If you have clicked on this blog to read it, then that means that you have probably recently lost some weight. Let me start off by saying congratulations! Any amount of weight lost through hard work and dedication is a cause for celebration, whether you have lost ten pounds or one hundred pounds, you were committed enough to see it through! The thing is, what happens when you reach your goal weight and have to stop the dieting that you were used to? Some people can’t cope with this next stage, and unfortunately a lot of weight gets put back on, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Here are eight ways to maintain your weight loss!
Once you have reached your initial goals, you need to adjust them in order to maintain rather than continue losing. If you are someone who is motivated by targets, then do the same kind of calorie counting, but such that will prevent you from gaining weight, not restricting enough for you to lose.
Pick things to keep you active that you actually love doing, rather than things that you consider to be hard slogs. You might have done a lot of running and cardio when in your weight loss period, but when you are just working to maintain, you could scale this back in the form of more fun local sports teams or dance classes.
Once you are at your desired weight, the trick is to just reset your life and live it in the back to basics kind of way, which involves no regular indulgence and just being very aware of what you are putting in to your body without necessarily dieting.
It is important to be aware of all of the things in your life that could tempt you back to your old ways because when you know what they are, you can work to avoid them. Going to certain restaurants might be off limits, limiting yourself to only two drinks on a night out because you know if you have more than that you will be bingeing junk foods later on. Stuff like that.
Don’t get to your goal weight and then just forget that you ever worked hard to achieve it. You need to be regularly auditing your behaviour post weight loss to make sure that you aren’t falling back into the same old habits that caused the weight gain in the first place.
It is important to surround yourself with people who are going to be active and supportive in helping you to maintain, rather than people who are always going to be trying to tempt you back to the dark side!
You need to understand that your weight loss wasn’t a temporary mission, it was a complete lifestyle overhaul. You need to continue to live healthy because reverting back to your old ways is never going to go well.
It’s a good idea to stay connected to weight loss communities and forums online so that you can continue to find inspiration and support from others. It’s always better to do things in a group!