Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone has struggled with this. I'd love to be 10-15 lbs lighter, but apparently that's not gonna happen in this lifetime. Here's my story (a quote from my introduction):

For the past 5 years, I've been in this vicious cycle where I'm happy where I am for 3 months, then I become completely obsessed about losing for 1 month, then I give up. Repeat. (I usually lose no more than 2 or 3 lbs during that month).

Sigh...I'm tired of this. Sometimes I feel perfectly ok where I am. After all, I *have* maintained a 30-pound loss for 11 years now. But other times I feel like such a huge failure for having regained these 10-12 and never losing them again. Especially when I read success stories about people who lost MORE than their original goal. This last time I decided to diet, I went to Weight Watchers and learned that for them I "need" to lose at least 6 lbs. That would put me at the top of their range for my height and age (it annoys me that they think I *need* to lose weight, since my BMI is 24.3. I like to think that I *want* to lose, not *need* to.)

Yeah, I know there are much worse things in life. I wish I could just learn to accept this weight. I've read Thin for Life and there are stories there about people in this exact situation, but I just wanted to know from you guys. Anybody in the same situation? Any words of wisdom?

Thanks.

You have done awesome to maintain your 30# loss for 11 yrs. I am new at maintaining, only 4 months for me. I am currently reading Thin for Life and I have the same problem. I set my goal weight at 145 but can easily maintain at 146-147 and struggle to keep below that. I get to about 141 and constantly seem to climb back up. I have had an ankle injury and gained a few lbs., lost them and regained them several times. I feel like a failure at times for keeping regaining. I feel like I'm fighting my body. I don't think my body looks bad. My biggest problem is that I told my Dr. that I was set for 145. Whenever I see him for an afternoon appt. with my clothes and shoes on, I am always at 147-148. I feel like saying, this is going to have to be good enough. I can't keep fighting it and driving myself nuts. I had been trying very hard to maintain at 140-145 and now I'm considering maintaining at 142-147, it seems to be the range that my body likes. This puts my BMI at 22-23 and think that is a healthy range for me. Previous to this post, I hadn't admitted what a struggle I'm really having trying to stay below my goal. The main reason that I hadn't already increased my goal range was that I thought the struggle might be just because of the lack of exercise during the ankle injury and recovery time. I thought it would get easier now that I'm walking on a regular basis again, but it hasn't gotten any better. I'm still not back up to my 3 miles a day that I was walking. I'm doing 1 mile now everyday. Maybe I should try to stay at 142-147 for now and after I'm able to do my full exercise again, just count any lower weight as added bonus if it happens and not be disappointed if it doesn't.

Before reading Thin for Life, I felt more like a failure and that I had to keep fighting this. It made me see that I'm not a failure. Many of the masters ended up maintaining at a little higher weight than they planned. So, I guess it's OK for me to do the same. I don't want to feel like I'm selling myself short, but I don't want to fight it either.

I am very glad that you brought this up, because you are definitely not alone in this.

BTW, I have a Dr. appt. on December 29th. I weighed 147 last time on his scale and 144 that morning on mine.(which will have been 6 months ago) . I weigh 143 this morning. I am scared to death that with the holidays coming that I might weigh a lb. or 2 more than the last time I saw him.(his scales always weigh me a couple lbs. heavier than mine) I know that I have let myself go hungry at times recently for fear of gaining. Since he is my hepatologist, he hasn't seen me for what will be 6 months and knows nothing of the ankle injury and the struggle that I have gone through to even maintain my weight.

clarabr - I just had to jump on here when Isaw your thread. I have benhaving this same struggle inside my head for a few months now. I have been on Atkins since April and have lost 40 lbs. (as of Aug) since then I have not ben able to lose anymore weight. I have stopped and restarted Atkins thinking I could jump start myself into losing again. Didn't happen. I have increased carbs, decreased carbs, increased exercise, deceased exercise, and nothing. I too am beginning to think if it's worth it. I mean, I am happy with this way of eting butthe fact that the scale isn't moving anymore is killing me. I want sodesperately to reach my goal but am wondering if I ever will. Maybe I should level off my carbs and be happy where I am. I do believe that our bodies know best and function best at a certain point and maybe our bodies are trying to tell us that. I hope I'm wrong and that one day it will start going down again, but I think I'm done 'waiting' for it to happen
good luck to you!
maggie

Lily I just wanted to run in and give you a You have come along way sweetie. Please don't lose sight of the most important thing, your health! Not some number on a SCALE! yOU ARE SUCH AN INSPIRATION TO ALOT OF US HERE! i AM VERY PROUD OF YOU AND DON'T EVER KNOCK YOURSELF! (oops caps!

You are 5'7 and it seems to me a "healthy weight" for you would be 135-170! So do not stress over being in the 140's! You are doing great!!

My 2 cents. Your ideal weight is the weight that makes you most happy in life. Being morbidly obese isn't it. Being so thin you can never eat and exercise every spare hour of the day isn't it. Letting overweight create or exacerbate a medical condition isn't it. That gives you a lot of room to play with.

How can any of us know how we will look and feel 20 lbs from now, in either direction? It is entirely reasonable (to me anyway), that you are happy with yourself 10 lbs over where you thought you'd be happy with yourself, and it fits your lifestyle better. It also seems entirely reasonable to me, you might have to go 10 lbs past your original goal to feel that way.

I'm actually not a big fan of the goal weight. While it does give us something to work towards as we transform our lives, weight is just a measure of the gravitational attraction between you and the planet at any given moment. What use is that in determining how you will feel about yourself? We use it as a short-hand to describe our quality of life, and from my perspective it is a totally inadequate measurement for that purpose.

My experience: I find I'm happy with a weight that still leaves me technically in the overweight BMI category, even if my body fat percentage and waist size are perfectly fine. I've run a marathon, had a beautiful daughter, have a happy marriage and decent job, and while I do have to watch what I eat (and sometimes it is still a struggle), perfection isn't required. I'm happy here. Sometimes I wonder if I'm kidding myself, if only I pushed a little more, I'd be even happier. I test those boundaries once in a while, and am open to making more changes as I move through the many phases of my life--this isn't a short term journey for me and I've been through many changes with many more to come. But right now, this is good for me. (I intend to get the last 5-7 lbs of pregnancy weight off in the next few months, but even that is secondary--probably why it is taking so long!)

Make sure you aren't kidding yourself about your habits, your motives, your points of balance in life, and if you are truly unhappy do something constructive about it. But in the end, only you get to decide your ideal weight, not a WW table, or a BMI chart, or even a well-meaning bunch of folks at 3FC (like me for example).

Good luck with your decision.

Anne

This discussion has come at a great time for me. I've settled in at 140, 5'6" but that little voice in the back of my head keeps saying maybe 5lb more would be good. I need to keep repeating that if it's healthy and livable that is good enough. Those darn perfectionist tendencies are hard to overcome.

I'm not sure what you mean by "make sure you aren't kidding yourself about your habits"

The thing is, I think if I were truly unhappy, I *would* do something about it, you know?

Oh, I know I'm the one who gets to decide, I just wanted to hear similar experiences . Just to know I'm not alone.

Thanks everyone for your replies. Keep them coming!

Thank heavens someone posted about this. I'm there too.

I realized the other day that I'm happy with my figure and the things my body can do (dancing, my flexibility and strength, etc.) And it made me feel like a real quitter to consider just trying to maintain at this size and weight--I don't know if anyone noticed, but I stopped posting for a few days while I tried to figure this out. According to the BMI charts I'm about five pounds overweight, but I've always been muscular and weighed more than I "look like" I do.

I'm going to have a talk with my doctor next time I go in, and see what she thinks. But as far as my own opinion...in a world that seems to constantly tell women we're not thin/pretty/good enough, I'm realizing that I'm happy with myself the way I am.

Now to work on learning to enjoy that feeling instead of having guilt for it!

Geez, if I knew this topic would be so popular I would have whined a looong time ago!

While I have regained more weight than I like, I found that when I was losing (67# total) I stopped losing at a higher scale weight than I had set as my goal (and higher than WW thought I should weigh, too). However, at that same weight, give or take 1-3# daily variation, I continued to lose clothing sizes. I ended up at a size that made it relatively easy to buy clothes, and that I could and did maintain. The reasons for a relapse/regain are complex, and entirely of my own doing, and I'm working on it.

And don't forget - your weight is not tatooed on your forehead! You look good, you feel good, you can maintain the weight without driving yourself nuts. Maybe it's not where you thought you'd be happy, but try it. Maybe it is a place you're happy. Maybe like some others (Glory) you'll accept it and go on to lose more without nearly the same effort.

I'm not at goal yet, but I think I only know that because I am still losing and doing things that seem to be resulting in weight loss. I started so high (295) that I couldn't even fathom getting below 200. Now that I'm here, I'm pretty sure I'll lose more, but I don't know how much. My new "goal" of 165 seems doable, and would still have me "overweight" by BMI standards, but I'd like to start focusing less on the scale and more on how I look, feel and move. So, I guess I don't know where I'll end up. All I do know is that I don't want to go BACK where I was.

It's all new territory, as I haven't been this weight since college, 20 years ago. And at the time I was quickly headed in the other direction...

Meg said recently that sometimes a goal weight finds us, and that rang true. And I think Anne said it well when discussing "points of balance"...

Good thread!

I would agree with your goal weight finding you. Not that I am anywhere near my overall goal, I got tired of trying to lose weight a couple years ago. So I maintained which taught me a couple things, most importantly is I got a good idea on how to maintain. I waited 18 months before I started trying to lose weight again but now that I'm losing again, I don't know if I'll find a "happy" weight and stay there for a while before I lose some more. I think it is one of my struggles because honestly, I could stop here and just maintain and be happy with myself. The world may see me as overweight, but I feel so much better and can do so many more things than 100 lbs ago. So I have to fight that internal struggle that this is a good enough weight because I know that I'd feel a lot better if I lost 50 more lbs and maybe beyond.

So who knows, you could maintain at your weight that is slightly higher than your ideal and then one day, you could decide it is time to lose a few extra lbs and find yourself happy with that weight?

For me, it comes down to what feels good. When I am below 130, clothes fit well, energy level is good, exercise (especially strenuous cardio) is easier. If I creep closer to 134-135, pants don't zip easily and I feel generally bleah.

I switched WW plans, to Core, for November, so that I would be eating in a safe and overall healthier way.

It seems to me that if you are living a healthy lifestyle, your weight is just a number. Being mindful with your food and confident in your own body are the important things.