Proper Weight Maintenance
- ○ Don’t stop dieting before you’ve reached your body’s set point.
- Even before starting our diet, we’re worried we’ll end up on a yo-yo in terms of weight loss. However, it’s possible to prevent this by losing weight and reaching a point of homeostasis. Have you ever wondered how your thin friends are able to eat so much and not gain anything at all? There’s a point–called the set point–that all of us can reach where we can be that way too. The important thing is not to stop the diet before we get there. What lands us in a yo-yo situation is stopping a diet when we think we’ve reached the weight we want. We stop exercising as well, and ‘go back to normal’. However, we somehow forget that what was ‘normal’ was what made us overweight and unhealthy in the first place! So when our weight goes back up, we get confused and frustrated…
We can prevent this by not stopping when we think we’ve reached our goal! Our goal of a healthy, thin body is something that requires constant effort, and is a lifelong change. Together, we can achieve a weight appropriate for our age, height and body type.
- We need at least three months in order to achieve the lifestyle changes that the proper treatment and diet require. However, the actual duration of treatment differs from person to person. For example, some people may require six months to a year.
If the treatment period is three months, we should still continue the healthy dieting and exercise practices for the next two years. This way, we can solidify a healthy way of life and maintain good physical condition with little to no effort in the future.