2 Months of Easy Maintenance

Heya guys! Just thought I'd check in and give an update.

My last post was on October 1, and now it's what, December 4? So it's been about 2 months. I'm still at 160-163 lbs depending on the day. Two months of maintenance! Now that I've been at this weight for a few months, I'm ready to take it a step further and am committing to a 150 goal for the New Year. Yeee haw!

Last month I ran a 5k and had my best time since I was 13! I ran about an 8:03 mile for a total time of 25:04. What's awesome is that on Thanksgiving morning I ran 4 miles at the same pace. Getting faster and faster!

My marathon is in 4 days and I'm totally ready for it. I did a 17-mile run a little over a week ago and rocked at a 9:57 pace. So for the marathon I'm shooting for a 10:30-ish pace which would be around 4.5 hours. I considered doing the race dressed as Elvis, but ran out of time to get a costume (it is in Vegas after all!).

What's exciting for me about maintaining this weight and size is that I've been able to relax quite a bit with my diet without regaining anything. I fortunately haven't reverted to how I ate a year ago, but I'm not stressing over croutons either. :D I'm mentioning this because I want to encourage everyone who's taking on the challenge to remember that losing weight is a phase. Once we step out of that phase it's a matter of maintenance and wise choices.

Whenever you work out for the first time you're going to get sore. But that soreness passes once you body gets stronger. Then you can take it up a notch, work out a little harder, and you'll get sore again. Eating can work the same way! Make a simple goal with your eating, stick to it, and when you've FORMed a habit, step it up a notch. (Mwahahaha I love a clever play on words.)

That's where I'm at - so come along! Four weeks from today will be the new year. If we focus on 2-3 lbs per week of healthy weight loss, we'll be 10 lbs ahead for 2009! Once we've dropped that weight, we'll never have to worry about losing it again - just maintenance which is 10 times easier! But I'll admit, it still isn't totally easy. Because of my gradual shift in diet during this maintenance period, I've admittedly been eating bigger meals than I did during the weight-loss phase. So FORM will come in handy for me once again.

I have to admit that just making this commitment right now is making me a little nervous. Can I do this? Am I kidding myself? Am I really committed enough? It helps to know that I'm not in it alone, and that I've done it before.

I have these images flash through my mind of me being hungry all of the time and suffering through eating rice cakes and celery ... and then I remember that I never had to do that to lose my first 30 lbs. Ha ha ha. It's like there's this programming in my mind that it has to be hard, it has to be rough and I have to keep reminding myself that I've got all of the tools necessary to make this an easy and fun process! Isn't that so funny and just bizarre?

So despite all of my cheery pump up above, know that I am scared about this. I am scared of failure and disappointment. If you feel that way too, it's cool, and it's because we're believing something that isn't true. This is easy! So I'm going to smile and my fear and just keeping moving forward. I'll let you know how that works for me!

I recommit. NOW! :D