Maintaining the success: Nine long-term weight loss secrets and strategies

 

Whether for health reasons or aesthetic ones, they’ve finally managed to lose those unwanted pounds! While losing weight and getting to their desired health status is difficult, it’s just as hard to maintain their progress.

After most people lose their desired amount of pounds, their progress stagnates, and they return to their old lifestyle and eating habits. Unfortunately, this can result in regaining the pounds that they just lost and then some. If they want to keep this from happening and maintain their success in the long term, they’ve come to the right place.

 

Don’t stop exercising 

When people have an end goal in mind, they find it fairly easy to work their tails off to reach their weight loss goals. Once they achieve their goal, it’s easy to take a few days off or reward themselves with more cheat days. 

However, It’s amazing how difficult it is to resume your exercise schedule after taking a few days or weeks off. Therefore, while it’s okay to slow down a bit and maybe add the occasional rest day, taking a prolonged amount of time off from exercising is a bad idea.

Stay accountable

While some people are disciplined enough on their own to lose weight and maintain their ideal weight, most people have more success when they don’t do it alone. Having a friend, family member, or loved one to whom you’re accountable can make a world of difference when it comes to losing weight and maintaining your success. 

That’s why it may be beneficial to have an accountability partner that you check in with regularly to ensure you’re maintaining your weight loss strategies and not getting stagnant. 

Slightly increase the caloric intake 

The way your body works is that you lose weight by having a caloric deficit. In other words, your body loses and works off more calories through exercise, sleep, and daily activities than it takes in through the food and drink you consume. 

Therefore, once you reach your weight loss goals and you’re in the maintenance stage, you’ll want to increase your caloric intake slightly. That way, your weight stays right where it is. 

Have daily weigh-ins

Once you reach the maintenance stage, it’s important to have daily weigh-ins to ensure you’re sticking to your weight loss game plan. If your weight fluctuates too much one way or the other, you can quickly make adjustments to get back on track. 

Consider weight lifting 

When people are working hard to lose weight, they typically focus on cardio, abs, and lots of movement. However, once they’re in the maintenance stage, adding a few days of weight training into the mix can be beneficial. 

Lifting weights is a great way to regain some of the muscle you may have lost on your weight loss journey. Additionally, certain weight loss programs incorporate light cardio into the mix, making for a good, all-around workout.

Don’t get down on yourself 

Whether you’re still in the weight loss period or the weight maintenance one, you’re bound to have disappointments and setbacks. Maybe you gained a few pounds since your last weigh-in, or you gave yourself one too many cheat days. 

Whatever it might be, setbacks are a part of life, and it’s important to deal with them constructively. Make sure you don’t get down on yourself too much, as it could lead to a slippery slope of getting back into bad habits. Instead, pick your chin up, get back to your weight maintenance routine, and work even harder than you did before. 

Water, water, water 

No matter what stage you are in your weight loss journey, drinking lots of water is always important. Water helps keep you hydrated and energized throughout the day so that you have the energy you need to meal prep and work out. Water is also a natural filler, so loading up on water will help you eat less during meals.

Get plenty of sleep 

In addition to being important for your mental health, sleep is also important for your physical well-being. While you’re sleeping, your body is metabolizing food, burning calories, and building muscles. Each of these things is important for losing and maintaining weight, so you should strive for 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night. 

Stress is a killer 

When you feel stressed out, your body automatically releases cortisol to calm you down. While cortisol helps reduce your stress, it also contributes to fat and weight gain. Therefore, it’s important to find ways to keep from stressing out in the first place or to find destressing alternatives. 

Last words

If you notice the scale creeping up again but haven’t changed anything about your routine, talk with your doctor about Dallas Wegovy pricing and if a prescription weight loss medication may be right for you. These once-weekly medications work to help you maintain a healthy weight by suppressing your appetite and increasing feelings of fullness.

It’s important to find a sustainable system and stick to it to maintain your weight loss goals. Going from one diet to another, taking days off of working out, or throwing in random cheat days is a recipe for disaster. 

The editorial unit