The Laid Back Guide to Weight Loss Maintenance [Excerpt]

Introduction

Ut est rerum omnium magister usus. (Experience is the teacher of all things.) -Julius Caesar

Who Am I To Write a Book on Maintenance?

I am not a doctor. Or a nutritionist. And I’m certainly not a dietician. So what on earth makes me think I should write a book about weight loss maintenance? It’s not a proposition I took lightly, considering my failure rate in this area. I dieted throughout most of my childhood and teenage years. Sometimes I was thinner, sometimes I was chunkier, but I could never stick in a healthy weight range for very long.

My weight crept up throughout my twenties with each subsequent pregnancy. I tried to convince myself that nature had doomed me to be overweight and that I should accept that. Sure, I had hit my goal weight countless times, but I always packed the pounds back on. By the time I was pushing 30, weight loss felt like an exercise in futility.

In February 2015, I weighed in at 222 pounds. At 5’6”, my Body Mass Index (BMI) was 35.8. That meant I was obese. Through the process of intermittent fasting, cutting out my emotional eating, and getting more active, I lost ‌80 pounds. I ate whatever I wanted, and I repaired my relationship with food. For once in my life, weight loss felt enjoyable, and keeping it off forever felt like a real possibility. In 2018, I wrote a book called The Laid Back Guide to Intermittent Fasting to explain exactly how I lost weight. Afterwards, I got a very nice email from a reader who told me I should write my next book about weight loss maintenance.

I wrote another book instead, called Overcoming Weight Loss Obstacles. It was about the harder parts of weight loss, and I included a section on the obstacles I had seen so far in maintenance. I published that book three years ago. The idea of a maintenance book kept pulling at me, but I kept procrastinating. I wanted to experience maintenance more before I wrote an entire book about it. As the years passed, I wondered why there weren’t more books on this subject. Maintenance is the most important part of weight loss. No one really wants to lose weight, only to gain it back. So what gives?

Why Aren’t There More Books About This?

Here’s a theory: few maintenance books get written because maintenance is squishier than weight loss. It’s easy to define successful weight loss. You set your goal weight, and if you hit the goal weight, you are successful. But how do we define successful maintenance? How much‌ weight regain is okay? If a person loses 20 pounds, and regains 20 pounds, we can all agree that’s a failure to maintain the weight loss. But let’s say someone drops 100 pounds and regains 20, but keeps the rest off. Is that successful maintenance? In my opinion, yes. You may disagree, and that’s okay. Maintenance is squishy. You must define what success looks like to you based on your own philosophy.

I thought about waiting another five years to write this book. Ten years of maintenance experience sounds more authoritative, doesn’t it? But I knew that if I waited any longer, I’d forget the earlier, harder days of maintenance. Those days, dear reader, that you’re likely going through right now.

If I waited, I’d gloss over all those times when I felt a lot more worried that I’d regain the weight. I’d also conveniently forget all those embarrassing mistakes I made. In the pages that follow, I’ll tell you all about them, so that hopefully you can avoid making the same ones. Maybe you will still make them, but you will be comforted because you’ll know from my example that you can make a lot of mistakes in maintenance and still be successful. In other words, what this book lacks in experience, it makes up for in honesty.

My Journey Thus Far

Let’s talk turkey about what my maintenance has looked like up to this point. In November 2016, I got down to my first goal weight of 157. I maintained my 7-day average between a low of 157 and a high of 163. My highest single day weight during that bout of maintenance was 166. In September 2017, I went back to weight loss mode and lost down to 142 for a total loss of 80 pounds.

My next bout of maintenance started in October 2018. As of this writing (October 2023), I have maintained my 7 day average between a low of 142 and a high of 152. My highest single day weight during this time has been 154. I’ve had moments of self-doubt, despair, anger, flippancy and complacency. I’ve been guilty of overeating, emotionally eating, and laziness, even though I certainly know better.

As of this writing, I have kept the initial 65 pounds off for 7 years and have maintained my weight in the normal BMI range for over 5 years. Statistically speaking, if a person is going to gain the weight back, they usually gain it back within 5 years. I’m at least past that milestone.

You might wonder how I know I will keep it off forever. Lean in close, and I’ll let you in on a little secret: I don’t. But if I wait until I make it to the finish line to write this book, I’ll be dead, and then it will be too late. Alas, writing a book about weight loss maintenance is no guarantee of my permanently keeping it off. I am not, nor will I ever be, safe from weight regain. And neither will you.

It’s something that stares every single one of us who has had a weight problem right in the face, every single day. That’s really the thing that motivated me to write this book. Not many people delve into the long slog that is maintenance. But someone needs to give the scoop on what to expect after you hit your goal weight. Despite my inadequacies, I’m going to give it my best shot.

I’m writing this book now with all my missteps and near-catastrophes fresh in my mind. I hope that when you’re finished reading this book, you’ll think, gosh, if she can do it, I can do it.

If, God forbid, one day in the future you Google me and future-Kayla Cox has regained all the weight, do not panic! That would not serve as an indictment of the principles in this book. The principles absolutely work. If she has gained, it’s because future-Kayla slipped back into those old bad habits that she had once gotten out of. Perhaps, in an ironic twist of fate, it was because this very book that you hold in your hands became a runaway indie bestseller. Maybe future-Kayla moved to the Maldives and lounged around on the beach and gorged herself on buffalo wings and Slush Puppies until she gained it all back. If that happens, mail her a copy of this book, or if you see her in person, slap her upside the head with it, won’t you?

The principles in this book are easy to do. They are also easy not to do. This causes maintenance to be tricky. The small actions you take every day determine if you’ll maintain successfully or regain all the weight.

A Maintenance Timeline

If you’d like a completely arbitrary outline of what maintenance looks like, here’s how I would describe it:

• Trial and Error (Year 1)
• Messy Middle (Years 2-5)
• Rest of Your Life (5+ years)

Now, if you never really struggled with your weight, the timeline might not apply. Your bad habits weren’t well-ingrained, and you’ll have an easier time moving through the phases of maintenance. If you have experienced decades of struggling with your weight, mentally prepare yourself for the work that lies ahead. There’s still much to be done, but it is absolutely worth it.

Trial and Error (Year 1)

In the beginning, your success with weight loss will be the freshest on your mind, and you’ll be in the best habits. If you ‌enjoyed what you were doing in order to lose weight, you’ll probably stay on that plan, and the weight will stay off. But as time goes on, you might modify your plan and let your foot off the gas, so to speak. Thus begins the trial and error. For most of us, the first year is when we’re finding the absolute bare minimum we can do to keep the weight off.

The error part of trial and error leads to weight gain. If you don’t learn from those early mistakes, you’ll be on the path to regaining it all. But if you learn from your errors, and correct your mistakes, you’ll continue on to the messy middle.

The Messy Middle (Years 2-5)

The messy middle begins after you settle into your maintenance routine. Here are three reasons the middle is messy:

• Boredom creeps in during this time, and this makes it easier to regain the weight. It can feel less important to keep weighing in, keep on a plan, and to keep things in check‌.
• Time heals all wounds, and the memory of how painful it was to be at the higher weight fades, which can further blunt your motivation to stay in good habits.
• Old habits die hard. Upsetting situations arise from time to time and can cause a relapse into old bad habits.

Life is unpredictable. During this time, things may go really well or really poorly. Or it may alternate between times of things going smoothly, and then things getting rocky, and then more smoothly. If you’re going to gain it back, it’s usually going to happen by year five. But if you hang in there, you’ll eventually make it to five years of successful maintenance.

The Rest of Your Life (5+ years)

If you make it through five years of successful maintenance, your odds of keeping it off for good improve markedly. This is still not a guarantee of success. But sticking with it for five years is a sign of firm commitment, and that you’ll likely continue to stick with it. You’ll feel much more confident about how to stay in your range and why you want to be there. And you’ll also have some battle scars from maintenance that will prevent you from getting too cocky as the years continue to tick by.

How to Use This Book

I will attempt to articulate what has worked for me, and what has not. It’s the book I wish I’d had when I was starting maintenance. I hope it helps you navigate those first few years a little more easily. That said, remember that there are many viable paths.

This book is best viewed as a case study in weight loss maintenance. It is not medical or mental health advice. It is my attempt at a roadmap of my journey ‌with all the pitfalls and obstacles I’ve found thus far. I encourage you to read it, take what is useful to you, and leave the rest. You are the expert about you. Implement your own plan, make tweaks, and customize your maintenance lifestyle so that it fits your life.

Maintenance is a different animal than weight loss. Have you ever heard the phrase new level, new devil? Well, it’s true. As soon as you hit your goal weight, you’ll face new challenges. There will be enemies everywhere: out in the world, inside your home, and even in your head. You can overcome every challenge as long as you stay awake and take action. Let’s start with the big picture.

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