Guest Post by Amie at Running on Healthy

I love, love, love Amie over at Running on Healthy.  I have really enjoyed reading her blog over the past few months relating to her moving toward maintenance. I appreciate her honesty and admitting it's not easy so I asked her to write about it here. Check out what she had to say below.

“Fears over tomorrow and regrets over yesterday are twin thieves that rob us of the moment.” ~Anonymous

Hi! My name is Amie, and I am the woman behind the blog over at running-on-healthy.com. Anna and I decided it would be fun to do guest post’s on each others blogs, so here I am! I absolutely jumped at the offer to be on DFFA, I think Anna’s writing is witty, honest, and completely intuitive and I find I relate to so many of her posts.

Today I am going to discuss my maintenance journey, but first, a quick background.

I began my weight loss journey in February of 2010, and started my blog shortly after in March. My weight loss was very slow, and very difficult. I became a Vegetarian in November 2010, and a Runner in February 2011. I ran my first official run in May 2011. I stopped losing weight in June, and ran a half marathon in September.

Since June, I have maintained my weight between 121-125lb, which is my goal range. A loss of 70ish pounds, as my highest recorded weight was 191lb.

Something that I didn’t expect happened when I decided I was done with my weight loss. I was gripped by a constant fear of failure. I had just accomplished all of my goals in regards to fitness and weight loss. I achieved everything I set out to do. So now what?

You hear about all of the failures. The people who lose the weight, can’t maintain, and gain it all back. Was I going to become a part of this statistic? Could I really keep this up for the rest of my life? Wait a minute... if feels like just yesterday I was a fat girl, with zero confidence. Where did this body come from? How did this happen so fast?

It felt like my brain had not fully processed that I had lost the weight. Yes. I saw the scale drop. Yes. I went from a size 14 to a size 2. But there were times (and there definitely still are) when I would look in the mirror and be horrified by how large I was.

Since June, the negative personal image and fear of failure have both decreased, although they are not completely gone, nor do I ever think they will be.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that your journey never really ends. There isn’t a day that will ever come in my life where I will feel completely free of my weight struggles, and I think that only people who struggle with their weight will have to deal with this.

Yes, I have achieved enormous success, but I still learn something new every day about my body, my habits, and my search for a healthy life.

It is important to recognize our imperfections. It is equally important to embrace them. Wherever you are in your journey, identify what positive changes you have made in your life, and congratulate yourself on taking the steps to be a healthier you.

If you are close to your goals, if you are far away from your goals, if you are somewhere in between, take a week or two to practice maintenance. Weight loss and weight gain do not appear over night, and being able to understand how your body maintains weight is just as important as understanding calories in vs calories out, weight gain vs weight loss, and happiness and acceptance vs perfection.