Good thing that I've finished the challenge...bounced horribly back up the next day.
I'm not that worried as my cruising weight is higher but I would like to stay in the 67's for a while.
Reflections...
I've learnt a lot of new things on this challenge.
First thing I have discovered is that I overly depended on exercise to achieve goal largely ignoring my other great lever - food intake.
I think that there is a great confidence in your own ability to sweat the results out that you get too slack with your food. In my original weight loss journey I was very strict about the amount of food I consumed particularly at the beginning. While I had mountains of fat to remove and little aerobic fitness to back me; food reduction was my main tool in losing weight. As fitness kicked in, my snacking and portion size increased and perversely my weight loss rate decreased. I was feeding my fitness and losing sight of the goal.
This underscores in my thinking the need to stay faithful to the maintenance pathway. If this is my psychological thinking now then if I fall of the bandwagon I could find myself in trouble. Exercise alone isn't going to remove huge amounts of weight. Weight loss success needs discipline in portion control or it will not work. The two levers must be used together. If I was to do this challenge again - I would really need to look at this aspect of my game and step up on it. Success could have been so much quicker.
I gained insight in what happened in the pointy end of my weight loss journey. My success at reaching goal was largely due to my strategy of finally getting to the place where I went all out for it. Like Hillary with Everest or the early Arctic explorers. Build a series of camps close to the goal - and then go for broke for the summit or pole. "The final push" so to speak. In this challenge I found that I had to deploy this mode to succeed.
I also found the urgency of the goal was reduced. When I started my journey into weight loss it literally was a life or death issue. But with success, your health gets better and you feel so much more alive and so you put on the back burner the need to get to goal quickly. In this challenge I found that motivation to achieve it was greatly reduced. Been there, bought the shirt...so what is the big deal? In the end what got me over the line was integrity (some may call it pride). I talked the talk - I have to back it up with the walk. It probably was also the thing that originally got me over the line in the first place. So many people telling me I didn't need to lose any more weight. Also the realisation that I had set the goal too low because I didn't take into account the loose skin weight...and that my sitting weight should be higher played on my mind. But what drove me not to stop but to actually achieve the number I had set was the profound thought that anything less than goal would be a comprise I what I had stated I was going to do. My integrity (to myself primarily) would be in question.
On the positive side I learnt that indeed I could get to goal again.
That it wasn't just a one off fluke or a chance event.
That I had the skills and integrity of character to follow through on my words.
That I could comfortably sit in the 67's without too much effort.
Overall it has been a rewarding experience.
It also has made me appreciate just how much easier maintenance is to losing weight.
Kim