Weight loss and weight maintenance may seem similar, but they require different strategies due to how the body and mind adapt to changes over time. If the same strategies that worked for weight loss are no longer effective for maintaining weight, several factors could be at play:
Compared to losing weight, staying the same weight sounds like it should be easy.
“Just don’t go back to what you were doing before!” Simple, right? Yet it often doesn’t feel that way. In fact, maintaining your progress might be even harder than dropping those pounds in the first place.
That’s because… What makes you good at losing weight doesn’t necessarily make you good at keeping it off.
Post-weight loss, people often find themselves wondering:
- ‘Can I really keep saying “no” to ice cream forever?’
- ‘What’s my goal now that… I don’t have a goal?’
- ‘If I’m not trying to lose weight, but I can’t go back to my old habits, what am I supposed to do?’
Reaching your weight loss goal means you’ve mastered a set of skills. That’s right, “skills.” Essentially, you’ve built a better health resume of consistent practices and experience. For example, you’ve likely learned how to:
- Maintain your boundaries and avoid foods and situations that don’t align with your goals.
- Create new nutrition, exercise, and/or lifestyle habits.
- Stay with the discomfort of doing things differently.
- Consistently stick to your plan (whether it’s restrictive, super flexible, or somewhere in between).
But once you’ve reached your goal, the game changes. You may feel like you don’t know HOW to maintain your new progress. Maybe you don’t know how to live your life without “being on a diet.” (Or you may have to face whatever “being on a diet” helped you avoid in your life.) You may feel afraid that you’ll have to:
- follow a rigid meal plan
- follow a rigid meal plan
- weight yourself every day
Weight maintenance means adjusting your mindset—and your hard-earned skills—accordingly.
3 ways to evolve your skills for weight maintenance.
Skill 1: Shift from a place of “no” to “sometimes yes”
Saying no to every unplanned treat? Sure, you can do it for a short period of time. In the long-term, though, saying “no” too often feeds into something we refer to as the challenge cycle (a.k.a. yo-yo dieting)
Skill 2: Reframe your habits
By the time many people reach their weight loss goal, they find themselves getting restless. They know how to stick to their food and exercise habits, but it’s just not exciting, challenging, or interesting anymore. The result: They start to let their healthy habits slide. Here’s where a little reframing can make a world of difference.
Skill 3: Use your deep reason for motivation
Pursuing the status quo can feel… anticlimactic. On New Year’s Day, most people don’t say, “Hey, I think I’ll shoot for no improvement in my life this year!” That’s how maintenance can feel, especially if you’ve made tremendous progress with weight loss. The result: People who’ve gotten used to having a clear goal in sight might feel lost, confused, or even a little discouraged. Whether we’re talking about food choices or workout habits, reminding yourself that your goal is to stay exactly the same isn’t very motivating.
Together, these 3 skills help you build self-trust. Developing trust in yourself is a life-long pursuit. It takes some time to develop, and no single experiment or practice can necessarily “get you there.” Self-trust is the ultimate weight maintenance skill.