So I've been doing this whole diet thing for just over a year now and I feel like I"m self sabatoging myself with reaching goal. I am two pounds away from goal and I have been stuck at 122.0 for the past week or so and not loosing 1lb a week like I had been. I find myself starting to binge a lot more than I did when I had more pounds to loose. I don't binge 1000s of calories about my normal 1200-1500 but I've been constantly eating all day long out of bordum. This snacking is what caused my rapid weight gain in the first place. It's now summer and my schedule isin't as crazy as it was as all I have now is to work an my horse. Where up until last month I had full time school, working 5 days a week and my horse. I had no time to think about food like I have been now that it's summer, I still work the same hours and still have my horse to take care of but I have a lot more at home free time. I try to keep myself as busy as possible but I'm still going back to my old habbits and snacking throughout the day. I fear of self sabatoge. Dieting and weightloss has been a huge part of my life for the past year and I don't know what I'm going to do when I finally reach goal and just focus on maintaining. I've been finding myself just getting tired of exercising, even though I like it and how it makes me feel afterwards but I don't know I just seem to be lacking the motivation that I had before when I had more pounds to loose. I'm trying to start this week fresh with getting back on track, though yesterday I still snacked when I shouldnt have. And it was purely out of bordum, wasn't even hungry. Today I'm really trying I kept myself busy as much as possible and went back to exercise, when I get the need to snack I've been keeping myself busy with drinking water, I had 3 bottles in just 30 minutes, and I started to read. But I don't know if this is going to last. I think I'm afraid of the unknown to be honest, and I will admit weightloss has been an obsession and I'm not happy about that. I still don't have a healthy relationship with food and still think of myself as fat.

Well anyway I don't quite know where I'm going with this, but I just had to get these thoughts out of my head. Anytips on how to stay motivated to loose at the end of the journey?

Just stay confident

It's two pounds. You are essentially there. I mean, you probably vary by two pounds throughout the day. I don't think you're necessarily just scared of success, but also the unknown.

Do you have plans for how you're going to maintain? Do you know how you're life is going to look in the future? Make plans! Register for a race, take up roller derby, learn to skateboard. How are you going to eat? Start reading about maintaining - I've never got there, but apparently you need a completely different mindset. Go and hangout in the maintainers forum. They will probably have some good insight for you.

Also, this is probably a good time to really assess where you are at. Why did you pick 120lb? Are you happy at this weight? At this size? At this body composition? I mean, numbers are pretty arbitrary.

Good luck!! And congratulations.

@baby girl- thank you so much, I will try

@couch- I thik you're right, I have no idea what I'm going to do next day after day all I did was focus on loosing the weight, and not about what I'm going to do after its gone. I had no idea what to do going into a diet and now I have no idea what I'm going to do going into maintainance, though I'm really glad I have 3fc for this part of the journey.

And I really appreciate the advice, especially since I was feeling really down yesterday. But today is a new day and an exciting one as some how I managed to reach 120, which I have never been here before. Lol totally unexpected and a much needed pick me up

Is that you in your avatar? I'm totally jealous of your taut tummy! O_O

I think it's time for you to take diet and weight loss and make it a LESS important focus in your life. By now you've learned what to eat, how much of it to eat, and what kinds of foods you enjoy. You know the ropes and you know what to do - so just keep doing it and focus on other things. Maybe pick up a new physical hobby, start weightlifting, sign up for a team of some kind, go on a hike? It's not your weight, it's the sudden change in routine and increase in free time that's throwing your schedule off. You've got this!

Time to start thinking "lifestyle" and not "diet." To maintain, you're going to pretty much keep on eating the same way you did to lose weight. You can loosen up a bit, but it's pretty much the way we know we should eat.

There are 2 pretty easy ways to maintain, in my opinion. Either should work, and one may be better than the other some weeks.

You can eat the same as you have been with a few hundred extra calories per day thrown in to raise your calorie level to what it needs to be to maintain.

Or you can eat exactly the same as you have been 5 out of 7 days, and then add all the extra calories in on the days you might want a bigger splurge. Like for a party or wedding.

A weekly average should be maintained to keep you weight leveled out. And promise yourself you will get right into "diet" mode if the scale goes up more than 5 pounds. Eating this way is for life or the weight will creep back on. Now the mental game begins full force. Congratulations on what a great job you've done and good luck with the rest of it!

Lin