Losing Weight vs. Maintaining Weight Loss

I was really good over the last week and am thrilled to say that I have gotten rid of all those Thanksgiving pounds and am safely back within the lower half of the maintenance range I set for myself months ago. Whereas my range is 125 to 135, I feel more comfortable within the lower half of that range...I guess because I feel that it gives me more of a cushion to fluctuate without going out of it. I have now been officially "maintaning" my weight loss for 6 months and it feels great. I have always heard that losing is hard work but the real test comes with keeping the weight off. I can so easily see how that could be the case. Once you achieve your goal, you feel like you can finally relax and splurge more often on the foods that you tried to stay away from during your weight loss journey. I can definitely see that I have a bit of a different mindset now than I did while actively trying to reach my goal. Back then if I had dessert at a restaurant, it was only the smallest piece, more often I would concentrate on fresh fruit as my dessert. I don't know if I ate more than 4 or 5 chips during my entire 18 month losing process, but now I feel more comfy to partake of a serving with dip at a cookout. And don't get me wrong, I love being able to have that different mindset now and to be able to relax a little bit, but I can see where the same thing could get a person in trouble if they are not careful. I have mentioned before that I am a scale junkie and weigh every single day, truth be known, I weigh more than once each day (I know, I know...but its just me). Where this behavior could sabatoge some people, it helps keep me on track. After Thanksgiving when the scale wasn't so nice to me, I didn't beat myself up over the fact. I just thought, yep, enjoyed the goodies for Thanksgiving and now its time to get back on target. So for the last week I tried to watch closely what I ate and track all of my calories and go to the gym as I was supposed to, even when I didn't WANT to. My thanks is that here I am back to my desired weight and I was able to splurge for the holiday and not worry about calories. 6 months into weight maintenance I see that this will easily be something that I can live the rest of my life doing. You simply HAVE to have that accountability to yourself and realize if you splurge and gain a couple of pounds or so, you are going to work extra hard and eat extra well in order to return to the desired weight. When I lost weight years ago before my life fell apart after the hurricane, my problems started when I no longer had a scale and I couldn't weigh and physically SEE that number, physically SEE that I was gaining weight. Of course as clothes got tighter and I had to buy larger ones I KNEW I was gaining, but because I didn't have to really see the "number", I was in denial. If I'd been forced to put a number to my enlarging size, I don't think I would have gained as much weight back as I did (try ALL of it) and had to start back from scratch. This time around, maintenance is all about the motto: Enjoy the occasional splurge (be that one meal or a couple of days or even an entire vacation) but understand that you have to immediately get back on track when its over and lose any weight that you gained. So far its working!