What’s the most important thing you learnt about your weightloss?

1) Personally, I have realized that I simply cannot take "breaks" from logging and weighing in. If I'm not doing well, I avoid the scale like the plague and I can get into pretty strong denial about how much weight I'm gaining. Then I fall into the trap of eating all of the things before my "diet" starts again. In the future, if I really just feel that I need a "break" I plan to set my calories to maintenance and continue logging and weighing in.

Last fall I lost 20 pounds and decided to take a "break" for the holidays. I never got back on track and ended up regaining those 20 pounds, plus almost 20 more in 6 months because I kept binging and saying "One more day/weekend won't make that much of a difference, it's not like I'm going to wake up skinny because I don't eat this dessert now...I'll get back on track on Monday."

2) I've noticed that by far my strongest motivator is when my weight gets "bad enough" that it's impacting my every day life. For example, at almost 200 pounds I just felt huge and disgusting all of the time, I was out of breath doing basic every day tasks, there was literally no clothing style that was flattering, and I avoided certain situations or activities due to my weight. I was just uncomfortable all of the time, even just sitting there. No clothes were comfortable either- any bra I wore dug into my skin, no matter what size, and pants were uncomfortable too. At this stage, I'm highly motivated to make a change so that these issues go away.

When I'm at around 160 pounds, I'm still overweight, but it doesn't really impact me very much. There are clothing styles that look flattering and are comfortable, I feel better and just more comfortable in general, I don't have to avoid any activities or situations; I'm in decent enough shape to do anything I want. Therefore, I lose the motivation and it's a lot harder to refuse something in the moment. This time, my plan when I get down to whatever I feel is this "more comfortable weight" is to reset my goals to just lose .5 pounds per week. Hopefully getting a lot more calories and not having to be so strict will help me with motivation to keep going. If even that seems difficult, I can always set to maintenance until I feel ready to start again. Even maintaining at 160 is a whole lot healthier than doing the yo-yo thing.

It has taken me a LONG time to come to grips with the fact that I use food as both a reward and a comfort. Great day-have a treat! In a bad mood? Have a treat! So basically every day needs a treat. Which is why I have 15 more pounds to lose (kind of surprising it's not more). I have had a hard time coming up with other ways to treat myself or comfort myself. One would think that at age 48 I would have a handle on that, but I do not. Second, it has been hard work to stop seeing exercise as a big chore and instead see it as a stress-buster, time to myself, a way to get stronger and healthier, a way to feel better, a way to stay flexible and prevent future health issues--because when I have a sustained period of regular exercise I do feel much better, mentally and physically, never mind the number on the scale. I have lost some weight but have more to go but more than that, for a woman my age, it's more about being healthy and having good habits for the second half of my life, having strong bones, remaining flexible, being able to be active in my old age, not vanity necessarily. If I think of exercise as a treat I am giving myself, I am more willing to stick to it. Today for example I took a walk around the lagoon at Northwestern University (I live in Evanston, two blocks from NU and Lake Michigan--SO lucky) and I counted literally 12 baby bunnies out and about. So that is a nice treat that isn't food!!!

That you have to do it for yourself and not for anybody else. It really doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. It took me a year or so to lose nearly 40 kg, but 15 years to get to the stage that I could start on the journey. It wasn't that I didn't think there was a problem - there clearly was but I didn't acknowledge it. The journey towards health is never linear and is filled with ups and downs. Just be patient and go with the flow. In the same way that it is not really possible to lose 10 kg in a day, you will not gain it by an odd day of dodgy food choices. Besides, an odd day of dodgy food choices is not a problem, but two or three days a week is. We didn't become overweight overnight and neither will we lose the weight overnight. Relax, sit back, understand your own body and take the long view.

Or something like that with more inspirational quotes and angels blowing trumpets on high.