When you engage in weight loss, a lot of metabolic processes are involved. Understanding these processes will help you in positioning yourself to overcome the difficulty in maintaining the desired weight. Depending on the procedure you engaged in your weight loss endeavour, your body may trigger the physiological mechanism that either facilitates or hinders weight loss. In order words, your weight-loss experience may lead to a slower metabolism making it difficult for you to maintain weight loss or an optimal metabolism that enhances your weight-loss endeavour.
We all know that it is not an easy feat to achieve weight loss. After achieving the desired weight, it is even more problematic to keep off unwanted weight permanently. It is common to see people losing a large amount of weight only to regain more weight one or two years later. It is found that when you use calorie restriction approach only to achieve weight loss, your body will experience a drop in the rate you burn calories. Consequently, this makes it difficult for you to lose weight over time. Furthermore, this lower rate of burning calories would make it difficult for you to maintain the weight you struggled to achieve.
As a result, the use of low-calorie diets alone to achieve weight loss is not advisable, so also is rapid weight loss over a short time. Bodyweight loss of not more than 2 to 4 Kg (4 to 8 Pounds) depending on your initial weight is considered healthy by experts. More importantly, a commitment to long-term lifestyle changes is what you require for successful long-term weight loss. To assist you in achieving this, grab your copy of the resource, “My Optimal Body”.
The following reasons explain why you may find it difficult to maintain weight loss over time.
Difficulty in maintaining weight loss due to lack of commitment
Firstly, I like to challenge you to count the cost of weight loss to you and see if it is worth you committing to it as a lifetime endeavour. Make a list of the benefits and the sacrifices that go with weight loss endeavour and maintaining a healthy weight. Also, make a list of the pleasures and the associated health risks that go with keeping an unhealthy weight. Be honest to yourself, weigh your options especially in the long run. This will help you in establishing your commitment to the sacrifices that go with maintaining a healthy weight. This simple consideration will not be the same for everyone since people’s priorities are very different.
This is not to say that you will have to be in a situation whereby you barely endure life and not enjoy your life to the fullest. Therefore, I always counsel, that people should adopt the healthy eating habit and exercises they enjoy and could sustain for life. If the diet you adopt is what you barely endure and if the exercise you are involved with is not what you can commit to for a lifetime, then you are not likely going to be able to sustain your newly adopted lifestyle for long.
Wrong approaches make it difficult to maintain weight loss
As previously explained, your body’s response to your weight loss program may trigger the biological process that could facilitate or hinder weight loss. If you engage extreme low-calorie diet as a stand-alone approach, if you do not engage in any physical activity, and probably your diet is inadequate in quality protein, you are likely going to achieve a rapid weight loss. However, you will be losing the healthy weight (skeletal muscle mass) along with the unhealthy weight (fat mass). This is an undesirable situation. Furthermore, your will basal metabolic rate will reduce. Your basal metabolic rate influences the rate at which your body utilizes energy. A low basal metabolic rate means your body’s ability to burn fat reduces. Hence your body will struggle with keeping off the fat deposits when you return to a regular diet.
It is advisable to engage the services of an expert to monitor your weight loss progress and help you make the necessary dietary adjustment towards achieving the desirable and healthy weight loss. This and more has been addressed in the e-resource “My Optimal Body”.
Difficulty in maintaining weight loss due to inadequate balance of calories
Once the desired weight has been achieved, there should be a gradual adjustment of calories to achieve calorie balance. At this point, the right number of calories for your daily need must be determined to which you need to adhere. Failure to adhere to this will lead to calorie imbalance, usually, an excess calorie is often the case.
This stage requires a lot of patience and the assistance of a dietician or nutritionist for record-keeping and adjusting food intake and exercise levels. Usually, an addition of about 200 calories of healthy, low-fat food to your daily intake may be necessary to prevent further weight loss.
Binge eating as responses to stress
It is necessary to control your eating behaviour when you are stressed. Using uncontrolled eating as a coping mechanism in stress could hinder your capacity to maintain weight loss. In such a situation, you are no more in control of the number of calories you are taking in. Rather, choose other healthy options. This includes the use of exercise, physical activity, prayers, or meditation to respond to stress instead of eating.
Ignorance about food facts
The lack of knowledge of food facts may result in you taking in excess calories without your knowing it. Foods high in hidden fats such as crisps, French fries, biscuits, cookies, could hinder your ability to maintain weight loss over time. It is advisable to read labels of packaged foods so you can make informed choices about the number of calories you will be having by taking a certain amount of the food.
Lack of physical activities
After you have achieved your desired weight, you need to continue in regular physical activities such as walking, walking the stairs, gardening, etc. to balance your calorie intake with usage. If you ceased from regular activities, though you have a healthy dietary intake, you will very soon start to experience a positive energy balance and inability to maintain weight loss.
Conclusion
The difficulty in maintaining weight loss comes primarily from a lack of commitment. Also, the values you place on the benefits of a healthy weight and your perceptions of the risks of unhealthy weight will determine your commitment. Engaging the right approach to weight loss and keeping to a healthy lifestyle after you have achieved your desired weight goal will help you to overcome the difficulty in maintaining weight loss.
