100 Weeks of Maintenance!

I'm a few weeks away from my two year anniversary of reaching my goal weight (again) but this time, I was determined to maintain my weight loss and I HAVE DONE IT FOR 100 WEEKS!


I've made maintenance mistakes before and I think the biggest one was putting all my excitement in seeing the numbers on the scale dropping. Never even occurred to me that I'd have to find a new type of satisfaction in seeing the numbers stay relatively constant once I reached my goal. However, I was determined to make this time be the last time I entered maintenance and I have learned so much from the Spark community about how to make that a reality.

Being satisfied with a 'sideways trend' instead of a 'downward trend' with my weight is a concept that has helped me so much! Of course, that's what's needed for maintenance but I didn't even consider that in my past attempts so I didn't know to switch my thought process about my weight. I also didn't know anything about staying in a healthy weight RANGE until I learned that on Sparkpeople. +/- 3% from my center weight is my goal and the challenges on the maintenance group are another tool that help me stay where I want to be.

There are days when I don't weigh or get my 5 servings of produce or even drink all my 8 glasses of water...gasp! Sometimes, life just gets in the way of my good habits. LOL I've learned the one thing I can't do is stop tracking my food. That is the one thing that keeps me on track more than anything else. In the past, when I've stopped tracking my food then I've gained weight. So, I tell myself I can eat whatever I want as long as I track it in the food tracker. Some would see that as annoying or OCD but it works for me. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

I've made it through two holiday seasons in my 100 weeks of maintenance so I expect to make it through the 2019 holiday season as well. Looking forward to ending this year strong and starting next year the same! I don't get on here as often as I used to, but I'm still here and still maintaining!



P.S. Over the past two years my husband has really changed his own thinking about food and has lost 60 lbs and is still going! I'm very proud of him! It's nice to have our goals be the same now though he never tracks a thing. LOL We are each on our own path but have the same goal in sight...maintaining a healthy weight. What a bonus to be able to walk this path together!