What to do when the bloom is off the rose...

Nov 01, 2010

I wrote this in response to a post from Sarah.  I was struck by how many experienced and successful bandsters responded to her post that are having the same challenge...maintaining WL after a year or so or losing the last bit of their desired WL goal.  I don't have an answer and am myself having the same struggles as the others, but I wanted to share my thoughts and encourage all of my "friends" to share any tips or advice that you may have about what it takes to stay focused when the bloom is off the rose!

I'm in the same boat as everyone else that responded to your post Sarah.  I'm 10 days from my 2 year surgery anniversary and all that structure and dicipline I used to lose 100+ lbs is out the window. 

We all know what to do, but doing it seems to have lost it's allure!  Most of us have acheived major weight loss and the challenges seem to be about how to maintain the loss or finish the last 20 or 30 lbs.  It's interesting that there isn't much help out there for maintaining WL with any of the surgeries and I think it's pretty clear why.  It is as simple as getting back to basics, but without the big changes in WL!!   That's not nearly as fun in my book as seeing those big numbers on the scale, even with the inevitable plateaus, it was still a big "high" for me!

Therapy has help me understand why I turn to food to deal with emotions and stress, but even armed with the Cognitive Therapy tools, I CHOOSE not to use them!  Sometimes, alot of the time actually, I just want to have my cake and everything else too!

Exercise is the elusive piece for me.  I've never been much for exercise and I know it would make a HUGE difference in my WL.  But that too is very easy to pass on when I'm tired, stressed, etc. 

It's those darn "lifestyle changes" that we've all heard about over and over that are difficult to adopt on a permanent basis. 

For me today, it's all about one step, one day at a time.  I do much better during the week so I foucus on being faithful to my plan during the week.  I allow myself more flexibility on the weekends and have decided, (for now), that as long as I'm not gaining, or I can quickly lose what I've gained, I'm happy with that. 

I still would like to lose another 30 lbs, but I know it's going to take regular exercise to get there AND NO SUGAR!   I haven't given up!  Never give up!

We can do this!

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