I have two pounds left to go, and I swear, the last week I have felt more bloated and, well, FATTER than I have in ages. *L* I'm not sure why. Now, I do know that TOM is just around the corner (Friday, to be exact) but that never has much of an effect. Maybe it's just a psychological thing because I know I'm so close? I don't know. I'm hoping to officially be at goal at my weigh-in on Wednesday, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up *too* much. I just hope that it doesn't take, like, a month to get these last two pounds off!

Has anyone else experienced anything like this when they were *reaaaalllly* close to goal?

Nope, I've never been that close to my goal. I'm so jealous! congratulations! Just relax and stop stressing yourself out. You changed so much and you should be proud of yourself gurl!

Maybe you are getting used to your new body !
Do you think about reviewing your goal to get in the healthy weight range ?

*sigh* I have posted about this before.

My body fat percentage is in the healthy range, my waist-to-hip ratio is in the healthy range...and, most importantly, I feel good with this goal. I am not willing to make myself sick, or spend half my life in the gym, just to get to some arbitrary number that in the long run means very little. My doctor is in agreement.

Now, that's not to say that at some point in the future I won't attempt to go lower. But right now? I'm happy where I am and have no desire to go any lower.

I have spent the past fourteen months thinking, "Oh, I *have* to get to 125, I *have* to get to 125." And recently I've come to realize that for me, at this point in time, that's bullshit, regardless of whether or not 140 is a "healthy" weight for me. Yes, 140 pounds may be heavy for someone of my height, but you know what? If you could see me, you would not believe that I weigh that much. And I would much rather weigh 140 and *look* like I weigh 125, than weigh 125 and look like I weigh 100.

Sorry if I sound brusque, but I'm just kind of tired of people questioning me because my goal weight right now apparently isn't "acceptable." It's acceptable to ME. It's healthy to ME, because I feel better now than I have in my entire life. So this is where I am staying, at least for now, and I'm not interested, right now, in going any lower.

I'm 2lbs from my original goal, and though I plan to go a bit lower, I think I might know what you mean. I find that bloating is much more noticeable than it was before. My face gets a little rounder, my stomach goes from flat-ish to round and I feel a little more blah. I'm sure all of these things were happening before, I just couldn't notice such small changes. Normally its caused by something in my diet, either I am getting dehydrated or ate something that didn't really agree with me. If its bloating, then it should go down in a few days.

I do think part of it might be mental as well though. When I first started being able to really see the effects of bloating in my face, I would look in the mirror a lot and feel discouraged. I mean, I know I often try to find positive little changes in my appearance, so seeing a rounder face feels like a set back. After a while I just learned to live with the fact that sometimes bodies carry more water and that people just have puffy days. They aren't my favorite, but I try to keep things in perspective and think of things in terms of biology rather than appearance. It can be hard though, and I think we are much harder on ourselves than anyone else would be.

The lower my weight goes the more dramatic the PMS bloat becomes, for my body. In the 3-7 days before my cycle begins again I see the bloat on the scale, in my clothes, you name it. I just shrug it off because inevitably that fat 'feeling' has gone away after my period, if I am otherwise working out and on plan.

One of the "problems" (if I can call it that?) of goal/maintenance is that once you are a smaller version of yourself, any sort of bloat/pms whatever tends to be more obvious. The smaller you are, the more 'magnified' those changes can be. Part of it is also likely that as you reach your goal (YAY), you are ever more "critical"/observant o these changes. Congrats!