Being a Lifetime Member - 3 years at goal and many more to come!

First, I am sorry that's it's been a couple weeks since I've put up a new blog! Sadly, I have just been extremely busy and no creative energy whatsoever to think of what to post!

As most of you that know me know, I am coming up to my 3 years of being a Lifetime member! The official date is Wednesday, April 15th. To me, I celebrate every MONTH that I am at goal and don't have to pay. Why? Because I know that people can lose the weight, but maintaining it is definitely a challenge. Don't get me wrong, I will be the last to tell you it's been easy - because it is something that is still a challenge - just a different one.

When I first reached Lifetime in April 2006, I was on top of the world! I had done it - after 3 and a half years of being a WW member I had finally reached the ultimate goal I had been working so long towards. The first couple of months were good, as I still had that motivation of being a new LT member to keep me where I wanted to be. After a couple of months, I realized I was starting to slip.

One of the biggest things I have learned over the years is that what got me to goal is what is going to keep me at goal. Like I said in my introduction post below, you are not "cured' and okay to go back to the way you were before just because you're at goal. You still have to try hard, if not harder to keep yourself there.

I got a little laid back with a lot of stuff, and one of the biggest things was tracking. I thought "well, I have been doing this long enough and now that I'm maintaining, I'll just pay attention to stuff and not track it". Umm, folks - that technique didn't work for me. I slowly found myself slipping back into old habits - grabbing food when I didn't need to, thinking "oh, just one won't hurt" and realized at that point - enough is enough.

Tracking, staying positive and sticking to the program got me to where I am now and it's going to keep me here for the rest of my life. I won't lie, I don't weigh and measure everything I eat these days...since I feel pretty confident in knowing that I am making the right portion choices and always round up if I am unsure. I have also realized that now I am maintaining, one of the biggest things that has helped me is Taking Care of Myself (one of the 8 WW helpful habits).

When I was losing my weight, sure - I took care of myself but once I got to LT and everything my life was completely different than when I started. I have a boyfriend now, and a stepson who lives with us. Things are a LOT different than the days of me living with my parents. I found myself starting to get so wrapped up in making sure they were taken care of, etc. etc. that I forgot the most important person - ME. Sure, some may say that sounds like a selfish statement but it really is the truth. If you're not happy, then that is going to reflect on others around you and life will not be as good as it can be. It has a definite affect on how you manage everything - food, weight, life in general. If you have a negative outlook on things, you will have negative results and this will be a lot harder than it needs to be. Staying positive is going to keep you going a lot more and you will feel more likely to stick with this and succeed for the rest of your life.

Now that I have finished this post, I am realizing that it may not make sense or kind of be all over the place - but I just felt I needed to post it. And before I leave, I wanted to share this since I absolutely LOVE the new weight tracker with the e-tools! This is a graph of my weight loss journey from when I joined WW until this past Saturday. As you can see it wasn't all "rainbows & lollipops" and superstar losses - but that's fine by me. :)