I bet you’ve thought to yourself, “As soon as I lose _______ pounds and get to my goal weight, than I can relax a little bit with my exercise and eating routine! It’ll be so much easier.”
I beg to differ, as I feel that the maintenance phase is where the real work comes in! Let me be the first to tell you that there is no glory in maintenance, but it is a necessary part of our process, and there are a lot of things that we can learn from it.
I used to think the hardest part was the challenge to lose weight or have fat loss goals. As soon as I get to _________ weight. Things will be so much easier! That was until I got to the Maintenance Phase of my goal process myself. There was no more working towards a physique goal or positive changes happening in my body, just the ho-hum of the boring sameness.
I even experienced a little bit of weight gain during my maintenance phase, which I’m okay with due to some other responsibilities in my life right meow! However, I’m taking notice not to let a little bit of weight gain, get outta hand, if you know what I mean.
Why Maintenance isn’t as Glorious as You May Think.
It’s hard NOT to be attaining or to be after something. I think it’s in our human nature to want to keep going and attain something better, leaner, fitter, etc.
There’s nothing shiny, fancy, or new to get to. No more new clothes to buy because your other ones are too big. I’ve been wearing the same size clothes for awhile now, so no new wardrobe for me ;(
You still are eating healthy and exercising. However, nothing is changing, and your body is the same.
It’s possible that even though you’ve made it to your “Goal Weight”, your body doesn’t look like you thought it would. WTH? I thought once I was at _________ pounds or size _______ clothes, I’d look and feel different!
What can start to happen as a result of the Maintenace Phase?
Some people get to maintenance and feel like they “deserve a break.” All that restricting and exercising, I deserve a break. This is when you come back from your vacation, and you’ve gained 10 pounds. You just can’t seem to get back into the groove. Consistency just went out the window!
Our enthusiasm drops because we aren’t seeing all the positive changes that we were seeing when we were in our weight loss mode. This makes us feel discouraged and some of our healthy habits and behaviors may start slipping.
Watch out for self-sabotage. Some of us feel like if we aren’t working towards something, we will create something, so we can work on it. No weight loss drama needed for me 😉
Self-Monitoring slows down. I’m guilty of this. When I was in fat loss mode, I was measuring and weighing weekly, and taking my body fat percentage every 6-8 weeks. When I made it to my goal, I started slacking here, and my weight and body fat percentage started to creep up. Denial sets in. I’ll be alright, I can lose that 5 lbs. easily. Well 5 lbs. turns into 10 lbs pretty easily, too! The best thing is to keep your maintenance weight within a 5 – 8 lbs range from your leanest weight. To know this, we must keep up the self-monitoring, eating healthy, and exercising.
Long ignored temptations and restrictions are now indulged in. I didn’t eat sweets for 4 months to lose weight, now I’m going to eat them everyday. Whoa! Slow down Nelly! Those sweets weren’t good for you in the first place. This is why restricting too much never serves us in the end. Better to have a few squares of chocolate throughout the week, than to eat 5 candy bars on the weekend!
How can I Conquer The Maintenance Phase?
1. Keep up the self-monitoring. It’s crucial to see where we may be slacking off or slipping up. It’s a good idea to weigh weekly, take circumference measurements monthly, and keep a food journal 1-2 days/week during maintenance. Don’t be a victim of denial. “Well I’m up 5 pounds, its probably just water weight.” It could be, but if you notice that every week your weight is up 5 pounds, do you need to tighten it up somewhere?
2. Focus on Mindful Eating Habits. Mindful eating is so important during maintenance, that is why I’m a big believer in focusing on it during weight loss. This is the hardest part to get down, and it is also the first to go out the window during maintenance. We have to be constantly reminded to practice, eating slow, eat to 80% full, sitting down to eat, not using food as a reward, or slipping into the scarcity mindset that has us indulging in every chocolate chip cookie we see.
3. Take the Weight Loss Process SLOW! The best thing that we can do is enjoy the process and where we are at, whether that be in attainment or maintenance mode. There is something to learn from each process, however, maintenance takes just as much work or more as losing weight, so that you don’t regain all the weight that you lost.
This will take experimentation on our parts. The more we rush weight loss, deprive, and over exercise during the weight loss phase, the more mentally exhausted we become and think we “deserve a break”, which sets us up for a rapid weight regain during maintenance.
4. Keep up the Exercise! But, it may be time to try new activities or strive for strength or skill movements. Focusing on gaining strength in certain lifts, or increasing my speed during metabolic workouts has really helped me stay focused and consistent during my maintenance phase.
Here’s what a lot of people don’t understand. You will have to do just about as much exercise in the maintenance phase, as you do when you are losing weight. I know….sorry to be the bearer of bad news! So it is a good idea to find out what your minimum requirements for diet and exercise are during the process of weight/fat loss , so that it will be easier for you when you get to maintenance.
Remember, we don’t get to our goal and then just get to stop exercising and eating healthy. There are NO breaks when it comes to our health. The mindset, I’ve worked so hard, I deserve a break, is how we regain all the weight we lost and the Yo-Yo cycle starts.
There will also be periods of your life where being in attainment mode for weight/fat loss goals may not be appropriate because of other stress/circumstances in your life, and you just won’t have the time to devote to workouts and food prep.
That’s when you will have to ask yourself , “Is a couple of more pounds okay right now vs. having to restrict or be more careful with my diet or exercise to maintain a certain body fat percentage.” This is a conscious choice we get to make. It takes awareness, evaluation, and experimentation.
In the end, you will find that you will cycle between periods of change vs. periods of maintaining change. They are both important and are teaching you something about yourself and the process that you are going through.
What’s been your biggest challenge when it comes to maintaining weight loss? Let me know in the comments below!
Thanks for stopping by,
Tommie
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