Tired of roller coaster dieting? 15 easy ways you can keep the weight off for good

I’ve heard this dilemma many times…you’ve lost all the weight you set out to lose. But now you don’t know how to keep it off. You’ve successfully finished that race that you signed up for. You’ve officially gotten back in shape. But now you don’t know how to stay in shape.
 
I have far more experience maintaining weight than I do losing it.  And as luck would have it, maintaining weight is what many people seem to seek help for these days. So I want to share my perspective on willpower, diets, metabolism and maintenance. And I want to share what continues to work for me, after 20 years (and counting!) of maintaining my ideal weight. And no, I was not just born with a great metabolism…

But first…my initial weight loss
I was a bit of a pudgy kid. Not really fat, but not thin either. My parents never put any pressure on me to lose weight. They never really made any comments to me about weight loss, as far as I can remember. I thinned out only once I added regular walks to my routine, once I got my first dog. I actually didn’t walk in order to lose weight. I walked so I could give my dog the best life possible. Weight loss was just a welcomed side effect! But once I thinned out, I must’ve made a decision somewhere along the way to never let that weight return. Because it just felt too good to be lighter. No amount of junk food in the world would be worth losing this feeling!
 
Metabolism, maintenance and hormones
It really irks me when people tell me that I’m just lucky to have a good metabolism. Or that I must just have more willpower than the average person. Or when in my 20’s, people would tell me to just wait and see what happens in my 30’s. Or now in my 30’s, to hear people tell me to just wait until I enter my 40’s.

The reason these things irk me is because I know how hard it is to keep weight off. It irks me because it implies that I’m doing it effortlessly. It irks me because it implies that once I reach a certain point (a point that seems to keep getting pushed back), I will just become a helpless victim of my hormones and metabolism, rather than an active participant in my own life.
 
The truth is, my metabolism has already changed over the years…but so have my behaviors. Adjustments have been made. It simply hasn’t been as easy to maintain my ideal weight as it was in my 20’s. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s not like my diet has gotten any worse or I’ve just gotten lazier. In fact, my diet has gotten considerably healthier than it was in my 20’s!

Regardless, hormones have powerful effects on our bodies. Hormone release is a complex and dynamic process and it’s affected by age, sex, stress levels, disease, physical activity, diet, environment, etc. But with hormone changes, also come behavior changes.

My take on willpower
Maintaining weight is not just about telling yourself you need to have more willpower, how you need to get better at telling yourself “NO” or how you have to just keep reminding yourself to be stronger. Of course willpower has a part in the whole game, especially with regard to weight loss.  It does also play a role in weight maintenance. But there’s more to it than that.
 
I would agree that willpower is not something you can just “run out of”. I would also agree that willpower is like a muscle. But just like muscles, rest and recovery days are a must. Without a break, the muscle burns out. And the same goes for willpower. Rely on it too much and it will burn out. Eventually it just gets too hard to keep resisting. So you cave in. What happens next can either become an opportunity to learn how to quickly get back on track…OR it can become a very slippery slope of self-sabotage…
 
Let’s say you had that extra serving of dinner. Then you figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a heaping portion of dessert. The next day you already feel like you’ve totally failed. The all-or-nothing thinking kicks in; “Well I guess I’ve already blown it…no point in dieting now!” Your willpower has now taken a backseat.
 
And just like that, all your hard work is gone in only a fraction of the time it took to lose the weight. Instead of allowing yourself the opportunity to indulge once in a while and then relying on your willpower to get you back on track, you’d rather get out of diet mode altogether for a while. It almost feels like a relief because you’ve been waiting all along for this diet to end anyway.
 
My take on diets
I have an unproven theory that I think might explain why over 90% of people who lose a lot of weight end up regaining almost all of it. I believe the problem stems from the way we view what a diet actually is. The word “diet” used to refer only to the types of foods we consume. But everything changed once this word was redefined by the dieting industry.
 
Dieting is now something you do. It’s something you follow. It’s not just eating. By definition, it’s a restrictive form of eating, one that deprives you of something. That something could be calories, gluten, animal products, sugar, carbs, fat, etc. Whatever it is, deprivation is involved. And our brains don’t like feeling deprived forever. So for us to agree to this whole diet thing, we go into it thinking there must be a start point and more importantly, an end point.
 
Whichever diet you choose to follow for weight loss, as long as you feel like you’re restricting yourself in some way, you are not seeing a diet for what it is. You are still seeing it as being a bad thing that will eventually end…just a temporary sacrifice. It’s something to be endured for a set amount of time. And then life will resume as normal.
 
Some form of calorie restriction is absolutely necessary for weight loss and this part of dieting is needed. But it is temporary. Now with regard to the foods you’re eating, if you aren’t content with your diet, it simply won’t be sustainable. As long as you see your diet as something you temporarily have to tolerate then it is not going to last.
 
Ideally, your diet is something that’s easy, nutritious, convenient, and most importantly, something that you enjoy. I know people who haven’t touched junk food for years and they are perfectly content not doing so. They’ve embraced the foods they eat and they don’t consider unhealthy foods to be any part of their diet. They aren’t feeling deprived because healthy foods at some point just became their new normal. They didn’t see it as a temporary thing.
 
A diet is just another part of your lifestyle. Your diet may change periodically, as will the amount of calories you need at different phases of your journey, but having a diet is not something you just stop.

If not diet, then what?
I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to live life on a roller coaster of diets. That just becomes an exhausting cycle of deprivation and indulgence. Despite the complex interplay of hormones, shifting metabolism and emotional eating, there are easy ways to check-in with yourself and on your trajectory before those sneaky pounds come back.
 
I’d like to share some of the things that I do on a regular basis to keep my weight in check. Of course, please do get diagnostic tests done if you think things are truly out of whack and you notice sudden changes or new symptoms. Get tests done when you experience unexplained weight gain or weight loss. But here, I’m talking more about the changes that sneak up on us gradually…
 
What works for me:

• I genuinely enjoy the foods that I eat. And I refuse to beat myself up if I eat “junk” food now and then. Sometimes your body wants what it wants. As long as it’s the exception and not the rule then I’m okay with it.

 

• I listen to my body. Sometimes I have cravings. These cravings are tough because the Frankenfoods surrounding me become even more tempting. But I find if I first fill myself up with healthier whole food alternatives (like my favorite snack in the world, bananas with peanut butter!), I usually find that the junk cravings quickly subside. If they don’t, then I’ll only cave in after I’m already almost full from healthy foods. Then I’ll have that one cookie (okay, maybe two...).

 

• I try to stay organized and I plan ahead. Yes, sometimes life happens.  You have a last-minute invite that you just can’t resist. But for the most part, I have a pretty good idea as to what I’ll be eating for the week. I rarely put myself into situations where I am so desperately hungry that I recklessly indulge on anything and everything around me.

 

• I’m mindful about the fact that the more “junk” foods I eat, the less satiated I feel. A 2,000 calorie meal at McDonald’s can have me opening the fridge again in a couple hours. But when I eat healthier foods that are high in protein and high in healthy fats, I feel like I could go for days without a meal. The difference is noticeable. My German grandmother’s hearty recipes with high-quality foods used to keep me full forever. So I stick with mostly rich, quality foods and ironically, I end up eating less at the end of the day (I also save more money this way too).

 

• I rarely snack because saving my appetite makes me look forward to my meals that much more. Food just ends up tasting that much better when you're hungry! As a rule, I try to only snack between meals if my stomach is actually growling. I also don’t have a set time for breakfast or lunchtime. I eat only if/when I’m hungry during those hours.
  

 

• I practice intermittent fasting. No food is allowed after my last meal of the day, which is usually around 7 p.m. I resume eating no earlier than 10 the next morning. This is something I’ve gradually worked up to. It’s become effortless. Id’ rather control when I eat than be too strict about what I eat. It’s what works for me.

 

• I’ve found some highly effective coping skills, besides eating, to use when I’m feeling bored, angry, stressed, sad, etc. Because it’s all too easy to binge eat when emotions are involved. Emotions are not tied to the logical parts of our brain. The emotional brain couldn’t care less whether you are watching your weight. While comfort eating is a favorite, there are a million and one healthier ways to self-soothe.

 

• I don’t own a scale or stress too much about the numbers. Because sometimes my clothes fit better when I do more resistance training, but with the added muscle weight, I know the scale would only make me question myself…

 

• I rely only on my tighter fitting clothes to tell me when I’m gaining weight.

 

• I keep a running tab. If one day I allow myself some indulgences, I’m sure to eat a bit less (and a bit healthier) the next day. It all depends on how much I indulged. If I’ve been extra healthy lately, I can afford to eat less healthy for one day. The tab is ongoing and there’s no start or end date to it.

 

• I very quickly reign myself in if I notice I’m gaining weight. I re-assess whether I’ve been eating more lately, what I’ve been eating more of and whether I’ve been exercising enough. This is when I apply that willpower and discipline to get back on track again.

 

• I walk several miles every single day and move every chance I get. I have a 9-5 desk job. But this doesn’t ever stop me from getting my daily steps in. When I’m on a work call, I’m pacing. During my lunch break I’m out walking around the ugly parking lot, the experience made that much lovelier with my favorite playlist on. I take the stairs. At my desk sometimes if I start feeling sleepy I might grab my resistance band that I keep in my desk drawer. Bottom line, I hate and dread long workouts. So instead, I move throughout the day, regardless of weather and regardless of my mood. And at the end of the day I never regret having done so.

 

• I practice regular resistance training to keep my metabolism strong. But I only do a little here and there, which at the end of the week adds up to a lot!

 

• I do not allow junk foods to infiltrate my pantry. If there's nothing around to tempt me then I can't indulge. Simple as that.

 

• I often remind myself that I feel way more confident in every aspect of my life when I am happy with my weight. This ideal weight can be different for each person. I remind myself of how I felt when I was not as confident in the past. This is all that’s needed to put that extra slice of pizza down!

Takeaway
I know that we are all different. I know that there is no one size fits all approach. I know that sometimes things happen that are out of our control. What’s worked for me over the years may not necessarily work for you. But it might. Because in many ways I still believe that we are more alike than we are different. We just try different things at different times and some of us get lucky and find what works earlier on, some of us find it a bit later on.
 
I am constantly in tune with my body to see what’s working and what’s not. I know plenty of people ahead of me in their years, who’ve aged gracefully, some after having multiple children and others who look and feel better at 50 than they did at 30. I know that it can be done and I intend to at least give it my best shot. Because at the end of the day, that’s really all any of us can do.
 
                        “Healthy is an outfit that looks different on every body”
                                                               -Unknown