[spoiler title=’Click for video transcript’ style=’default’ collapse_link=’true’] I’ve been maintaining my weight loss since October 2018 and in today’s video I’ll give you five habits that have helped me to keep the weight off what I’ve found from experience is that maintenance is a lot like weight loss it’s all about the little things you do every single day that add up to success so habit number one is weighing myself every morning this is the first thing I do when I get up I go in there get on the scale and I think of this just like any other personal health habit that I do just like getting up and brushing my teeth or flossing my teeth every night it’s not up for debate it’s just what I do I saw a pattern with myself in the past I would usually get down to my goal weight stop weighing and gain all the weight back so this time I changed it I said okay when I get down to my goal weight I’m gonna keep weighing and this one habit has helped me to have peace of mind because every day I know exactly where I’m at with my weight I never have to wonder number two I journal every day and I start my day and I end my day with journaling and this has been very important during maintenance because it keeps me focused it starts my day and puts me in the right mindset it reminds me of what my goals are you know it’s one of those things that sounds kind of funny but it’s important to remind yourself yeah I do want to maintain this weight loss and so I do like a modified version of the five minute journal I used to follow their template like exactly and now I add some things in but basically I start my day off with some gratitude I keep you know an idea of what my goals are for the day and then at the end of the day I look back on how my day went and that constant process of starting my day off right and ending it with with this like looking back on my day helps me to stay on track so like if I have a day where you know I’m really stressed out and then after dinner I was like overly full you know I write that down and I try to figure out like what was it about that and that constant process of realizing like oh this happened because of this has been very helpful and it helps me to stop that behavior before it becomes a habit that will put the pounds back on number three I keep doing some form of intermittent fasting and the reason I picked intermittent fasting was because that is the thing that has worked for me it is the thing that helps me to eat fewer calories basically because that’s all weight loss is is eating fewer calories than what you’re burning I still remain open to being flexible though like if I find that a certain window isn’t working for me I’ll change it based on my life at the time but I always have a plan number four I continue to walk habitually now I do six miles six days a week this is a change like this is something I started doing this year in the past I would do six miles seven days a week but I found you know I wanted to take that time on Sunday just to have the day off completely with no step goal but having my walking habit has been crucial because it keeps me from stress eating so many times my my initial gut reaction to something is to like ooh I feel hungry I want to sit down I want to eat but then you know instead I’ll say no you know you’re actually stressed right now so let’s you know get a walk in and sure enough you know going out for that walk getting my steps and helps me to think things through and to not stress eat and of course it burns some calories – so I’m sure that that works in my favor and number five I continue to fill up my life with things other than food you know back when I was obese food was like the main fixture in my life it was like kind of my whole day revolved around food and eating and thinking about food and like at the end of the day when I thought about the best part of the day a lot of times it was whatever food we had and over time what I started to see was that you know I was using food to fill a void so instead of you know filling it with food I started to you know try to learn new things like I learned American Sign Language I learned computer programming I gave myself time to read guilt-free and as I started to use these things to fill up my life I started to enjoy life a lot more and I was losing weight because I wasn’t so focused on the eating and I’m a scanner and so that means I have a lot of varied interest and what I’ve noticed about myself is that sometimes I’ll kind of stagnate like would be something that you know just doesn’t like my fire like it used to and so I kind of drop off on that habit then that creates more time right and what can happen is that food can start to seem more important so then I remind myself like okay I need to find a new hobby or fill my life up in some other way aside from just going back to just eating all the time so at the end of the day maintenance is not magic I I kind of had that in my head you know it’s like oh it’s just luck you know whether you can maintain it or not but really it’s all about the daily actions you take and practicing these five habits consistently since October 2018 have helped me to keep the weight off so thank you for watching this video and I’ll see you in the next one hey guys I wanted to give you a quick update on the donorsee project for ELWA Hospital in Liberia the project is now over halfway funded at 57% which means there’s two thousand two hundred and eighty dollars left to go this project will provide the hospital with two pediatric Bubble CPAP machines which will save the lives of dozens of babies every month so if you have donated already to this project thank you for your donation and if you would like to get more involved please share this project with your friends the link is in the description together we can make this happen [/spoiler]
Video Notes
Key Takeaway: Maintenance is not about luck, it’s about continuing to maintain habits that will keep the weight off
5 habits have kept the weight off for me:
- Weighing daily
- Journaling every day (I do a modified version of the 5 Minute Journal.)
- Continuing to practice some form of intermittent fasting. Click here for intermittent fasting resources.
- Continuing to walk habitually. I walk 6 miles, 6 days a week these days. Click here for walking resources.
- Continuing to fill my life with things other than food.
