Hi and welcome to the Mindful Shape podcast. I’m Paula Parker, and I’m a life and weight loss coach. I recently sent out an email to you asking you what you most want to learn and the topics you would like me to go into depth on for a new course that I’ve just started working on. If you didn’t get that email and you’d like to be included in this kind of thing in the future and or you’d like to hear from me you can sign up at my website. The link is in the bio it’s mindfulshape.com In my emails I get a little more personal than I do here on the podcast about my own journey so if that’s interesting and helpful for you, that’s available there.

I really appreciate those of you who responded with such great topics and it will also help me create content for the podcast that I know you want, so again, thank you for taking the time to do that. It’s not too late if you saw that email and then promptly forgot about it - there’s still time to let me know what you most want to learn about. And if your ears perked up about the course, don’t worry I will be filling you in on all the details as I get closer to making that available.

All that to say, I decided to cover maintenance because I noticed this was a theme in what you want to know about. How do you maintain the weight loss success you’ve had so far? And what about after you’ve achieved your bold weight loss goal and are finished releasing weight? What happens then? If you’ve lost and gained the same weight over and over again you know how frustrating and defeating that is. I don’t want that for you ever again. 

It might be stirring up some worry in you because you’re currently believing a very common myth about what maintenance looks like. 

So today I’m going to help you identify the worst myth about weight loss maintenance and all the ways it shows up to get in the way of you feeling 100% confident in your ability to maintain your success. And in fact I’ll show you how they are likely getting in the way of you releasing weight too. Plus I’m going to tell EXACTLY how to banish that looming fear of the weight coming back on. 

Let’s get right to it. The worst and most common myth you may be believing without even knowing it, is that: How you will maintain your weight loss success is drastically different to how you have released it. That it’s going to require a whole new set of skills and actions. 

You may be under the illusion that you’ll figure out how to maintain your natural weight once you’re there and loving your new bod. You know this is you if you’re feeling desperate and are leaning toward a quite restrictive way of eating. 

I want to share a quick story with you just to illustrate how common this is - this rush to the end. A few weeks ago, my husband I were joining some family and friends for a picnic in a park across the street from my inlaw’s place. And I’ll preface this by letting you know that we were already running late as usual which drives me nuts so my cortisol was already up a bit. So we parked right outside their place and my son who’s now a year and a half recognized where we were and got excited saying, Nana over and over. So cute right? But of course, we weren’t going in because we were meeting them in the park. He didn’t know that so he started freaking out - crying and yelling out Nana as I carried him into the park. And so he’s crying and throwing his arms and kicking his legs around and I’m trying to manage carrying this 25lb toddler and I’m thinking, we just have to get into the park and he’ll see. If we just hurry, if we speed up and go faster, we’ll get there and  he’ll see his Nana is there in the park and won’t be upset anymore. Like let’s just move faster - and everything will be fine.

My husband on the other hand had a different approach and was like, let’s slow down. Let’s take a break. He was like, “He doesn’t want to be carried right now.” I’m like “what do you mean? as he’s thrashing like a fish out of water in my arms. So we put him down and right away he started to calm down. Then my husband held him there for not even a minute until he seemed ready to be carried the rest of the way. Now you might guess that of course I was super annoyed that my husband was the better parent in this situation but that aside, it was a good little reminder for me. Sometimes the best thing to do is slow down, reassess and not be in such a rush to get there. The journey is much more pleasurable. Less crying for sure. 

You might be thinking that it will be easier after you’ve lost the weight. When you’re feeling great at your natural weight, wearing all your favorite clothes, you won’t want to overeat or over drink ever again right? It will just go away automatically somehow. That desire just won’t be there anymore. You’ll look so different, you will also BE different without any of the problems you have now. Sometimes our brain really believes that.

You might be thinking once you get to maintenance it will be smooth sailing and feel so amazing. You’ll have at least some healthy habits to rely on right? What could possibly go wrong?

Or on the flip side, you think that it will be harder. Sure you know how to drop a few lbs or even a lot, but keeping it off is truly the hard part - I mean look at all the evidence you have. You’ve lost weight before but never kept it off. Maintaining your weight is hard. How can you live the rest of your life in restriction? It’s not possible - it’s feels terrible. Your brain is like,  either I can have the body I want and a life of restriction or I can eat whatever I want and never be at my natural weight. Too very hard choices.

And lastly, you might be a bit worried that it won’t be as good as you hoped when you reach your goal weight. You’re older now, your skin isn’t going to bounce back. Just because you now weigh what you did at 25 doesn’t mean you look like you’re 25. What happens if you put all this work in and it’s NOT amazing over there? What if you still don’t feel confident, still don’t like the way you look and still crave sugar all the time and can’t have it? What was the point?

If you’ve ever had one or maybe even all of these thoughts at one time or another, just know you have a totally normal, well functioning brain. I like to think our brain is always looking out for us but it just doesn’t have all the info and gets a bit off track.

Believing that myth that How you will maintain your weight loss success is drastically different to how you have released it generates a lot of fear. Thinking that it’s going to be easier but with an underlying uncertainty that it will because you’re still confused how exactly, or that it will definitely be much harder makes you worry about it. 

And when you’re feeling anxious and fearful about maintaining your weight, you’re more likely to want to rush through it - to just lose the weight quickly to end that anxiety, you’re more likely to consider more restrictive diets, and quick fixes. You don’t do the mental/emotional work addressing the reasons why you gained weight in the first place. You may even push off your goal weight by justifying overeating, eating less healthy food, eating restrictively then rebelling because subconsciously you believe maintenance isn’t even possible without lifelong misery and restriction. 

Man, sometimes when I describe things I wonder if it’s too much of a downer for you. I hope not. I hope that when you hear this you recognize parts of it in you and think, oh that’s what’s going on! Okay that’s really good to know. Not oh man, that’s my reality and it’s terrible. The light at the end of the tunnel is coming, I promise you!

So let’s go there right now - the solution is: You need to believe that you already know how to maintain your natural weight easily and effortlessly. 

Sounds impossible right no huh? That’s okay - let your brain freak out a little. It’s probably been believing the worst weight loss maintenance myth for years, if not decades. Give yourself some time here.

I’ll say it again.  The solution is: You need to believe that you already know how to maintain your natural weight easily and effortlessly. 

Now I’ll tell you exactly how to do that. I’m so, so thrilled to share this will you because it just might change EVERYTHING for you. P.S. spoiler I’m not even promoting the course yet, but what I’m about explain is just a hint at what you will get in there. 

So what do you do when you don’t believe this? The best way to believe anything new is to take action and create some evidence. You’ll know you can maintain your success when you are confident you’re in control of your weight because you know exactly what to do for your body and how to do it. 

To get you started, here’s what I suggest you do:

1. Choose a way of eating that you can foreseeably matain for the next 3 years. This forces your brain to evaluate food plans with a realistic eye and clear head. I think Keto is a great example. It’s a very popular, if not the most popular diet right now and I personally know a few people who have lost a bunch of weight pretty quickly on it, but most people would agree it’s not sustainable lifestyle or health-wise. 

2. If you’re not sure and feel very overwhelmed and confused about how to eat consider focussing on these 3 levers for releasing weight: 

   1. What you eat (which foods serve you and which don’t) We know that there are some foods that spike insulin like sugar, flour and alcohol and there are some foods that don’t like healthy fat, protein and vegetables and then there are those that will depend much more on your unique constitution, foods like fruit, starches, grains and franken foods like natural flavors and artificial sweeteners. Some so called healthy foods aren’t going to work for you body - you’ll know based on how you feel - for example I know that I don’t feel great when I eat walnuts - never used to be an issue for me and it’s a healthy food, but doesn’t work for my body. When you’re thinking about What to eat, you want to be thinking about the science of weight loss but also how the food feels in your body. Now on occasion you might consciously choose to eat something that doesn’t feel so great, but you like your reasons. There are no rules here, you make the rules based on the rate at which you want to release weight and how you want to feel in your body in terms of physical comfort and energy-wise.

   2. The next lever to is When you eat (how much time do you go without eating to allow for you body to access your fat stores) I think this one can make the biggest difference actually so don’t discount it. The more time you can allow your body to use it’s stored fat, the faster your weight loss is going to be. 

   3. Lastly, you want to make decisions about How much to eat (based on how satiated you want to feel) For many of use who have always relied on someone else to tell us what a portion is or have been always trying to eat less, we’ve forgotten how to listen to these satiation cues. If that’s you, don’t worry you can do it, it just may take practice and some experimentation with quantities. It’s kinda like you’re relearning a skill you forgot. Once you get good at this, you won’t be mindlessly overeating at your meals. You may be emotionally overeating, but that’s a topic for another day. 

So in creating your weight loss strategy or protocol, you’ll be making decisions about these 3 elements both while you’re wanting to release weight and when you’re finished releasing weight. So when you get really intune with knowing how to make decisions and adjustments with what foods you eat and or don’t eat, when you eat and how much, you will have a foundation - a set of skills to rely on to create the result you want - weight loss or maintenance. 

That might seem out of reach right now - to have that much control, but the first step is becoming aware of those 3 levers right now. What you’re eating, when and how much are determining your current weight. 

To release weight, you simply want to pull a lever, for example, maybe this week it’s What - so you really want to focus on eating foods that feel good in your body with a few exceptions. 

Then the next week you’re focussed on befriending hunger so that you only eat when you’re really hungry and have allowed your body to use it’s fat stores rather than glucose from food for energy. So you could decide, okay I’m not as concerned with what I’m eating this week because I really want to hone my skill of allowing my body to get really, really hungry. 

And lastly when you feel like you’ve mastered those, it’s time to focus on How much is the optimal amount of food for your body to be nourished and release weight. You’ll only know this based on how you feel during and after you eat. For many of us, we’re so habituated in our eating habits that we’re not even paying any attention to our satiation cues. We simply ate what we ate yesterday and the day before. 

When I started really paying attention to how satiated I was during a meal, I noticed that on some days I didn’t require as much food as I normally would which I NEVER thought was possible. And on days where I need a bit more, I allow for that too. You may also notice that there are some foods you can eat a lot of and not feel that satiated but then a half an hour later you feel overly food - nuts and cheese fall into this category for me. This means I want to be very conscious of not overeating these during my meals so that I can feel optimal later on in the day. 

Oaky here’s a quick recap in case you’ve tuned out at any point - 

The worst myth you can believe about maintenance is that it’s going to be drastically different than how you release the weight. When you believe that, it creates doubt and fear about gaining the weight back. So to change this belief, we need to start creating evidence by getting really skilled at your protocol which is made up of conscious decision-making around food. Then at any time along your journey, you can rely on adjusting your protocol to release or maintain. To review - your protocol - the decisions you’re making are focussed on What to eat, When to eat and How much to eat. 

When you decide this and don’t follow through, that’s when you simply look at WHY. Usually there’s uncomfortable emotions you’re unwilling to feel.