You Need these Mind-Sets to Maintain Your Weight Loss

Success is wonderful, but remember: Smug goeth before a fall.

Pearl One

I’m hearing from so many of you guys that you’re about to or already have reached your preferred-weight!!

Congratulations and confetti to your success!!

I know, it feels amazing to be at the number you most want to see when you look down at the scale.

In our past this was the moment to party! Chips and margaritas, here I come!

But this is not our present or our future.

Look at it like this: getting to your preferred weight is like the house falling on the Wicked Witch of the East.

Like Dorothy, you’re at the beginning of the yellow brick road.

So, give yourself a high-five or even gift yourself something that will remind you of this day like jewelry or planting a tree in your yard.

Then get back to it like this:

Your part-time job is preserving your loss. It’s important to continue to call it a part-time job because it elevates preserving your loss as one of your top priorities. About ten years into preserving my loss, I started calling the work and mind-sets involved “my hobby.”

Strengthen your smart eating habits. Journal-write about which habits are the strongest and which the wobbliest? What can you do to strengthen your wobbly habits? Be honest with yourself. If you write, “I rarely use my cold-tote. If I’m out doing errands, I’ll stop for a Big Mac and fries. What’s the big deal? I’m at my preferred weight, a Big Mac won’t be the beginning of the end for me.”

Tough love: yes, it will be.

If the cavewoman in you gets French fries one time, you’re starting the downhill toboggin ride. Hope you brought your helmet.

So, make the habit of packing your cold-tote the night before so it’s easy to grab in the morning. (A habit requires 66-days to embed, but only the first two weeks are rough.)

Have a daily talk with yourself. I gave myself a loving, but strict order to never, ever get smug thinking, “I’m on fire. I’ve so got this.”

I said it to myself every single day: don’t be smug (about your amazing weight loss). Reestablishing bad habits is right around the corner for those of us that succumbs to being smug.

Stay committed to your eating plan. For years after I reached my weight-window, I continued to live on my eating plan; I continued asking my husband to hide food so that it wasn’t staring at me, I always ate before I ate and so on. And I discovered the age-old eating plan of breakfast like a king, lunch like a princess and . I was sold. Ate ever since.

I’m on my eighteenth-year of preserving my original loss. But I remember the first year of preserving I colored within the lines. (Not to be annoying, but I helicoptered my eating for a solid ten years where I might have a bite of donut, but never went beyond that.)

My thought is that there are stages to preserving our loss. And together we’ll figure out what those stages are!

So please email me Wendy@theInspiredEater.com or leave a comment below. I’d love to hear how many months or years you’ve been preserving. What didn’t help? What did help? How quickly did you adopt the habits? Do you have a favorite?

Keep daily notes on living on the Smart Eating Lifestyle, because one day somebody will say to you, “what are you doing to maintain for so long?”

And by sharing the ins and outs of smart eating, you’re illuminating a very dark path for someone else. ♥

Pearl Two

I’m turning the big 6-0 soonish so I’m using Pearl Two as an example of sequencing in my own life.

Default Sequence:

• Sequence: I was born in July, 1964.
• Thought: a huge part of my life is over. My dad is gone, my Mom has Alzheimer’s and my sister sold our family home.
• Feeling: Very down, very blue.
• Action: I get a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes and I can’t see my laptop’s screen anymore.
• Result: I eat sherbet if we have any. (Two big bowls.)

Responsive Sequence

• Sequence: I was born in July, 1964.
• Thought: Turning 60 is great given my blog’s topic. Now I can say that women over 60 absolutely can lose weight and maintain the loss. For a lifetime.
• Feeling: happy, enthusiastic
• Action: I recommit to this blog, the Inspired Eater.
• Results: A better, more in-depth blog for you, the thriving reader. 🙂

I didn’t use a “bridge” sequence because having done them forever, can usually switch from old to new fairly quickly, but I’ve written sequences for years. ♥

Pearl Three

In March I’m keeping pearl three for something fun that I want to share

The hearing aides came in the mail!! I’m wearing them now to see how well they work. I’m not sure how many feet the aides extend in helping to hear, but they’re wonderful for conversation and hearing the TV. And – you might want to sit down – they cost $349 total. The landscape of hearing aids costing your first born are over!! The company: Ceretone. ♥

Pearl Four

In pearl four, I’m not reviewing books, I’m recommending reads that I’ve read and loved. We all need the power of a great book to counteract the lure of nighttime eating.

“Masterpiece . . . Such masterful strokes seem to qualify Small World as the quintessential great American novel, as Evison eloquently shows that perhaps the most authentically American ideal is the ongoing, blended palette of stories.”—Booklist (starred review).

I literally had to leave this book downstairs so that I wouldn’t stay up so late reading.

One way I rate whether a particular book can be called a “book- dessert” is whether I get pulled into the story fast enough. This book had a slowish start, but by chapter two I was loving every minute of it and I stayed up reading this one late into the night totally messing up my sleep schedule.

It has multiple story-lines with one theme being wanting to escape a certain situation. Super great.

Authors who can write like this author just seem like aliens to me.

Small World: A Novel by Jonathan Evision. ♥

Pearl Five

You must have a level of discontent to feel the urge to want to grow.”
― Idowu Koyenikan ♥

If you’ve liked this post, I would love it if you’d share it with fifty of your closest friends. Word of mouth is the best way to grow and and thank you!

♥, Wendy

P.S. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

I am not an expert, a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. ♥