Maintaining Weight Loss for the Long Haul
Losing weight is like dating – it’s a lot of getting to know what works for you and what doesn’t. Maintaining your weight is like getting married – it’s meant for the long haul. If you’ve ever lost weight only to regain it (ahem!), you know how frustrating it can be. For many, it often seems like the real challenge when it comes to health and weight is not necessarily achieving weight loss, but maintaining the results. So, to put it in a new-age figurative sense, the biggest challenge on the weight loss journey begins after losing the weight.
The following tips will help us say, “I do!” to weight loss for the rest of our lives:
- Eat organic foods and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Healthy foods like fruits and vegetables are full of fiber and make you feel fuller quicker and longer. They are nature’s miracle weight loss food!
- Think of it as a lifestyle – this is forever. If you think of the Organic Liaison program as a lifestyle change and not just a weight-loss plan, you will see better results over a longer period of time. Commitment to a healthy lifestyle means committing long-term and not abandoning your good diet and exercise habits the second you hit your goal weight on the scale.
- Plan your meals. Meal planning is just as important for maintaining weight-loss results as it is for working towards weight-loss goals. Planning your meals ahead of time leaves out any guesswork involved in how you should plan your week, activity level, and splurges. It also saves you time, money and hassle! If you’re a member, continue to use the Organic Liaison meal planner to help you out.
- Keep track of what you eat. It seems like a no-brainer, but some of us know all to well how it feels to lose weight and then feel like the honeymoon stage is over and it’s time start eating crap and not track calories again. Before you know it, you have to break out the fat pants once more. You use a meal and exercise planner even after you’ve met your weight loss goal, until you can manage to track your intake intuitively. Remember, a healthy lifestyle is meant to keep you healthy forever.
- Exercise. According to the National Weight Loss Registry (they keep tabs on people who’ve maintained a loss of at least 30 pounds for at least a year), successful “maintainers” exercise over 200 minutes a week. That’s about half an hour, every day.
- Stay accountable, stay connected. Support is important: The National Weight Loss Registry also found
that people who had a support system were more likely to maintain their
weight loss.
If you’re a member, lean on the Organic Liaison online community and your Chubby Buddy to keep each other accountable and honest. If you are not a member, you can still connect with peers on Phitter, a 100% free micro-blogging service brought to you by Kirstie and Organic Liaison, focused on health, fitness, diet, and weight-loss talk.
- Motivate yourself. At the end of the day, you have access to countless people and
resources to keep you on track, but the only person who can make you do
anything is you. Be empowered by that.
Additional Resources:
- The National Weight Control Registry: “The NWCR is tracking over 5,000 individuals who have lost significant amounts of weight and kept it off for long periods of time. Detailed questionnaires and annual follow-up surveys are used to examine the behavioral and psychological characteristics of weight maintainers, as well as the strategies they use to maintaining their weight losses.”
- Archives of Internal Medicine: “Effect of Exercise on 24-Month Weight Loss Maintenance in Overweight Women” -- The amount of exercise needed to sustain weight loss is about twice as much as the conventional public health recommendation
- Abstract from the Journal of the American Dietetic Association: “Persons successful at long-term weight loss and maintenance continue to consume a low-energy, low-fat diet.”
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