Life on a Weight-Maintenance Eating Plan
NUTRITION
Jason Strotheide
Once you’ve made the commitment to lose weight, the rest is easy—sort of. You have your plan, you know what you have to do, and you are committed to reaching your goal. However, sometimes your best-laid weight-loss plans can be derailed by the thought that you will have to eat the way you did to lose the weight for the rest of your life.
As hard as it may have seemed to lose the weight, maintaining your weight loss is often harder. If you are not careful, you could be back where you began in no time. In order maintain your weight loss; you need a plan, just as you needed a plan for initially losing the weight.
Below aie some strategies to help you successfully transition to and live a weight-loss maintenance lifestyle.
Advanced Planning
If your thoughts shy away from thinking about how you will keep the weight off once you transition into a “maintenance phase,” you are not alone. Preparation for this phase will actually help keep you on track. You will spend the most time in this phase, and you should focus on locking in your new, healthy lifestyle changes.
Create New Healthy Habits
So, you’ve taken off the weight and aie now on maintenance. This means you can eat whatever you want, right? Well, not really. Going back to your previous habits will cause you to regain the weight. That’s why the ChiroThin program stresses behavioral changes in addition to diet. Sticking to the little practices that brought you to a healthy weight are the same behaviors that will help you maintain it.
Did you add more vegetables to your meals during your weight loss, replace frying with oven cooking or grilling, and eliminate added fats and oils? If you turn these behavior changes into habits in your everyday life, you’H find it easier to maintain your new healthy weight. Keep in mind that when these little changes become habits, they can add up to something bigger. For low-calorie snacks, check out our recommendation for 24 astonishingly healthy low-calorie foods to include in your diet.
Know Your Weight Limit
No one’s weight stays the same forever. Your weight will fluctuate throughout the day, months, and even years. Give yourself a weight limit—a cutoff point over which you will not allow your weight to rise. It’s always easier to take off a
few pounds now than it is to take of 20 or 30 pounds later. Most of the time, you only need to be extra-careful for a few weeks to get yourself back on track.
Keeping a food diary can help you keep your weight under control. This way you can see the little things that are responsible for your weight and concentrate of eliminating them. For example, a slightly bigger portion may not seem important until you see the results on the scale. Once you are aware of your habits, you can build a strategy for reinforcing the new, healthy habits that were responsible for your weight loss.
* * Although your rules can be as
simple or complicated as you like, simpler is usually better. J Ï
Give Yourself Rules
Make some set-in-stone rules about your lifestyle and eating habits. Life itself doesn’t always make it easy to stick to a plan, especially a plan to stick to a healthy, balanced diet. The rules you set for yourself should realistically reflect your lifestyle and how you like to eat. Although your rules can be as simple or complicated as you like, simpler is usually better. Maybe you decide to have dessert one day a month, or add an extra vegetable portion once a week. Find more tips about how to add vegetables and fruit to your meals here.
Smoothly Transition from “Diet” to Everyday
If you’ve been on a reduced-calorie eating plan for months, and then suddenly start eating more, your body might be a little surprised—just as it may have been a bit shocked when you first went on your weight-loss program. Don’t forget that by this time, your body has acclimated to the healthy, low-calorie foods you’ve been feeding it. Start by gradually increasing calories and reintroducing food into your system. Follow the phase-three maintenance plan and give your body some time to get used to it. Many people lose a little more at the beginning of phase three, so don’t worry if this happens to you.
Don’t Over Obsess
Don’t be surprised if your new body, weight, and lifestyle give you a natural mood high. If you’ve spent years feel-
ing bad about how you look or how much you weigh, you want to enjoy the feeling of looking good as long as possible. However, while vigilance is necessary, obsessing too much about your weight is not healthy and can leave you feeling frustrated, tired, and stressed. Remember to be kind to yourself. When you live in the real world, you face challenges and temptations every day. It’s likely you’ll indulge occasionally. Just remember that one meal, one snack, one dessert does not ruin your entire diet.
Keep the big picture in mind—gaining a pound or two does not mean you are a weight-loss failure. Go right back to your rules, the healthy habits you already built, lose that pound, and keep the rest of the weight off.
Dr. Jason Strotheide is a 1993 graduate of Logan College of Chiropractic and is the founder and CEO of ChiroNutraceutical™ and the doctor-supervised ChiroThin Weight Loss Program™. With nearly 40,000 programs sold in the United States and Canada, ChiroThin has the distinction of being the #1 weight loss program exclusively for chiropractic offices. As a practicing chiropractor and noted chiropractic speaker, Dr. Strotheide and his company uniquely understand the challenges faced in chiropractic today, which is why all ChiroNutraceutical supplements are only available to licensed chiropractors. Dr. Strotheide can be reached at 877-377-7636 or [email protected]. To request a reprint of this article, please e-mail: [email protected].
