The weight loss industry is about losing weight, duh. But no matter how many testimonials people make or the life habits they adopt while in a program, somehow, you always hear about the weight coming back.
Yoyo dieting is one term, but I like to call it program hopping. You try one program, lose weight, and then get off the program; it all comes back.
Now, in defense of these programs, they are life-saving, life-changing resources that aim to do good in the world and help people get where they need to be.
Where I see a pitfall is there needs to be guidance for weight maintenance. Weight maintenance can be as or more important than the weight loss itself.
Weight maintenance is the act of abstaining from significant weight change — whether that be an increase or a decrease. Now I searched around for an official definition, and I really couldn’t find one (if you have one from an official source, please link it below)
I took this definition from one of the first Google sources that popped up, and it was a beneficial and exciting article; I’ll link it here.
But this goes to show how underrated weight management is. I’ve had a few periods in my life where I have lost weight only to gain it back, only to lose weight and then gain it back. I would say it’s been one of the defining situations in my life. Until I finally learned that weight loss isn’t the end goal. Weight maintenance is.
There are no programs that support you through indefinite weight maintenance, and let’s face it, it would probably be super expensive to be on a program forever.
This is where we need to pull up our bootstraps and commit to a lifetime of health and developing eating and activity habits that are sustainable. Can you go for the rest of your life without eating carbs? Probably not.
One of the ways to maintain is to get more movement into your life.
So here are five tips to get moving I’ve gathered that help me maintain my weight loss.
Get a hobby!
This can get you up and out, out and around, or over, under, and through it. My hobbies are salsa, bachata, and kizomba dancing. When I went through my third (or was it fourth) cycle of weight loss, it was because I picked up this hobby that kept me out and moving for hours at a time. It was so much fun I didn’t even realize I was losing weight until one day, I looked up, and the lbs just melted off, and I wasn’t even trying. Now that I am maintaining my weight, it is also an essential part of my routine. I attend a salsa class 1-2 a week, or sometimes I just dance at home in my living room. What matters is I have made it a habit, and it helps me boost my mood and my step daily. Whatever interests you, gardening, biking, Zumba, just do it and do it often, and once you find something you love to do, if there’s a community that loves to do it too, that’s even better and brings me to my second point.
Find a community
If you are doing something you love, find other people doing that thing too. The chances that you do it more will exponentially increase. Have you ever been sitting on the couch so tired until a friend messages and invites you out to [insert thing you love to do]? There’s a very marginal chance that you will be like, ‘No friend, I like the couch more than that thing. So no’. Even if you do say no, you know that there’s an opportunity to do the thing in the near future, and you’ll probably take it
Stop online shopping and get out of the house.
Just do it already. We all spent the larger part of a year inside of our homes. For some of us (remote workers), we are still there. I, of all people (as an introvert), know that the safety and comfort of home can be all too alluring. But once I noticed my weight maintenance was being thwarted by my tendency to never move outside my home, I somehow got my butt out of the house. I started with my trips to the grocery store. Shoutout to Bon Appetit for turning me into a home chef and sending me on hunting trips for butter lettuce and mascarpone cheese. Then I moved right next door to a mall, and I was up and down crate and barrel 3 times a week planning my perfect guest bathroom. Most of these trips were window shopping, so I wasn’t blowing wads of cash when I went. If you have the time to browse on the computer, try to get up and get out to browse in person.
Babysit some kids
I don’t even want to recount how I realized this was a great way to get moving, but tl:dr is after watching my sister's four kids for a week, my step counter tracked higher-than-average days the entire time. This one might not be practical for everyone, but if you know a parent somewhere and even if you ask to hang out with them for a day, they will be grateful, and your step counter will be too.
Make walking a priority.
This is an age-old tip. But I am here to sing the praises again. All those tips you heard of (or not), parking further away, taking the stairs instead of the escalator, and getting 10,000 steps a day are tools for weight loss and weight maintenance. You can do these things to increase movement without making a considerable effort. Getting out and walking more has many other benefits as you age.
So there you have five tips to help you with your weight maintenance (or weight loss) goals.
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