The Number One Reason Is....

While working on my list (see earlier blog post) of the reasons 'why' I want to maintain my weight loss, I found one of my biggest reasons. It’s not deep, emotional or awe-inspiring.

It’s simply because I can.

And when I succeed at maintenance and earn my Weight Watchers star for the month, I feel successful. When I feel successful, other areas of my life get more positive April energy.

So my number one reason for maintaining my weight loss is to help breed success in other areas of my life.

As a side note, I also found a new (classic) rockin’ song for my playlist from the Biggest Loser Workout - Classic Rock. Yeah, it’s Kansas, but with a little ‘m-ch m-ch’ - Carry On My Wayward Son. So, I might have danced while I was getting ready this morning while listening to it and I may be really excited to get on the elliptical with it.

Maintenance - - here I co…uh…stay!

What? Why?

The 'why' for anything we do is so important. The 'why' is what keeps us on our path. When I first started on my weight loss journey, I made a list of 10 'whats' and 'whys'. These are the things I wanted out of my journey and the reasons I decided it was worth it.

One of those reasons was my son. I wanted to be a healthy example for him and to do what I could to live longer for him. Another reason was smaller clothing sizes. It just seemed that the cutest clothes only came in small and I wanted to wear those. A few others are personal and extremely close to my heart.

What I realize now, though, as valuable as that list was at the time, I need a new list. I need to discover the 'whats' and 'whys' of maintaining a healthy weight.

Losing is one thing...it is rewarding to watch numbers fall on the scale, to buy new clothes, to listen to compliments. But maintaining...that's just...well...staying the same. It's still work. It's still watching what I eat and spending time working out. But, I'm no longer watching anything drop and I'm working to just stay in the clothes that I have.

So, I need a new list. This week, I will create that list and bring something exciting back to maintainance. Anyone have ideas on spicing it up? New cool recipe? Favorite exercise? New tunes for my workout playlist?

Time to Make the Donuts

The past few weeks have been rough donut weeks for me. I have been eating my vegetables, drinking my water, taking my vitamins, but in all honesty, I have had no ability to avoid Top Pot.

So, I decided to really get to the root of this issue. I know I was stressing about my son starting Kindergarten, with all the changes that would take place in my family. But why would I equate stress with donuts? It took reaching way back in my memory, but I found it.

I grew up in a military home. Although we didn’t move as often as other families, it still meant we didn’t live close to grandparents. So, we were a road-trip family. We road-tripped to see Grandma and Grandpa. We road-tripped every move we made. And, this is how the road trip would play out:

My parents would gather the three of us still-sleeping children at about 3 or 4 in the morning. They would buckle us in to the van or truck and head out in the darkness. When we woke up several hours later, my mom would hand us a powdered donut wrapped in a napkin.

What those times meant for me was that, even though we were moving and my whole life was about to change, my family was constant. Our houses might change, the weather would change, my friends and school would be different, but my family was always together. And for me, donuts are the reminder of the constant.

So please tell me how you do it. How do you go into a big life change gracefully? What constants do you hang on to that bring you comfort?