The Challenge of Maintenance

Your’re Finally There

You’ve lost the weight. You got on the scales one morning and there it was, your goal weight. Or you went to the gym and had your body fat percentage checked and found out that you were already below your goal body fat percentage,  even though you hadn’t gotten to goal weight. Or you finally got into that goal outfit, that goal dress or pant size.

When you first realized that you’d finally done it, there was a great feeling of joy, of accomplishment. You got online and announced it to every list you belong to, you hit the mall and bought yourself some well deserved tiny little clothes.

 

Now What?

But behind it all, you had a letdown feeling. Now what were you going to do with yourself? For months, maybe years, you’d had a goal, a project. You felt empowered; you felt almost as though you could accomplish anything as you fought and wrestled with the easy days and the hard ones, the whooshes and the stalls. You were on a mission. Now what?

Well, you know now what. Now you just go on eating the same way you did to lose the weight. Sure, there are some things you had to cut out because they stalled you, and sure you can have those every once in a while now. You’re calm; you know what to do. But as the weeks and then months go by you find it harder and harder to stay on the plan.

One of the dilemmas of any successful way of eating is how to maintain your weight loss once you’ve reached your goal weight or size. You don’t want to go on losing, so you don’t have to be quite so strict. It should be a simple manner of calculating a new critical carbohydrate level for maintenance, or of finding out which of the higher carb foods are safe for you and which are not. It should be.

But it’s not.

Maybe the first thing you do is decide that you need a new mission. A new purpose, a new source of excitement, something to accomplish. This is when many successful low carbers turn to exercise. Finally slim enough to be able to contemplate being seen in gym clothes, you decide to completely remake yourself into an athlete. You lift weights; you hit the track; you buy a bike; you join a gym.

You’re excited again. You’ve got a new goal, a new set of numbers you want to achieve. And, for a while, it works. But sooner or later, you’re going to get to goal there, too. And then the let down comes again. OK, now it’s time to finish that degree, find that new relationship, get that new job. Perhaps the sense of empowerment that came with losing weight has entered your life to stay and you begin one step at a time to redefine yourself.

There is a certain drama to ongoing weight loss. It is delicious to see our weight go down, and agonizing to see it bounce back up. Maybe we become addicted to the “accomplishments” of the weight loss process. Maybe we are all addictive personalities and have just substituted our carb addictions for other addictions, such as striving to reach our goal.

This can be a good thing if you’re choosing your new goals well. You should not have any difficulty maintaining your  weight loss now. But you do.

 

Self-Sabotage

What’s going on? Why do you keep pushing the envelope on what you’re eating? Why do you let irrational rationalizations creep into your thinking? “After all,” you think. “my weight didn’t spike up the last time I tried a few French fries,” or “I’ll try the rice, because after all I never craved rice, it may not even be a problem food for me.” But the most likely delusion is the “I’m strong enough to just eat one serving and go straight back on induction tomorrow.” Well, maybe you are, but how often does this begin to happen? Christmas? Your birthday? Next comes every one else in the family’s birthday, and after that comes your coworkers birthdays and next you’re eating cake once a week. The next thing you know you’re pouring hot fudge sundaes down your throat. You know better, and yet you do it anyway. What on earth is happening? It’s called self-sabotage, and it’s dangerous.

Sometimes it’s a matter of our internal self-image. Some of us have spent our entire lives heavy and simply can’t come to terms with the fact that we are no longer fat. Our bodies have changed, but our minds haven’t. We don’t recognize the person staring back at us from the mirror anymore, and it’s scary. We don’t know who we are anymore.

If you want to maintain the weight loss you worked so hard for, you need to work just as hard to shed the mental chains that kept you fat for so long. It wasn’t, after all, just about carbohydrates or calories. It was about you, too, and all the nooks and crannies of your soul that the fat covered up and kept hidden.

 

Asking Yourself The Tough Questions

Self sabotage is often a matter of conflicting internal motivations. Sometimes our emotional baggage is in conflict with our stated goal of staying slim and healthy. We need to delve into our minds and emotions and come to terms with the issues we have been hiding from.

I’ve encountered people on the low carb lists from time to time who seem to actively dislike slim people. How can they reconcile those feelings with their new, slim bodies? They’ve become “them,” and have joined the ranks of the slim people they’ve detested for so long. Anybody want to bet how well they’ll do at staying slim themselves?

By seeing yourself as fat, did you accept in yourself certain behaviors that someone who sees themselves as a slender person would not? For example, if you have always been shy, did you use your weight to avoid uncomfortable social situations?

Have you thought that you’d be better able to defend yourself, or would be taken more seriously if you’re big? Don’t laugh. Animals instinctively try to look bigger when they feel threatened. Puffer fish swell up and cats not only puff up their fur but arch their backs and stand on their tippy toes to appear larger and more formidable.

Do you think you’ll be sexually immoral or at least tempted to be if you have a hot body? Do you have a problem with people admiring your looks? Do you have a problem with people looking at your body? Does that anger or frighten you? Do you miss your insulating chastity belt of fat?

Have you ever used food to keep yourself from doing something you knew you weren’t supposed to but wanted to anyway, like call someone you shouldn’t, or spend money you don’t have, or pick a fight?

Have you ever gotten slim, become involved in a relationship, and then wondered “Would he still love me if I were heavy?” Do you want to really test him and find out?

Did losing weight change the balance of power in a significant relationship with your husband, your wife, your significant other, your sibling, your parent, or your coworkers? Is that an uncomfortable transition, either for you or for them? Are they hostile about it, or are you?

Any or all of these things can steal your motivation to stay slim and healthy. And for every one I’ve listed there are a dozen other possible internal conflicts.

 

The Good News

The good news is that every one of them can be dealt with in more constructive ways than gobbling chocolate. The bad news is that if we don’t bring these sorts of issues out into the open in our lives and find better ways to deal with them, the chances are we’ll be fat again all too soon.

It’s said that losing weight doesn’t change your life, and I know what they mean. The traffic will still be bad; I’ll still be getting older; my teenager will still be surly. But for me the struggle to lose weight and keep it off has forced me to look seriously at some aspects of my life, of my personality, of my entire internal belief system. My external circumstances may not have changed, but I have changed for the better, both inside and out.

All of my life I was told I was smart. Well, because I believed it I have done many things to reinforce that self-image. I read challenging books and magazines. I take continuing education courses. Because I believe I’m smart, I do things to make myself smarter and smarter. Can’t the same things happen in relation to my weight? Couldn’t I believe I was healthy and strong and slim? Can’t I do things to make sure I remain healthy and strong and slim?

Of course I can. I can continue to strengthen both my body and my mind. There is no conclusion, in the sense of being finished, never to worry about it again, but if you are willing to do the work, then you can succeed long term. Do the work. Continue the experiment, find out what foods you truly can add back, and what foods you can’t. Find out what continues to wreak internal sabotage and keep working on it.

Believe in yourself. But put that faith in action and do the work, both inside and out.

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