Maintenance Part Three: GAH! THIS IS FOREVER
Maintenance isn’t glamorous. Maintenance is actually pretty boring depending on how you look at it. It is not this incredibly structured and thought-out process that is pretty & has goals attached. Maintenance is life.
Some don’t do well when they try to transition out. And what I have heard from clients and felt myself is that there is this feeling of uncertainty about what is next. When you’re in a calorie deficit, you are striving for a goal. You have habits and processes. You have timelines and strategies. Maintenance could have those things but the idea of maintenance that is commonly discussed does not.
The truth is that you have to learn the skill of maintenance.
- You are going to possibly have to pay attention to your body, nutrition, and activity for the rest of your life. It is all too easy to fall back into mindless habits or rationalize things. “A few bites here and there won’t hurt” or “the scale didn’t change from yesterday so it must be ok” are dangerous statements when you’re trying to maintain.
- Another practice needed with maintenance is learning how to course-correct quick & small enough if you have a moment that you’re overdoing it. This way you don’t need to do an extensive diet again. The key is… quick enough. If you have a moment in time that you do overconsume or you see your weight fluctuate higher, course correct as quickly as possible.
- Life is going to life. You are going to have those challenges that are out of your control. They happen to us all. And in those moments, we have a tendency to pull back on some of our practices. Try not to allow these moments to become longer than they have to be. We do not want to get to a point where we have to completely start over with the habits that we worked hard to create. “I just don’t have ____ to keep that going anymore” is a statement that could potentially land us back into a bigger course correction than we would like to do.
- And a very hard lesson to learn… When we entered into the dieting phase, we were a different person. As you make your way through your journey, you become somebody new in order to maintain all of those different things that you are working on. When you go into maintenance, you cannot simply go back to who you were in the beginning. You have this new identity now with new practices. They do not need to have the intensity or frequency that they did during the diet phase, but a good amount of them make up who you are now.
The Big Takeaways Here
- Pay attention and try not to rationalize
- Course correct quickly if you find yourself overdoing it
- Life may need you to pull back on some desired habits but don’t allow yourself so much time that the habits have completely disappeared
- This is your new identity to maintain the new life that you have worked hard for
I’m so appreciative for you getting to this point and coming on this journey with me.
Full Maintenance Series:
- Maintenance Part One: How I Screwed Up
- Maintenance Part Two: Losing the Leanness
- Maintenance Part Three: GAH! THIS IS FOREVER
- Maintenance Part Four: How I wish I would’ve started
- Maintenance Part Five: My pants need to fit!
- Maintenance Part Six: Do I even know what I am doing?
- Maintenance Part Seven: Mindless Means Mayhem
