The overwhelming majority of successful weight maintainers don’t report highly restrictive diets and fad diets as factors they used to achieve permanent weight loss. Despite the fact that dietary change is the most commonly reported method to lose weight, the greatest predictors of permanent weight loss have more to do with regular exercise, changing behaviors, positive mindset, continuous self-assessment, and seeking outside support.
The take home message is that the majority of successful weight maintainers have been highly creative and persistent about finding and applying what works for them. You must learn constantly about what works for you and develop your own personal tricks and put them into action.
Commitment is the ultimate decider of permanent physical change. It takes commitment to stick to your new, healthy lifestyle. When you are committed, you will do anything to reach your goal, no matter how hard, tedious, boring, scary…you will do whatever it takes to get where you want to go.
- Practice continuous self-monitoring with your Fitness Journal.
- Make regular and frequent contacts with an outside source of support.
- Include daily physical activity (resistance training and cardio) for at least 30-45 minutes, three to five days a week.
- Make regular exercise a PRIORITY, a scheduled appointment, NOT an option.
- Stay focused on improving health and energy, with fat loss being a nice accompaniment.
- Set small daily/weekly goals
- Replace fatty and sugary foods with more healthy substitutions like fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, and other high-fiber foods.
- Frequently monitor portion sizes and hunger — this is important in today’s world of “super-size” restaurant portions.
- Find ways to make fitness fun. For example, join a walking or hiking group, a soccer league, or take dance classes. Don’t fear trying new activities.
- Eat at least 4-6 meals a day and do not skip meals.
- Use Solution Discovery strategies when old behaviors return to haunt you. Make an effort to succeed at creating and re-assessing goals.
- Recognize that it is a continuous, life-long journey to pursue better health, not a temporary “diet”.
- Never give up! Do not allow occasional slip-ups to end your progress.
- Accept that the time-tested principles of weight loss, while not always exciting, are the only ones that work permanently.
- Separate your body size from your self-worth. Recognize that your value is about a lot more than a number. When your attitude shifts to self-acceptance at any size, weight loss and maintaining it becomes more natural, and much easier.
- Develop passions, interests, and hobbies to help you focus on things other than food.
- Find and develop creative ways to manage stress effectively.
- Ban the words “never” and “always” from your health vocabulary. That is, everything in moderation. It’s not realistic to say you’ll never eat ice cream again or that you will always exercise every day. In short, you must give up perfection, but remain focused without it.
- Reflect daily. It takes many years to learn behaviors that lead to weight gain, yet it usually takes only a short time to lose weight. Therefore, you can expect that from time to time, destructive eating patterns will resurface. Seeking outside sources of support, developing interests, forgiving yourself, and reassessing goals greatly helps to conquer these times.
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