If you read this blog, there’s a good chance you’ve experienced unwanted weight gain after being on a weight loss program. Keeping weight off can be as challenging, or more, as losing it in the first place. And the problem starts even before you start losing weight.
In a way, it’s a mistake to think of it only as losing weight. It’s really more about managing your weight and living a healthier lifestyle. Yes, you have to lose weight to get there, but that’s just the first step. Without a deliberate plan and support for maintaining your new weight, you will probably gain it all back. Only about 20% of people who lose weight manage to keep it off for one year or more.
3 Reasons Why it is a Challenge to Keep Weight Off
You Don’t Have the Right Mindset
The idea that you can just change your diet, get some more exercise, and lose weight healthily for the long term is simply false. But it’s not your fault. There’s a massive weight loss industry that sells you only weight loss. They want you to believe that once you lose 20 or 30 pounds, you’re done. But, maintaining your new, lower weight is just as important, if not more.
Your Body Doesn’t Like Change
Your body is geared to maintain ‘homeostasis’. In simple terms, that means it likes to keep its internal systems steady. Any change to those systems, like decreases in the amount of food you eat, is treated by your body as a threat to its survival. So, if you suddenly go on a weight-loss diet, especially without proper nutrition to support the weight loss, your body can fight against it. And it can do so in two main ways.
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Slows Down Your Metabolism
When your body detects a threat to its sources of energy, which are the foods you eat, it slows down how much energy you burn. That makes it even more difficult to maintain the calorie deficit you need to lose weight. But, without proper nutrition and weight management for long-term weight loss, a slower metabolism continues to make it difficult to stay at your lower weight.
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Triggers Hunger & Appetite Hormones
In addition to slowing your metabolic rate, your body also sends out signals that make you want to eat more. The hormones ghrelin (stimulates feelings of hunger) and leptin (lowers your appetite) work together to increase your energy intake – or how much food you eat. Like your metabolism, your hormones continue to work against your weight loss even after you’ve achieved your weight loss goal.
You Don’t Have a Support System
Even just losing weight is difficult. You must deal with changes to your diet, alter your eating habits, get more exercise, and overcome the inevitable weight loss plateaus. If you manage to do that on your own, you’ve conquered one of the biggest challenges of your life. But what happens when you see the weight piling on again after achieving that huge milestone? It can be devastating.
But, not if you have a support system in place. That system would include people who are invested in your weight loss success, and weight management programs that are designed specifically to help you keep the weight off.
How to Get the Support You Need
The nutrition counsellors at your nearest Herbal One Weight Management Centre have the right knowledge and programs to develop a weight management plan specifically for your needs. That means getting the right nutrition, advice and support to healthily lose weight and maintain your new weight for the long term.
If you found this post helpful, check out our recent article White Fat, Brown Fat, Cold Showers, and Weight Loss.