WEIGHT LOSS AND NUTRITION

10 ways of maintaining weight

(Last Updated On: 20 August 2018)

After many weeks of hard work, this long-awaited moment finally comes: your scales shows the number of kilograms you have dreamed of for years ! Question is – what to do to make sure you maintain this?

Many people make the same mistake: when the achieve their goal, they forget about a diet and go back to what they denied themselves before. Sadly effective weight loss does not end with achieving the required size or kilograms. Another, substantially bigger, success is to maintain weight as long as possible.

How to do it? Here are 10 ways of maintaining perfect weight for many years!

  1. Do not go back to previous eating habits short after the end of the process. If you were on a diet that required limited number of calories (e.g. to 1500 kcal), you should gradually add new calories to your menu. The optimal number is about 100 kcal per week. If a week has passed and you have not put on weight, you can add another hundred next week. But remember that you mustn’t go too far – it is advisable to calculate your daily energy demand and stick to it.
  2. Follow new and healthier habits. If you have learned to prepare meals without fat, if you have cut down on eating sweets and got accustomed to drinking much water- stick to it. Remember that things you have resigned from have lead you to the position in which you wished to slim down.
  3. Control your weight. A weekly checkup is enough to avoid a risk of weight increase.
  4. Cook on your own. Too frequent visits to the restaurant where we cannot control the number of calories may lead to rapid weight growth.
  5. Do not forget about physical exercises. If you did sport on a regular basis or worked out at home when you were on a diet, do not stop doing it. If you have managed to lose weight without physical activities, you are lucky, but it doesn’t mean this is the best way of keeping figure, or shaping it.
  6. Reorganize your kitchen. In the first line in cupboards and fridge place healthy low-calorie food, and all others in the back, as you should eat them sporadically. Thanks to this, you will choose food you don’t need more infrequently, and when you feel hungry, you will take the first-line products.
  7. Be a new you. Rid of all old clothes that used to be a safety valve and now are a few sizes too big (if you don’t feel like taking such drastic measures, just pack them and hide in an invisible place). Go shopping and buy clothes you have only dreamed of before. This is one of the best ways of reminding yourself why you have worked so hard.
  8. Do not neglect sleep. Fewer than eight hours of sleep per day may lead to appetite disorders which will cause you to eat more than you need.
  9. Make use of psychological tricks. Use larger cutlery and smaller plates, when you eat finger-food (e.g. nuts, crisps), change your hand (if you are right-handed, eat with left hand and the other way round).

10. Set your goal. When you were on a diet, your goal was to lose weight, now another goal is to maintain this weight as long as possible. To motivate yourself, reward yourself for your success – do something you truly enjoy and you can never find time for.

A graduate of dietetics at Coventry University. He continuously expands his academic knowledge by participating in training and conferences. When developing diets, he takes into account patients’ food preferences, seasonality, day plan, potential disorders, and body composition analysis results. He prepares nutritional programs on the basis of latest recommendations and scientific news. He motivates, supports and works on the change of dietary habits among his patients so that the effects they obtain are durable.