Keeping the same weight sounds really easy compared to trying to lose weight. You just do what you did so far and it should be no problem, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Research shows that maintaining cycling weight might be even harder than dropping it. That might be because what makes you good at losing weight doesn’t always make you good at keeping it off.
The rules change post weight loss
Let’s say you followed a strict diet plan, tracked food intake, avoided doughnuts, and weighed yourself regularly. All with one goal in mind – reaching that optimal weight. These are very effective techniques that help with weight loss. But now that you reached your ideal weight, you don’t have a clear goal anymore and you probably don’t want to live with these restrictions for the rest of your life. The weight management rules change again.
Adjust the skills you have
To successfully lose weight, you had to develop many skills. You know how to create new nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle habits. You know how to prevent binge eating. You know how to stick to a plan. You did all of this while living in the real world full of stress, distractions, and super attractive foods. This should give you confidence that you can do this. It will take time to learn a new set of habits but these will serve you for a long time.
Three key changes
In the rest of this series, we will go over three main skills you developed through weight loss. We will show you how to adjust them so they keep serving you well for the weight maintenance phase too.
The first one is diet flexibility. You worked really hard at saying no to food to prevent overeating and stay in a deficit. Now that you are at your optimal weight, you need to learn how to find a balance between being too restricted and out of control.
The second one is lifestyle sustainability. You created a lot of new habits, maybe you started working out in a gym to burn more calories. Now it’s time to take a new look at your lifestyle and see how to make it enjoyable in the long term.
The third one is motivation. Having a clear number you want to see on a scale is a powerful motivator. Now that you don’t have that anymore, you have to take a close look at your deep motivation. Knowing why you’re doing all of this is essential.
