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Maintenance Part Six: Do I even know what I am doing?

ByNicole Doria

I questioned so much when I went through this last year. I wondered if I knew what I was doing or if I was doing it well, all of the time.

But I do that with everything… am I a good wife? mom? friend? coworker?

It’s a little maddening, but I think it’s a healthy process sometimes. I am constantly assessing my actions and bringing them into question to see if they align with how I want to live and who I want to be.

And truthfully as I look back, I really do believe that my ability to look back through my actions and try to come up with a better plan for the future is probably one of the strongest skills that I displayed during the last almost year and a half.

This is actually something that I look the same way for myself as I guide my clients through. We need to find ways to build confidence, but confidence is best built from competence of skill practicing.

You have to do the reps to be more competent and to gain my confidence.

Here’s how we do it…

Confidence Builder: Investigating & Strategizing for the Future

Think about everything with curiosity and not judgment. Do this in the diet phase and outside of it. It teaches you a lot about yourself and helps you maintain a level of awareness that helps fight off guilt and shame associated with mindless behaviors and actions.

  • When you did ____ , what did you learn?
  • What did you do well to help keep you aligned with what you truly want?
  • What do you think you could have benefitted from changing up?

Come up with a game plan so you can build your strategies and your toolbox to take on any challenge that comes your way with more confidence.

Confidence Builder: Diet Breaks within the Diet Phase

A great way to take maintenance for a test drive to learn what will be ahead is taking diet breaks within your dieting phase.

A diet break is a controlled, intentional maintenance within your dieting phase. Generally speaking, I guide my clients to take a 2-3 week break, but you can take a week or four weeks. It is completely up to you.

During a diet break, your weight may go up as we explained in Part Two due to the replenishment of glycogen stores (carbs and water stored in the muscle), and an increase in food & water. We could also see weight loss or weight standing still.

This is one of my favorite analogies about the long road of weight loss and diet breaks.

Taking a maintenance phase is like making a pit stop on a long road trip. You pull off the highway, fill up the gas tank, stretch your legs out, and maybe get some caffeine before you hop back in for the next leg of the trip. We know we HAVE to do that otherwise, we’ll end up stranded on the side of the road with an empty gas tank. Trying to lose all the fat all in one go is like skipping filling up the gas tank, if you break down you aren’t just delayed a bit, but now you might ruin the whole road trip spending the rest of the time dealing with the broken down car!⁠

RP Strength – https://www.instagram.com/p/Cyi9TkwMlBT/

Confidence Builder: Habit-Based Adjustments

Know that you can always course-correct through your habits.

Play around with different levels and different habits throughout any phase to see what fits best in that moment and makes you feel the best.

  • Increase calorie output with an added walk each day
  • Keep up with regular exercise
  • Be mindful of your food choices
  • Pay attention to your water consumption
  • Focus on getting to bed earlier
  • Reduce or increase the volume of food
  • Manage the number of times to eat outside of the house

The more confidence we can build, the more likely we are to maintain the maintenance.

I’m so appreciative of you getting to this point and coming on this journey with me.

Full Maintenance Series:

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  1. Pingback: Maintenance Part Four: How I wish I would’ve started – always on my mind
  2. Pingback: Maintenance Part Five: My pants need to fit! – always on my mind

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