Calling armchair psychologists... it's all mental. :)

I'm like you in that once I lose those stubborn 2 or 3 lb, I find that I start "snacking" more (i.e. cheating more) And then I'm so shocked that t he 3 lb comes back on, and sometimes brings friends. This new round of motivation, I have decided to focus on how my clothes fit. The scale goes up and down, but I'm feeling my clothes fit better. I also started setting a goal of how many calories I want to burn this week and challenge myself.

Why we self-sabotage on the weight thing, I have no idea. But I agree about feeling better after reaching a fitness goal. For the weight loss/diet thing, I pick one thing a week that I'm going to work on avoiding (i.e. a certain cookie or snack in the kids' snack box). That way I'm not depriving myself all at once. Once I've achieved that, then I move onto another food/drink item. Three weeks now, and so far so good.

I didn't answer your question at all. Just wanted you to know you are not in the boat alone. We'll paddle/drift together

I'm not a psychiatrist but I did sleep at a Holiday inn Express last night!

ok seriously though, I may have some (admittedly amateur) answers for you.

So goals are a funny thing, they're a mental endpoint we attach (in this case) to physical outcomes. Inherent to this type of activity is the attachment of any feelings that directly or indirectly associate with these outcomes. For most people trying to lose weight, there's been those feelings of inadequacy that have attached to their self image and to their eating habits for a very long time. Any goals reached through this means has a minimalization attached to it because of the self-esteem issues we associate with our weight. In other words, even though we reach the goal we set out for, our subconscious minds won't let us feel good about it, because we still feel that we are "fat" or "ugly" to some degree, our minds won't let go of our old self image. It takes a long time to get to that point. I'm not saying it's this way for everyone, but to a degree, I'd be willing to bet 80 to 90% of the people on here have some kind of a self esteem problem (or have in the past).

With exercise it's different. First the goal is not really a mental goal at all (besides getting over the idea that you CAN actually reach it, which is just straight up self-doubt, nothing more, nothing less). When we do actually reach a goal like running a certain distance, or a certain time...etc. Then there is no haze involved., there's a specific, solid endpoint that we reach. Further more, when we reach this goal, there's really no subconscious aspect to it (as all the subconscious doubts have already been either allayed or suppressed by actually reaching the goal). When you run that 5K, you ran it. That's it, there's no (or in extremely small percentage at least) guilt attached to exercise, nobody looked at you while you were running as a child and said, boy do you run funny. You never watched yourself running on video and said, boy do I look stupid, there's no stigma attached to running about being less than ideal (like there is about being overweight or unattractive). So these goals are freeing, they have no negative emotion attached to them, so for that brief moment when you reach the goal, you feel completely happy about reaching it. This is important, repeatable, and solid, something you can tell others with pride, and no underlying guilt.

I feel that exercise goals, and fitness goals are far more healthy than weight loss goals. For one thing there aren't a litany of weird theories out there floating around exercise (as there are about diet and weight loss), something either works (as evidenced by your increased fitness level in that particular area) or it doesn't. This isn't to say weight loss goals aren't important, or that dealing with the emotions affecting your weight aren't absolutely vital to your long term health, they are, but in my mind, diet is the 18 wheeler you take to get across country (I.E. taking the main load of your health change) but exercise is the Ferrari that everyone should focus on once they're near the goal to reach true success. Why? Because diet can make you thin, and keep your body running basically healthy, but exercise can transform you from being just healthy, to being a physical specimen.

Everyone likes to think they judge people on their attitude, and that's commendable, but that's not completely true about when we judge ourselves. Everyone, to one degree or another, judges them self on their looks, every time you look in the mirror you make a mental judgment on how well you look, coming to terms with your health is great, but you can't completely control your subconscious. Lets face it, you can't lie to yourself, reaching exercise goals boosts self esteem, raises confidence levels, allows you to do things and say things in other parts of your life that you wouldn't be able to if you didn't have that confidence.

And THAT'S why I think exercise goals are so great.

just my humble, and very amateur, opinion, I hope this helps

-Banks