Compliments and Motivation - What happens when you hit your goal?

Servus19 · March 2019

Maintenance is the best. Sure, the compliments drop off but then again...I am the one everyone references when they need to get in to shape.

Seriously....

I give a quiet thanks every-time I squat down to do something and my knees easily touch my collar bone.
When I need a pair of pants and just walk in and grab my size.
When the doc logs my wonderfully low bp and cholesterol and my long resolved prediabetes is not even on the charts anymore.
When I bounce out of bed in the morning feeling full of life.
When my adult kids visit and want me to go hiking with them. I don't slow anyone down, LOL
When my friends saw my change and eventually asked me to share how I did it. I teach cooking classes as a side gig today. Its a tremendous compliment.

I can still run. I feel light..my knees would never have lasted this long if my weight had continued and running would have been impossible. So would have cycling and a dozen other things I picked up over the years :-)

And on the other side, I watch my weight and it does not go more than 10lbs up, and that is rare.

It happens and again, I feel intense gratitude...it is ONLY 5 lbs, this is short term not a 2 yr saga.

I'm in my 50's now and I've maintained for decades. I believe my life change and weight loss have given me a slower life...I am physically younger than my years. I have no age related health problems. For my early efforts my life was reborn and I have done amazing things I never would have accomplished if I had not looked in the mirror one day and refused to do down that road I saw before me.

Maintenance is wonderful. Still is all of these years later.

seltzermint555 · March 2019

LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »

Yes the compliments stop but I enjoy being slim/healthy/fit for me and noone else - I still love that I get pleasure when I wear a new outfit because I look so darned good in it that's all the motivation I need to maintain (in year 6 of maintenance)

Definitely feel this way too. It's mostly for me and how I feel about myself and how I look in my clothes. I have been maintaining a huge loss for about 5 years now and every time I slide a little bit and gain 4-6 lb, I start seeing bulges where I don't want them and it's enough to get me right back on track.

Also agree with BattyKnitter, I much prefer comments on what I can do or how I'm particularly fast/graceful over "you've lost a lot of weight" type comments. Probably my favorite compliment is someone saying I look athletic, like an old friend who said it was obvious I work out a lot (I honestly don't but I am active) and several random people have told me that I look like I played basketball at my alma mater. I LOVE that compliment the most but it cracks me up inwardly, because in college I was close to 300 lb and very sedentary.

sgt1372 · March 2019

Even when the demands and rewards were external, I have always been internally motivated.

That is, I have always done things for my own satisfaction and the achievement of those things was its own reward. This way of thinking motivated my loss of 40# and maintaing that loss over the past 2 yrs.

I think that is the best way to do it; at least it was for me.

Compliments and Motivation - What happens when you hit your goal?

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