Motivation for Maintenance: How do YOU stay on course?

StrongHealthyPowerful

Hey guys, my name is Anne, I’m 29, 5’3”ish, somewhere between 120 and 125lbs, and I’ve basically reached my goal weight, which is great. I’m just having a really hard time with maintenance. The willpower and drive I had while losing is proving hard to keep up when I don’t see the steady progress of a scale. I thought I’d write a post to see if there are others out there in the same place I am, and also hopefully hear tips that have helped people stay on track when they don’t have the advantage of obvious progression to keep them motivated.

A little history on me: I was overweight starting some time in my teens (who knows when that happened, but all of a sudden I was fat! Stupid puberty!) until about four years ago, when I lost roughly 55lbs in about 7 months, getting down to about 130lbs. Stayed at that weight for a while (wasn’t calorie counting at the time. Lost and maintained using a semi-low carb diet), but then got lazy and happy and gained back about 15lbs last fall and winter (I blame the polar vortex). Buckled down this past June and by the end of September I was down about 25lbs to my lowest ever and was feeling awesome! BUT, as I said, maintaining has been hard. Not helping is the fact that I pulled a muscle in my leg, making running (my main source of exercise) and even some weight training very difficult, if not impossible. I know there are other exercises out there, and I’ve been doing them, but it’s been a bit of a blow to see all that hard work (getting my speed and distance up) just seep away. Add that to the holidays coming up (Cookies! Stuffing! Eggnog!), and all this cold making me want to just curl up in a ball, and I’m worried.

I don’t want another repeat of last winter, so I’m appealing to all of you guys. What has worked for you? How do you keep yourself going when you’ve reached that number on the scale? What milestones do you give yourself to work on? How the hell do you heal a pulled leg/groin(?) muscle, for pete’s sake?!