Maintaining a weight loss is multifaceted. You know I lost 110lbs and I've been keeping it off now for six years. Here's what I have learned about it.
It's so much like losing weight that it is hard to separate maintenance thoughts and weight loss mode thoughts.
When you are keeping your weight off you aren't doing much different than what you did when you lost weight. For most of us the exercise SHOULD stay the same. You might get an extra day off, be able to shave off a few minutes each day, but you still have to lift your weights, do your cardio conditioning, and stretch. Just because you aren't losing weight doesn't mean you can let your heart and muscles go to crap.
Same goes for food. All that food that made you fat ain't suddenly healthy or in play. It will still make you FAT! You eat the same but just a smidge more of it. And I mean a smidge. You diet and you are sort of hungry and you maintain and you go to slightly hungry before it's time to eat.
See I think those of us with current or past weight issues don't "get" the idea that the "skinny" people just don't think about food like we do. They eat when they need to eat and they wait til they are hungry. Then they eat til they ain't hungry; not loaded like a gun ready to blow. Novel concept.
This is what makes it SEEM like they can eat what they want. THEY can because when WE aren't with them they aren't eating and thinking about food 24/7 like we are.
I actually blogged about this some in 2009. Thanks to Dawn W for sending this to me, BTW.
If you are maintaining your weight then you are eating and exercising like it takes to maintain.
This is the hardest concept for people to ACCEPT. Maintaining a healthy weight is a lot of work! You don't just lay around. You still have to work hard to look good. You still have to eat right to look good. It just doesn't get EASY for you one day. Sure you can like your new lifestyle but don't think it will be a walk in the park either.
It's SUPER HARD for people to accept how hard it is when they are maintaining about 20lbs from their goal. You are caught between two worlds: the world of what I USED TO DO and the world of what I NEED TO DO to get results.
I wrote yesterday about Breaking Weightloss Plateaus but the biggest trap you can avoid is this one simple statement...
But I used to eat XYZ or lay on my couch and NOW I do...
I admit to falling into this statement when I want to tighten up my body. But guess what...my thighs and ass don't give a damn what I did at 250lbs. or even 175lbs. It doesn't matter anymore. They are saying what you going to do at 145lbs that will get you results like you want to weigh 140 or 135lbs???
That's the thing. Maintenance is a dance. You are either doing it and trying to find satisfaction in being the SAME weight OR you fall into maintaining before you need to.
This is where all that goal setting and knowing what you really want come into play. Only you know how bad you want to lose weight and what you want to look like. Some people want it bad enough to eat stricter, less, and add intensity to workouts. Others enjoy the lifestyle they have and will exchange 5 or 10lbs to enjoy date night, pancakes after a long run, and grabbing an apple and yogurt so you have one less snack to prep each week. Cough cough.
I still track in LoseIt just about daily. I have it set to maintenance. Staying 145-146 is easy and means I can exercise a little less each day. The big measure for me is my Buckle jeans. I bought them 3 weeks post competition (2nd week of June) and every single pair fits just right! I guess my success will be each Friday night when I slide them on and feel great in them.
In maintenance you don't have many numbers that will give you a woot woot when you see them. I mean, how excited is it to always see the same thing? You get used to seeing lower numbers and it becomes like crack; you want more even when you don't need more.
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Workouts - Let me update you on what the week looks in my life. We're training for 4-5 half-marathons this fall. I do 2 easy 30-40 min. runs for cardio, 1-hour long tempo run, and 1-long run each week. 3 or 4 days I lift for 30-45 minutes. I doing super and triple set type workouts gearing up to meet loads of PNP girls at two Jen Hendershott camps this fall. I also mix in a little bit of PiYo a couple times a week which is my stretching. I make sure I take off a day each week and sometimes two if I'm really beat or busy at PNP.
Food - I eat carbs when I want to! Most days I eat oats for breakfast, sweet potato with lunch, 2-3 apples a day, sometimes I do a banana for one of those or some grapefruit, almost always a Shakeology and 100 cal bag of Kettle pop right before bed, yogurts, cottage cheese, fish and veggies for lunch with the sweet potato, and for dinner we mix it up with steak, pork chops, big salads, spaghetti, or everyone has a frozen pizza of choice. I do WW and the boys do Annie's or Kashi.
I always have fresh veggies cut up or roasted each week so that when we make our lunch and dinner I just throw in what sounds good. It really is that simple these days.
We also keep nut butters and seeds around all the time so we can do rice cakes and butter or I can toss some pumpkin seeds into a shake or bag of popcorn for quick snacks. Oh, and I buy those 100 cal guac packets to use with baby carrots for an easy snack before dinner if I'm super hungry and don't want to go crazy. :)