How to maintain your weight once you've lost / gained to your "goal" weight?

For the most part the general population is seeking out weight loss, but there is an equal group of folks out there whom want to gain weight (mostly muscular / or body fat for health related reasons). Regardless of what the goal is, the question now is "how do I maintain it?"

It's been months of dieting and you're either hangry all the time or sick of food altogether, now you have to maintain this weight. Seems impossible!

Weight maintenance can indeed be tricky but there are a few things to attend to here. Firstly, weight maintenance is about give and take (+/-), it's about maintaining minimal fluctuation. In general the assumption is that you must weight X amount and only X amount. Where in reality weight maintenance is X +/- 1-2lbs. Just a days worth of eating and drinking will fluctuate your weight +1-5lbs. So the driving focus should not be to keep exact weight but within a lean pound or two of your current body weight. This helps keep the mind at ease and not worry so frantically every time the scale reads something new.

To add on to the this point, it's also beneficial to stay within this range as it let's you know

you only have 1-2lbs to lose or gain, which is a week or two of dieting vs. 5+lbs, becoming a much longer / restrictive process.

Second point, as your body adapts to the new conditions you've put it under it develops a new standard. This standard being metabolic rate. When you diet down weight for a long time the bodies daily caloric need reduces. Say you go from 2400cals/day to 1800cals/day for 2-3 months. The body get's used to operating on 1800 cals, making it the new daily caloric need. So going back to what is known as maintenance calories (the number of calories you need to maintain weight: calories burnt = calories consumed) that you were consuming beforehand is not actually the right step, as 1800 is now your new maintenance calories. However, we don't want our bodies under such restrictive caloric conditions forever, so this is how you'll reach a healthy caloric maintenance without gaining/losing significant weight.

As with dieting up or down in weight it's important to never jump head first in the deep end going from 2400-1500 0r 2000-3500 cals/day. It's crucial to take a coordinated approach and tackle the goal one step at a time. This calls for incremental decrease/increases in caloric intake. If you're trying to lose, start with an initial 250-500 calorie deficit and slowly drop calories every 2nd week, incorporating occasional re-feed windows of higher calories. Same principle for gaining weight, start with a slight surplus and continually add until you reach you target weight.

So when it comes to maintaining and more precisely hitting that manageable maintenance calorie number, you have to ease into it. Slowly increase calories from X to X+100-200/week, watching your weight closely. If you start gaining too rapidly, ease off and keep the cals low. Weigh yourself frequently to get the best visual of how your weight is fluctuating. After a few weeks you'll nail a specific calorie range that keeps your weight in check. Realistically you may end up a few pounds heavier or lighter then when you initially ended your diet, but this is likely healthier than the latter. Most diets end at a point in which our bodies can't fully maintain, so gaining/losing a few pounds is essentially our body reverting itself to a healthier state. Something you have to understand and be comfortable with. It doesn't mean the battle has been lost, but that the battle continues.

That leads me to my third point. The battle is never over. The hardest part is maintenance itself. You can't ever slack off or give in. It's from this point where building a healthy relationship with food, understanding what is good and pour for your body, and eating based on your targeted results becomes crucial. If all it took was a sharp diet and we got to keep the results I think everyone would be their ideal physical selfs. Not the case however, so remember that once you've reached the stage of maintenance it is pertinent to determine what range of calories allow you to keep your weight the way it is and to continually monitor your weight to ensure you are taking the right steps to maintaining the weight.

Lastly, it is of utmost importance to maintain a consistent workout routine whether it be cardio, weights, or yoga. Maintain a consistent level of activities eliciting an elevated cardiac output to continually aid in the maintenance of your health. Nutrition itself is the key to losing/gaining, but implementing a sound workout routine doubles your odds of success. More lean mass = higher metabolic rate = faster fat burning = "easier" to maintain. More muscle mass also allows you to maintain more muscle as you are able to consistently apply heavy external pressures on the musculature without damage. More stimulus = more muscle (essentially).

Maintenance is a healthy diet, healthy body, and a healthy mind.

All these suggestions apply to both those maintaining from a loss or a gain of weight.

Like I said, it's a battle from start to finish, but one that never ends!

"Progression is built through consistency and tested by passion"

JB