Maintaining Weight Loss

Visitor Question:

I have hypothyroidism and take medication daily. I have struggled with my weight for many years. I have lost the excess weight and regained it many times. Currently I'm at my goal weight and I am just looking for a lifestyle that will allow me to maintain the weight loss. This plan talks a lot about losing weight but what can I change in the plan if I'm just wanting to maintain my current weight?

Lifetime Fat Loss Answers:

Congratulations! The answer is nothing! I am wondering how you got to your present weight and how different your diet and activities were from how you normally eat and exercise? There's nothing in my low glycemic plan to change because the idea is to adopt the new ways of eating and moving permanently.

This is the point of everything I'm writing about. You need to adopt these ideas as habits because it's the way to live at your ideal weight and to be healthy and free of disease. After all, there's no point in losing weight if you cannot sustain the weight loss.

This is actually at the heart of why I created this website and what inspired me to write about the glycemic index and it's relationship to why we store fat. It has seemed to me all my adult life that something was deeply flawed in this notion of eating a special way for a temporary period of time and then going back to "normal eating" and all would be well.

Research on the glycemic index changed all that and brought science to the understanding of weight loss because scientists could see the mechanisms at work in fat storage.

It's not that you want to be number bound or a slave to a certain group of foods but you have to be mindful that there are foods that raise your blood sugar. When you eat too many high glycemic foods, your body is flooded with too much insulin, the glucose can't be converted to energy and it is stored as fat. When this happens too frequently your body becomes insensitive to insulin, the hormone that regulates our blood sugar. All sorts of hormonal imbalances happen making it even tougher to burn fat!

There are many articles on my website which I will point you towards that explains this. But as a practical matter you are going to want to adopt a "thin lifestyle." To sustain your weight loss you will need to live like someone who eats and moves in an optimally healthy way. That means eating smallish portions and mostly eating low glycemic foods.

I would ask yourself these questions:

What do I do for aerobic exercise on a daily basis (or at least 5 days a week?)

Do I walk instead of drive at every opportunity?

If you work at a desk, do you make it a point to stand up and stretch and walk around every couple of hours?

Are you aware of what the high glycemic foods are (white, processed foods) and avoid them?

Do you eat at least 5 servings but better yet 8 - 10 fruits and vegetables a day?

Are you aware of the difference between saturated and unsaturated plant fats and make the effort to eat more of the unsaturated ones every day?

Do you eat breakfast every day (whole grains with fruit or protein) to start out your day with energy that will sustain you?

Do you eat your lightest meal at night so you are using most of your daytime calories?

If you haven't read these pages yet I encourage you to read:

Glycemic Index

Low Glycemic Food List

Controlling Food Cravings

Portion Control Tips

Lose Weight Walking

10 Success Steps

Make all these suggestions habits and you will be free of putting on weight ever again! But remember, our fat cells never go away, they just shrink and expand. So if you go back to eating too much of the foods that got you fat your fat cells will bloom again.

However, I will tell you that I never worry about my weight anymore, haven't for years, and I do eat high glycemic foods when I feel like it. It's very occasionally for the most part - usually a yummy dessert. I also have a teaspoon of coconut sugar in my tea and I eat a small piece of dark chocolate (low sugar content) quite often (before my walk!) The thing is, sometimes I feel like eating and I'm really into cooking and enjoying food and then other times I don't feel like it at all and I hardly eat anything. When you're not hungry don't eat.

I gain a couple pounds here and there. But I know what to do if I do and I don't put it off. I just skip dinner and have a smoothie or a little salad and I drop it. When you walk pretty much every day like I do I just never have to think about it much. I never, ever feel deprived!! I eat lots of fruit and veggies because my body craves these things now. I listen to what my body tells me I need. I eat lots of omega 3 fats every day.

Anybody can do this. Do NOT ever think of yourself as anything but a thin, happy, beautiful person. Eat with your friends, enjoy food but be mindful.

Let me know how this works for you or if it isn't working what is sabotaging you. There's always a way or a solution to a challenge. The best of luck to you!