- Losing weight may be easier than maintaining the healthy weight in the long run. If not taken care properly, then you may tend to go back to the older self.
- You may not need to diet for the whole life but certain healthy modifications in your diet pattern which is easy to achieve may help you to remain fit.
- This process does not involve only taking care of the diet part. From planning foods and exercise regimen with staying hydrated, sleeping well and avoiding stress are some strategies that can help in avoiding weight gains.
- Keep your rules, habits and routine simple and do not get over obsessed with weight management. You don’t need to count calories every second or get onto the weighing scale every minute. Just be happy, relaxed and be positive in life.
We have been serious about our health, exercised, followed the diet and finally with all dedication reached the ideal body weight point. Now what??? Are we done??? Not at all. We need to maintain our health that we have achieved well with our hard work. When we go through a plan for weight loss and when we reach our goal,it doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the road. Now the race for maintaining the weight starts. Many of the diets fail as we leave halfway through the plan either because the plan is very difficult to follow or you may lose interest in the follow up thus leading to gaining weight again and hence losing our willpower and confidence.
Many dieters who lose weight tend to regain it back.Only about 20% of weight watchers who started off overweight tend to maintain healthy weight and try to keep it off. Why is that we are not able to sustain the weight loss in the long run. There are many reasons possible:
1. Extreme Restriction
When the calories are restricted for weight loss, we may tend to lose weight initially but that is a temporary effect. Extreme caloric restrictions tend to slow down the metabolism thus leading to weight gain.
2. Dieting With the Wrong Mindset
Never consider diet plan as a temporary change,dietary changes need to be permanent and lifetime modification and not as short time remedy.
3. Difficult To Sustain
Many diets are based on will power rather than modified habits that you need to incorporate. The restrictions and need to abide by the set of rules becomes sometimes difficult for us to sustain with the plan.
How To Maintain Weight After Weight Loss?
Maintaining a weight loss should be a strategy to be incorporated lifelong. The activities that you need to carry out everyday are:
1. Exercise Regularly
It is essential to atleast devote 5 hours in a week for exercise. It is recommended that we exercise regularly 30 minutes everyday and do strength training twice a week. Regular activity tends to improve the muscle metabolism.
2. Write Down The Food Intake
Maintaining a food journal is a good way of knowing what are you eating, at what time did you eat your food and what did you eat when you dined out. Keeping an eye on the food that we are taking gives us an insight about how much food we are eating, is there a possibility of controlling portion size and can any healthy modifications need to be done. We need to be realistic in this case by writing whatever you have eaten even if it is junk.
3. You Can Join A Support Group
If the process of weight watching and achieving ideal body weight has been achieved with the help of dietician, then you need to still be in touch with them for constant supervision. You don’t need to be alone or that matter isolated even if you have attained the desired goal. You can team up with the support group wherein they share their experience of how they reduced their weight; by what means are they going to go ahead about it once they reached the ideal body weight.
4. Breakfast Still The Most Important Meal Of The Day
Controlling your weight depends on what are you eating and how can you bring the caloric balance. Having a healthy breakfast helps to tone up for the rest of the day, the hunger pangs are reduced and metabolism is improved efficiently. Have a proper breakfast with inclusion of all nutrients and avoid empty calories. Some breakfast ideas like oatmeal with fresh fruits and nuts, egg omelet with loads of veggies and a whole wheat toast or sandwiches with peanut butter and dash of cinnamon with a small of bowl of raw vegetables.
5. Weigh Yourself
Once we reach our goal, it doesn’t give a guarantee that you will never increase in weight in future. We need to be vigilant if there is any increase in weight. Hence weighing ourselves almost every day is an important strategy that will help you to alert you if the pounds are increasing. That gives an alarm to get into action if the pounds are increasing by either reducing the portion size or increasing the physical activity schedule.
6. Put In More Of Fibre
Make your diet very rich in fiber that comes from plant foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and nuts. Fibre makes you feel fuller for longer period hence the chances of feeling hungry frequently becomes less. Having a fibre rich diet, with regular exercise along with tracking the weight regularly helps in maintain the weight.
7. Be Careful With The Carbohydrate Intake
We need to be careful about the type and amount of carbohydrates that we eat if we need to maintain the weight that we have dedicatedly reduced. Limit the intake of refined carbohydrates like white sugar, white pasta or sugary juices as it can be detrimental for weight maintenance goals. These foods are devoid of natural fibre and hence cannot promote fullness and also associated with weight gain and obesity. Even limiting the carbohydrate intake can also help in weight loss. When we limit carbohydrates after weight loss, we tend to keep off the weight for long term as we tend to have lesser calories than they burn which is essential for weight maintenance.
8. Give Importance To Protein
Protein efficiency is visible when about 30%of the calories are consumed from protein.Eating good amount of protein help you to maintain weight well as protein helps to promote fullness and reduce the appetite. Protein enhances the levels of certain hormones that can improve the satiety.Apart from this, protein helps in reducing the level of hormone that induces hunger. Further, protein requires good amount of energy to burn thus the amount of calories required to burn protein is more. Protein-rich foods are eggs, low-fat milk, yogurt, lean meats, tofu and legumes are needed to be added in the diet list to get the sizable amount of protein in your diet.
9. Be Consistent
In Your Plan Though It’s A Weekend Being strict during weekdays regarding the plan and then you can party every weekend, I think that’s not a good idea of maintaining weight. Whatever we have managed and worked hard to maintain ideal weight during the weekdays will go in drain if we feel that weekdays are for cheating and gorge chocolate pastries, creamy pastas or cheesy nachos. Hence stick to your plan all week long as studies suggest that those who have been consistent throughout will be able to maintain weight in the long run.
10. Be Prepared For Setbacks
Setbacks do occur while following the plan wherein you may fall in for unhealthy craving or tend to get laid back in doing workouts. That doesn’t mean the end of the road and you don’t need to throw your plan off the window. Just gear up and simply follow the plan and go through with healthy choices. Plan ahead and get back on track in the correct way.
11. Stay Well Hydrated
Drinking water on regular basis help in promoting fullness and helps to keep our calorie intake in check if we drink one or two glasses of water before the meal. Drinking water also promotes metabolism and there has been slight increase in the number of calories that has been burned throughout the day. Avoid sugary empty caloric drink or carbonated fruit juices as it cannot cause any advantage to the body. Drink plain water, detox water, unsweetened lime juice, coconut water and have fruits and vegetables with high water content.
Thus Diets can be heavily restrictive or unrealistic that can often result in weight gain. We need to just consciously modify our lifestyle to a healthier living that can be easy to follow and sustain. Just small changes in your everyday pattern can be carried out effectively rather than depending on fad diets or diet pills or drastic weight loss diets.
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