Maintenance with Judy, Sun. 12/31 -- Sat. 01/06

What I did this week: Although I haven't been tracking since before Christmas, I did keep in mind my portion sizes and kept weighing and measuring, I did the shopping for the right foods in the house and kept the trigger foods out of the house, I also kept up with my online support groups. I am grateful that my husband is over the flu and bronchitis, and I'm on the mend from bronchitis.

susan092907, Sorry to hear about your foot injury. Hope it gets better soon.

Happy New Year!

I have two goals this week. One is to track what I know I will eat that day each morning before I eat lunch, the second one is to do my counter-top pushups by 5 p.m. each day. My me-time is my computer, reading, and exercise time.

My plan is to continue to eat healthfully, per hunger and satiation, and to continue to journal about this. I'll also exercise as much as I'm able to.

bbbearsmom, I try to pre track my day in the morning too, and sometimes I do it the night before if I know for example that the next day's dinner will be left overs of the same dinner. Even if I don't know exactly what I'll be eating all day in the morning, I sometimes try to track something that I know will likely work, and then I change it up as necessary as I go along through the day. At least, I do all this when I'm in a good mindset and not too aggrieved about the necessity of tracking.

Wednesday, 01/03
What do you do to motivate yourself?

I remember the first motivator that got me back on program this time around and kept me working hard to get to goal and then maintain without too much difficulty for several years initially. It was a photo of myself that horrified me by how I looked. By now, over 14 years later, I've gotten comfortable enough to believe that I won't look like that again. But I have had maintenance setbacks and some slow weight gain. I now have to work at recalling that photo, and I need additional motivators too. I have a list of all the advantages I have to keep to my weight goal, and I think of those. And more recently, a potential medical issue has been a most important motivating factor. Until now, my most motivating factors were vanity related.