Field/ground shift, for those who are not familiar with the phrase, refers to the change in perception that occurs when you are looking at the picture of the vase-no-it's-a-face-no-it's-a-vase, or the horse/beautiful woman, etc. Just a flutter of the eyelids and then you see the thing that was not visible before but now you can't unsee it.

Two things, first: signing on here today made me remember all the years I lurked around the pre-maintenance/maintenance forum with my nose pressed up against the window. How wonderful and amazing to walk in the front door, and yell, "Hi, I'm home, where is everybody?"

Second, I've been wanting to come on here and ask this question of those of you who have shifted a massive (you decide what constitutes massive) amount of weight to get here, and are in maintenance mode now. All and everyone welcome to pitch in on this thread and share their thoughts on this issue, btw. But my question for the people who have been living for at least a bit at their goal weight:
Is there anything for which you would give this up? Say, any amount of money, any material thing that you would take if it it meant having to go back to the way you were before and the struggle that entailed?

For me, I cannot think of anything that would persuade me to give this up, unless in some unlikely scenario the health or well-being of others was somehow concerned. And I can't go there for this mind-game, so I won't.
I expect that most people I've seen around here would feel the same way--not for a million dollars would I go back to living that way again.

Yet for those of us that slip and fall and keep on falling--and most of us have had those falls on the long road to here, at some point in the journey--it didn't take a million dollars. It started with a little too much cheese and then some corn chips because that's not wheat, right?, and then some extra thises and thats and dark chocolate because that's good for you, right?, and then one day it's a bowl of ice cream and we crash and burn and go face down in the food.

Only that was then and this is now.

But thinking about this gave me pause. It's like the very old and very sexist and very not-funny joke:
"Would you have sex with me for a million dollars?"
"Why, sir, I am flattered . . . "
"Would you do it for ten dollars?"
"What do you take me for?"
"We've already established that, now we're just haggling about the price."

Well, this is kind of a backwards version of the same thing. If we are NOT willing to give up living like this for a million dollars, why would we be willing to do it for some extra cheese, some corn chips, and a bowl of ice cream?
At least hold out for the million dollars . . .