When you are relosing for the 3rd time in close succession

When I started this 5 years ago, I was all fanfare. I was going to do this. I was going to mark this. I was going to come clean with everything.

I knew I would stumble. I knew this would be a forever battle for me, but I truly didn't think I would completely fall apart - twice. I'm not "doing this" differently from before. I know what works for me. HOW I lost weight was not the reason I gained it back. Other factors came into play.

I'm now pretty convinced that HOW you lose weight doesn't really say anything about long term success (as I've been on boards where people have done it 50,000,000 different ways and their success rates are about equally the same). Only thing that REALLY matters is sticking with a plan once you get to goal. (Though a caveat to every plan can work for weight loss is that some plans are easier to stick to forever than others, but what works for me and what works for you can be very different!) You will only maintain losses if you adapt your lifestyle forever. I know I can eat a low carb diet forever. I just have to fix my head to WANT to stay on a low carb diet during dark months where I've been using it as a drug to get through the months I just want to SLEEP.

Other people don't need to change carb count, just overall calorie monitoring. Some people's natural eating was fine, but if they just through in a bit of activity daily, they can keep the weight down. Bottom line is, all of us who have weight issues which is often also food issues, have different tricks that work. But if you don't follow what you know works, don't expect to remain successful in keeping off the weight.

I wish I could eat intuitively, but if I could, I wouldn't have ever had a weight problem. Obviously, I need some tools to help me where my head cannot.

And for this journey, at least for now, I'm just going to track weight lost. I don't want to be fixed on a goal number. I just want to feel healthy and be healthy. "I" am not healthy at this weight. My BP is high - that alone is enough to work this downward. For now, everything else is fine, but for how long?

So... I keep chugging along - whittling downward.

Restart 5/18/15
Down: 7.6 pounds