Weight Maintenance v. Weight Loss Maintenance 1

There is a big difference between weight maintenance and weight loss maintenance. Many people are stuck in weight maintenance. I am one person with that problem. They cannot make the leap to reducing to a healthier weight or a weight that is personally desirable to them. It is much harder to maintain weight loss than to maintain weight. I will start to give tips on maintaining weight loss as I go along, but first, I need to discuss maintaining weight, because that is not a bad thing. That is much better than slowly gaining over the years. However, many people are stuck there and don't necessarily want to be stuck there.

I'll describe a number of ways you can be stuck there but will start with myself. I am basically a person who enjoys eating a healthy, low-fat vegetarian diet and likes to exercise. I like to lift weights and jog. I like to have an active lifestyle. I like to walk and hike, I like to carry logs around, I like to be outdoors, etc. Because I like and desire all of the above, I easily maintain weight. The problem I have losing weight is when life interferes with my normal routine. I can gain 20 or 30 pounds over severe stress. It comes off once the stress is relieved. Other things which interfere with my lifestyle are cold weather, having to travel long distances, stressful jobs or stressful school work, jobs where there is nowhere to get healthy food or where I'm not given a break to eat, trying to accommodate other people in my life who do not have the same habits as me. Because life constantly interferes with my routine, I can't take off the extra pounds and then try to keep them off.

I could go on a diet. I could do it myself, or I could go to Weight Watchers, or I could regularly attend my TOPS meeting. But if life keeps interfering with my routine, I won't keep the weight off from my dieting. I will gain it back, and then I will be back to maintaining a weight which is a little too high for me.

So I have come to the conclusion that it isn't very useful to diet until two basic conditions are met. First, I have to make a permanent commitment that I am willing to do what it takes to maintain a lower weight. Secondly, I have to develop the skills during the diet which will be used during maintenance.