Hi dwwise83,
Maintenance was a big issue for me as well. Here is what I think is going on with you, please tell me where I'm wrong . . . you are a very disciplined person, probably a high achieving individual and you can "will" yourself to lose weight, especially if you turn it into a project. Once your project is completed, you must rely on your M.O. to carry you through, the problem arises when you realize you haven't changed your M.O. Somewhere in the back of your mind you still think of yourself as an overweight individual who has lost some weight, rather than a healthy fit individual who has released excess weight and continues to become healthier and fitter. This subtle adjustment to your thinking may seem inconsequential, but it really has a huge impact on how you see yourself and how you respond in the world. To depersonalize the example somewhat (unless you smoke), think of someone who is trying to quit smoking and they do quit but think of themselves as a smoker who hasn't smoked for a few months, rather than thinking of themselves as a non-smoker. It's very different. It's a mental paradigm shift.
So good news! You can make a project out of maintaining your weight :-) What it entails is mental, not physical. First, I invite you to really think about what it is you expect your ideal weight will give you, specifically, I encourage you to find and "feel" (in your
body) the feeling that thinking about your ideal weight gives you. You will notice right away that's it isn't really the weight number on the scale or the muscles you truly want, what you really want is the
feeling that you believe having those things will give you. What do you do with that? Feel the yummy feeling often. When you do that, you will notice you move in the world differently, you make different choices, choices that are aligned with the kind of
body you imagine you want for yourself (as long as it's a positive feeling you get from thinking that thought). You feel pretty darn good, too, without having to alter a thing.
So many of us approach
weight loss like caterpillars wanting to be (lean, gorgeous) butterflies, but what ends up happening is we become skinny caterpillars who worry about gaining weight back or maintaining it. We don't really change fundamentally. To truly become butterflies, we must drop the clingy, worried caterpillar mentality and adopt the beautiful butterfly mentality. The ONLY way that happens is by changing your belief system (and I'm not talking about switching religions . . .) from a worried caterpillar into a relaxed butterfly. There are a number of tools available to help you do this (they're free, too!). My faves are
The Work and
Self Coaching 101. They are mind-blowingly awesome, but you have to be willing to face your fears, and question your limiting beliefs. One set of beliefs I would hone in on right off the bat are your fears of failure and what you make being overweight mean to you. Once you are able to get right with your thoughts, maintenance is really effortless. I rarely ever think about my weight anymore (I've maintained my weight for well over a year now -even through an injury where I couldn't exercise for 2 months), and on the rare occasion a thought pops up about it, I have the tools to dissolve them immediately. It totally rocks.
If you are willing, I would be happy to help you locate and tackle one of these limiting beliefs here on the forum to give you an idea of how powerful just questioning your thoughts can be.
Since you operate well withe plans, this would be your detailed plan for the rest of your life. I do this "mental hygiene" work daily myself, sometimes on the fly as a crappy thought occurs to me, sometimes formally by pounding it out on my laptop. I always find relief afterwards.
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