How to Sustain Your Weight Loss

The ability to sustain your weight loss is probably one of the most important things when it comes to weight management. The principles of losing weight isn't something that's too difficult to grasp, However, the problem most people face is that they go down in weight and jump back up in weight. Usually, this is accompanied by extreme diets. Sometimes it's not though. Let's go over how to sustain your weight loss and why it's the key to success.

Why Sustain Your Weight Loss and Why it's the Hardest Aspect

Many people at some point came to a realization that they're overweight and they go on a diet and drop the weight and they look great! Maybe holidays come around or something happens when you kind of lose control a bit. That then bleeds over in time and months past by and then you're back to where you started. Now you need to diet again. That alone is a pretty daunting task in and of itself, especially for people who drop 30+ pounds. This is also known as 'yo-yo' dieting.

The problem is, eventually if you keep going back and forth with losing weight and gaining and so on, you eventually may get burned out and discouraged and just say "I'm done with this!"

To be honest, it's understandable. Even if the principles of losing weight can be easy, the process still takes patience, time, and discipline.  

Now, imagine if you dropped the weight and you were able to sustain it? You would be happy with yourself overall. Maybe you'll do mini bulks or drop weight here and there sometimes, but it's much better than having to try dropping a huge amount of weight gain. Keeping at a steady weight and maintaining it will make you healthier and happier. It will also make you feel in control of your diet and yourself.

So you want to sustain your weight loss, how do we go about that?

Identifying Why You're Yo-Yo Dieting

Like all issues, you need to discover and identify why it's happening.

There may be so many reasons for yo-yo dieting. Maybe you're stressed at work. The holidays could be coming up and with all the family gatherings, you just don't have time to train or eat correctly. It could be many things, but you need to identify what's causing it. 

Once you identified the issue, you can now tackle it head-on.

Sustain Your Weight Loss by Changing Your Mindset on Your Health

Depending on what your issues are and why you're yo-yo dieting, it's most likely that your health is taking a back seat for a bit.

Let me ask you though, where would you be without your health? Whether it be physical or mental health, you don't get too far without either of those things. 

I believe 85% of the week should be dedicated to doing at least something to keep yourself in shape or better your overall health. Whether this is eating at a caloric range that helps maintain weight or just to keep training normally. You should always make it a goal. I set this goal for myself and I do believe this is a reason why I never had an issue sustaining weight. 

So where's that other 15%? Usually, this will probably be a day off of some sort. I'll be honest, my Sunday's (Especially during Football season) doesn't consist of much except cooking and watching and screaming at my TV.  We all need a break here and there, so I think this ratio is personally good. 

Let me ask you though, have you done something today that has a positive impact on your physical or mental health? If not, will you be aiming for tomorrow? 

Setup something for tomorrow and make it a priority to do at least one positive thing to improve your health. If it helps, even mark it down in your calendar. Set it all day if you must. As long as it keeps you in check. 

If you're stuck and just don't even know where to start, start as simple as going for a quick run or even running in place or doing some jumping jacks. It ain't much, but it'll be something that benefits you. Sometimes starting off slow may be best to get into a rhythm.

Check out these articles if you're looking more into changing your mindset on food or changing your mindset on training.

Consistent Training and Programming Leads to Sustaining Your Weight Loss

Okay, so you identified why you're yo-yo dieting. You've made a conscious decision to change your mindset on your health as well and that it should take priority. Now what?

Now we need to get into the training.

The definition of training is: is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies.

Now I just want to point out, I'm saying training and not exercising. The reason being is because training has a goal you're working towards. You can be training for a marathon. Maybe you're training to reach a specific deadlift weight. The point being is you should start training and not exercising.

Training will keep you goal-oriented and focused. You're more likely to keep up with a training regimen than to just exercise and call it a day. 

If you don't know what you want to train for, take a look at what you think would be fun for you. For me, weight lifting and powerlifting are fun. For you maybe running is fun and something you can do consistently. Whatever works for you, look into a training regimen for it. Most importantly, look into a training regime that is sustainable and will make you consistent.

If you want, contact me and we can talk about creating a training program for you. 

Consistent Dieting and Finding out Your Calorie and Macro Intake 

I did an Instagram poll recently about what people have trouble with the most. Most people voted on dieting/nutrition vs training. Now dieting is a bit more difficult to be consistent with and it makes sense that this is probably why people struggle to sustain your weight loss. Especially if you're doing something that you're unhappy with. 

I believe a reason there is a struggle to sustain your weight loss is that the diet you're following is not sustainable. A diet should be easy for you to follow and sustainable. I don't like extreme diets for the main reason that it's very restricting in what you eat and will tend to lead to you most likely falling off the bandwagon.

Now, this isn't always the case. I also know plenty of people who do keto or vegan diets and they can easily sustain it and achieve their goals. In cases like this, the more restricting it is for some people, the better.

You need to choose a diet for you that makes you happy and you can follow easily. If you don't know what diet that is, explore your options. Experiment and see what works for you.

I do want to mention though, with nutrition regardless of your diet, what it comes down to losing weight is calories in and out. If you intake more calories than your burn, you'll most likely gain weight. Simply, if you're intaking fewer calories than you're burning you'll lose weight.

If you're a bit lost about calorie control I would recommend checking out this article. You should also look into macronutrients too to learn more about intaking the correct proportions of foods to optimize muscle gain and healthy habits.  

You can also check out the free calorie calculator to find out your caloric intake. 

Final Thoughts

To sustain your weight loss is a difficult task. What happens is a lot of people succumb to yo-yo dieting. However, identifying what causes you to yo-yo diet is one of the main factors of stopping it. Once you identify the issue, you need to identify how to solve it. In most cases, things like work get too busy or you may have just too many stressors going on. Now, sometimes other things take all of our time in life and I get that.

A change of your mindset on your health might need to be made and realize that without your health, things will probably go downhill in the long run. 

Once you identified these issues and made a mindset shift, you can now go on finding a training regimen to stick with and figuring out your calorie/macro intake that works for you. If you feel like an extreme diet is best for you to sustain, more power to you.

Sustainability should be what is easy for you to follow and makes you happy. Whether it's an extreme diet or something flexible, do something that makes you happy and is easy to follow. 

Photos:

• Photo by Noelle Otto from Pexels
• Photo by Miles Hardacre from Pexels