Zen and the Art of Training Maintenance

When I walked into restorative yoga today, one of the teachers, who was working at the desk asked me if I had lost weight. She said like a lot of weight since I started coming there. She said she noticed today when I was coming in from the parking lot that it looked like I was disappearing.

I said, actually, no, not since I've been coming here. That I've been about the same since March, but I've lost quite a bit over the last almost two years.

While that is the truth, I think that maybe i have found myself in this new weight in the last several months. I wear clothes that fit better. I walk more confidently that this is who I am. I am not a fat person trying to find the thin person inside of me anymore. I've found her again.

But she's a different thin person than the one that existed so long ago. I'm not trying to be who I was. I'm trying to be who I am.

When I first thought about maintenance and goals and losing weight, I thought maintaining would be the hardest part. But because of the way I've approached things, it's turning out to be a very rewarding part.

For whatever reason, my goals have been very fluid and really process oriented rather than results oriented, especially after starting to train.

My "resolution" at the start of the New Year of 2017 was to live in the present. That led to cleaning out closets and clutter and then losing weight with just starting to address food issues. Training, if you've read any of my blog, came as a complete surprise, divine intervention from the universe, and addressed pain and more food and life issues.

I never worried about how long things were taking or a number of pounds or things like that. When I hit March of this year I just kind of stalled on the scale, but kept living.

Even so, I changed sizes and I feel like I changed my body and a lot of things in the time since March where I'm happy with where I am. I'm not afraid of gaining weight. I like how my clothes fit. I feel good about myself. I enjoy my active lifestyle.

I can't imagine wanting to pig out or stop exercising. Things have changed so gradually and deeply that they are easy to maintain. They are routine. They are what i want to return to. They are what I crave.

I didn't do it for anyone else. I didn't do it to reach a goal and now I'm lost because I don't have anything to work for. I'm the goal. I'm working for me. My goal is still to live in the present. It's a goal I can never reach yet I can always reach. I love being Zen and crunchy!