Tips for Maintaining Your Weight Loss.

You have finally made it to your goal weight, whether it was losing that last 10 pounds or the long journey to lose 100, you are there, now you just have to maintain that weight so that you don’t have to repeat the losing weight process. While losing weight you (hopefully) made some lifestyle changes in the way you eat, exercise, and even splurge on your favorite “bad” food and because of that lifestyle change maintaining your new weight is a bit easier, but the reality is sometimes you get a bit off track.

Here are three tips that will help you from slowly creeping back up to your previous weight.

Keep Track: When you first decided to lose the weight, you probably started counting calories, writing down your food intake, and even when and where you worked out.  While you probably don’t need to keep as good as records as you once did.  All that counting and calculating during your weight loss should have given you a pretty good idea of what has what calories, but maybe you just need to keep a simple outline of the food you are eating.  Log your workouts either on your calendar or a work out journal so that you can see exactly how often you are working out, or if you maybe you are stuck in a workout rut and need to add a few new items just to get your body doing different things.   While your keeping track of your food and workout, keep an eye on your clothes as well, you don’t need to weigh yourself every day or even every week, just keep an eye on how your clothes fit, and if you notice that things are feeling a bit more snug than usual, look back and see if maybe you have been indulging a bit more than normal. Once you notice that you can reset yourself and get yourself back on track

Plan:  Planning meals, snacks, workouts, even splurges makes it easier to make the right choices that keep you healthy and at your new weight.  If you sit down one day a week (Sundays are good for this) plan out what meals you are going to have, maybe in some cases go ahead and cook them and refrigerate them so that all you have to do on a busy Wednesday night is reheat.  Planning takes away the temptation to just order that pizza because you are just too tired to cook, or don’t have enough time.

Planning your snacks not only keep you from getting too hungry for your next meal, if you have a healthy snack already stashed in your desk it is easier to say no to those office donuts being passed around.  That being said, maybe you really like donuts and you know that every other Friday morning your office provides you with donuts. Great have a donut, plan for that splurge and enjoy it.  You will feel less guilty if you allow yourself that donut, and it will making eating healthier easier knowing that you get that treat.

Keep at it:  You noticed your pants got tighter, and you realized that maybe you have been splurging a little too much over the last few weekends.  Maybe you missed a few workouts because you have just been too busy with your family.  Maybe you just got back from vacation where you totally through out your whole healthy lifestyle.   The key to maintaining weight is to not give up, everyone slips up the key to slipping up is  acknowledge the behavior and then get right back on the wagon.  Don’t throw in the towel just because you had a few bad days.  Maintaining your weight is a life long process and sometimes you are going to be better at it than others, accept your mistakes and then go forward from them.

It was a process to lose the weight and it is a process to keep the weight off. Keep these three simple ideas in your mind and you will find that keeping the weight off is easier than you thought,