Reply to Met first goal weight, go for stretch goal or stop?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is nothing wrong with maintaining your current weight loss. I always struggle with maintenance because it feels like I don't have to be super diligent and then the weight can creep back. I hit my goal weight, lost 20 pounds, and am taking some time to simply maintain. I started weighing myself once a week, now once every 2 weeks. I had a period, Thanksgiving through Christmas, where I put back on 5 pounds. I knew part of it was the season and cookies and pie. I dropped that 5 pounds and am back on maintaining right now.

I want to work on eating healthy with moderation of snacks and the like. Once I am comfortable that I have done a better job with the maintenance, I will work on losing the next 5-10 pounds.

I am at the top of the healthy category for my height and weight. I would like to get closer to the center of that category. I also know that if I go too quickly and don't give myself time to adjust to my new normal, I am likely to see my weight go back up.

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My BMI is 26, I only have to lose 6 pounds to be sub 25 actually.  I kind of want to just DO IT.  I want to be a good role model for my daughters.  Maybe I will maintain for a while because that is the hardest part...[/quote]

Being a good role model to your daughters is about so much more than weight, or pushing yourself to diet more. Being focused on a number or specific BMI (when we know there are a lot of flaws in that) I don't think is a goal to strive for in terms of being a good role model. I would instead focus on the other pieces you talked about - being happy with your body or even better thinking about it a lot less. That was a huge shift for me - not that I need my goal to be "wow i love my body!!! My body is amazing!!" all the time, but that I actually just don't need to spend so much brain energy on it. That was real success. When I got to the point that my body was my body and I feed it and move it and listen to it. To me, that is really role modeling something to your daughters. They will get plenty of messages and pressure elsewhere that they need to change their body to be a certain shape or size, they don't need to learn that from you.

I would try to focus on listening to your body, stopping when you are full, thinking less about it's size/shape, and the specific number on the scale since you've gotten to a weight you feel good about and the previous weight was hard to maintain. Usually when a weight is hard to maintain our body will push us back from that on it's own, so it's just not really meant to be where you are and is not worth (or healthy) to continue that struggle. Try to also start challenging some of your ideas of health - help your daughters learn that health is about behaviors, not just the shape of your body. It's about enjoying food, but being able to listen when your body says to stop, it's about moving your body regularly. [/quote]

First of all, thank you so much for your thoughtful response.  You are SO right.  Being a role model is not focusing on the scale, but being confident and happy and eating well.  I am going to try to focus on that.  My waist to hip ratio is .7 and that's something to be grateful for.  I will try to give myself a break and accept that I am maintaining and not dieting.  it will feel good to not "be on a diet" like I have been since I gained weight with my first 4+ years ago.[/quote]

Of course pp, glad it was helpful. I worked with a wonderful dietician who helped me shift my mindset a little on those things and it was incredibly helpful. One of the other things she used to say that I try to remind myself is that it is absolutely normal for our body to change over our lifetime, in fact it would be abnormal if it didn't. Having babies, growing older, our bodies are meant to change and shift. We don't necessarily want to teach our kids that our goal is for our body to be the same throughout the life course. We want to teach them how to care for it, in a kind way. I would try to let go of the pre-pregnancy number (I think that was it) if you can since the numbers can get us focused on the wrong things - often things that aren't even healthy like restricting too much. Anyway, there's also some interesting research I learned about on the impacts of weight talk and dieting in front of our kids and how it can often backfire. I had no idea and would have thought I was showing my kid how to be healthy, but it's just not supported in leading to healthy kids. Here is one article on it, might feel a little extreme but once you start reading about this stuff it's really fascinating and you realize how it really is everywhere: https://more-love.org/2020/08/18/parents-dont-talk-about-weight-and-dieting-with-your-kids/ [/quote]

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