight back. Trust that I can really give away my big clothes, that I will not need them again. And to spend the money on clothes that fit.
Trust that my body really knows what it needs, and to feed it accordingly
Trust that this is really my new body, it can run fast, lift weight, and to push myself to see what I can do
Additionally challenged by new and different attention from people, going out to eat, giving myself a break once on a while.

sw-168 cw-127 started 3/18/06 goal met 7/10/06
height 5'8 - goal is to stay under 130

Friends who don't understand that, even after two years of successful maintenance, I STILL need to count calories, be careful with portion sizes, etc...
How do they think I managed to keep the weight off? They don't understand I'm still working on it !

Yeah! thanks for starting this thread. For me it's keeping the motivation to continue to exercise on a regular basis. I hit my goal and then let somethings slip a little and now I see the scale inching back up and I need to fight a little harder. I never want to go back to where I was. Plus I have already thrown out all my big clothes.

It's kind of a drag to realize that I'll always have to watch what I eat, but when I look around, I also realize that people really ARE what they eat. So it's worth it, and I need to remember that the way I WAS eating was totally out of control.
Also, I want other people to realize that I'm NOT still trying to lose weight. I can only eat so much in a day to maintain where I am. It's all mathematical. So logical.

Motivation to exercise. Getting thrown off plan by temptation (it seems like there is something tempting at work nearly every day).

Yes, I could have written that post, Meg. I'm hungry almost all the time when I'm eating and exercising on plan, and that's at a maintenance level. I've even accepted that I can't maintain at my lowest where I was last summer. I could literally feel my body eating itself, I was so hungry.

I've also been at this for 5 years, so I would have expected my body to give up and realize that this is life now...but apparently it's either going to take longer for my appetite suppressing hormones to kick in, or it's just never going to happen. I did quite a lot of internet research on this a few months ago, and discovered that "reduced obese" people actually produce MORE of the hormone grehlin which is one of the hormones which stimulates appetite than they either had previously, or currently obese folks produce. Great! Our own bodies are chemically trying to sabotage us!

Like Meg, I will still do whatever it takes. I don't always like it, but I'll do it as long as I am physically able.

My other problem at this point is I am just tired of the need to eat at all. I'm hungry- but I'm sick of food.

Mel

I have boredom hunger, etc, but I've never heard of being hungrier at maintence. I was at maintence once (till I got pregnant the first time..the 2nd, 3rd time I would lose almost all my weight and get pregnant so never reaching maintence). I sincerely hope I do like I did the first time and not getting hungry because that's a scary prospect.

Meg and Mel, I am in the same boat as you guys are lately, I am ALWAYS hungry, I swear I wasn't like that last year or the year before... Sure makes me wonder on what's ahead ...

The hardest part lately for me is complacency I guess it's because I am so hungry that I just think "well I did X, Y and Z as exercise so I can have X, Y and Z foods" ... sometimes this really sucks but I'd rather be small than fat!

I have only been at maintenance for a month. So far, my biggest challenge is to still make myself keep exercising. The eating the same isn't a problem for me yet. It just feels natural and I don't feel any hungrier than while I was still trying to lose.

For me the most difficult part ids to keep it up. To keep excercising, to keep eating within limits, escpecially to NOT buy myself a treat whenever I am tired, depressed or whatever. Especially important to me is not getting overtired, because that is when I hit the sugar.

I'm very glad with the support you all are giving. As some more people have posted: it is not like I can let it slide now i have lost some weight (and regained some on holiday). As in the Like Alice in wonderland books, I believe the queen said: "You have to keep running to stay in the same place".

Have a great day all,
Rabbit

I have to learn to accept that schtid happens.
Yes, if I was a hermit who lived alone and never had to go out or work or mix with the human race ... I could be totally in control and probably stay at 122 lbs. But the world revolves and I'm in it so ... I need to get a grip and be in it.
The only good plan is the one with some flex to it.

SusanB, I couldn't agree w/you more! That's exactly how I feel! It's the social pressures and situations that make me nervous. Not me left to my own devices.

The hardest part for me isn't hunger. I am basically okay with my food intake. However, as the years pass and the calandar clicks away I am less and less likely to get away with small cheats without the scale going up.
Example being vacations allowing for increased "high calorie & salty foods"
the scale goes up 8 pounds. In calories that would be 28000 trust me it wasnt that good of a vacation. So now it takes 3 weeks to get the 8 pounds off. Of course, 2/3 come off right away but the other five are fighting a good fight to stay.
So my fustration is not being able to have a vacation without a stiff price to pay.
Thanks for listening, it feels better to realize we are not alone in this.