5 Weight Management Tips That Will Help Maintain Your Weight Loss

Yes, you can, and you did. What now?

We always talk about weight loss and how to do it as fast as possible, but what about maintaining a healthy weight once it’s achieved?

Weight loss is a lifelong journey for many people. Sometimes weight goals are achieved with months of effort and sacrifice but usually, quickly gained back. Maybe it’s time to focus on how to keep a healthy weight rather than constantly playing the frustrating YoYo game of constant weight loss and weight gain.

Unlike weight loss, when I think about weight management, positive images come to my mind because this time, the goal is not about battling with the mind and the body but about savoring the well-deserved victory. Weight management is about optimizing your lifestyle in a way that you live consciously and in control of not only your weight but all aspects of your life. Here are the most important lifestyle changes that you should make in order to maintain your healthy weight:

1.Sleep, sleep, sleep

I bet you weren’t expecting to sleep to be the number one requirement for healthy weight management but it really is. There is plenty of research out there about how sleep helps to balance hormones that are crucial for weight loss such as insulin, leptin, and ghrelin. These hormones regulate the feeling of hunger, feelings of fullness, and storage of food in the body. In other words, without a deep and restful sleep at night, weight loss may be a hard-to-accomplish task.

It’s not that if you sleep well you can lose more weight but it’s more so if you sleep well, your body will enable weight loss. This is why sleep is the #1 step for weight management. In order not to get back to the old weight, the body needs to be functioning optimally to support a healthy weight.

According to the Sleep Foundation, the recommended amount of sleep for adults is 7-9 hours a day. If you are not sleeping well, as a hypnotherapist, I first recommend trying hypnotherapy since hypnosis is very helpful for sleep training and regulation. If you’d like to explore home remedies, try self-hypnosis or hypnosis recordings for better sleep. If you can’t fall asleep because your mind chatter doesn’t leave you alone, try establishing a bedtime routine. Start by turning off your phone or TV at least one hour before, dim the lights, make a cup of chamomile tea, read a book, or do all of the above!

2. Practice a stress release modality

Have you ever heard someone (or yourself) say “I eat my emotions” or “I am an emotional eater”? I heard this quite a few times and I can confidently say that many people who gain unwanted weight find that the problem escalated after a significant change in their lives. This means coping with changes and emotions can make you eat more or worst, can make you choose to eat unhealthy foods. It’s almost like we lose track of what we eat or how we eat when we “eat” our emotions, very similar to a hypnotic state!

In order to avoid emotional eating, you can choose to deal with your emotions in a healthier way. Meditation, mindfulness, self-hypnosis, or breathwork are proven methods of mood control and emotional release. For example, a study that was published in Stress & Health magazine found that mindfulness meditation can change people’s states positively.

All of these self-help techniques require practice and repetition. However, the results are absolutely worth it! Many people who work with these techniques report feeling relieved, calm, and more relaxed. Moreover, they report having better control over their emotions.

“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants” ~ Michael Pollan

3. Eat everything, not too much, mostly plants 

This quote may sound very familiar because it’s from the famous writer and journalist Michael Pollan. He says “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants”. He believes that your diet can be simple yet very satisfying and healthy. The article from WebMD dives deeper into Pollan’s tips for healthy weight management. This simple philosophy can really help us maintain our ideal weight for a long time.  

The idea is not to keep you chained to a strict diet for the rest of your life but help you to have a diet in which you can enjoy any food in moderate portions. For example, even something that is known to be healthy like carrots can become unhealthy if you end up eating an excess amount accompanied by ranch sauce.

If you enjoy eating chicken, meat, or fish, keep enjoying them moderately and try to add more plants to your meals. Can you substitute one meal with a salad? Can you roast some veggies in the oven for weekday meals?

Remember, you don’t need to change your diet or habits inside out but small substitutes or once a day meal changes can help you create your ideal diet.

4. Be active in every situation

Unfortunately, many people tend to think that they can stop being active once they reach their ideal weight. However, being active should be an important part of daily life for healthy weight management in the long term for many reasons.  

For one, working out and being active allows the body to burn more fat continuously while storing more muscle in the body. Muscles help us be stronger physically for everyday mobility. For example, strong back muscles help us stand tall and straight, strong arm muscles can help with daily chores, strong leg muscles can help us walk easier and more effectively, and so on.

Second, being active decreases the possibility of many other significant health problems such as diabetes, heart problems, or even blood pressure. According to www.medlineplus.gov, working out improves circulation which increases the oxygen levels in the body. Increased levels of oxygen can lower the risk of heart diseases.

Additionally, working out can shift our mood by triggering serotonin and dopamine release. And most importantly, working out can help improving sleep which goes hand in hand with the first weight management tool; sleep.

These are just a few reasons why you should continue being active even though you may have reached your ideal weight. Even on the days in which you don’t work out, try to keep your body active by accomplishing 10k steps. You can try old tricks such as parking your car further away when you go to the grocery store, circling the grocery store before you start shopping, or walking your dog longer than usual. 

5. Learn to listen to your body

There is no one size fits all when it comes to us, humans. Although social media may suggest unrealistic standards such as you have to eat meat to get your proteins, you have to work out with weights at the gym to be fit or you have to be size 2 to call yourself fit; these are not true for the majority of the people. The idealized world on social media channels is not the reality that many people live in.

Find your own body’s voice. Discover what you enjoy, what your body thrives with, what gives you energy. Remember, you are very unique and there is not one person like you in this entire world! Take time to understand your complex system. Just because everyone is doing yoga these days it doesn’t mean that you will enjoy yoga. Maybe you are the boxing type but you will never know until you take time for yourself and try it! 

Be your body’s best friend. Accept it as it is, without judging. After all your body is your physical manifestation in this world. Judging your body will create more resistance to change but accepting will allow your body to work with you.

All in all…

Pay attention to all these small steps. They are all small habitual changes that support a healthy lifestyle. Until now, the reason why you weren’t able to keep your ideal weight was probably a combination of toxic lifestyle habits that didn’t allow you to be healthy in the first place. Now, you’ve come so far. You reached your ideal weight. But this time, make it different and create a lifestyle that supports you at your ideal weight!