Diet 101: Congratulations! You’ve reached your goal … now what?

photo credit: michael_swan
If you’ve gotten to your goal weight, you deserve a huge pat on the back! This has obviously been a long time coming and taken lots of hard work and dedication. Now you want to be sure to reap the benefits and stay right where you are so you don’t have to go through all that again! Take some time to reflect on what got you here. Have you changed your eating schedule? Your portion sizes? Your activity routine? Keep up those great habits to maintain your new healthy weight.

A few more ideas to consider:

1) Calorie level. While you may have had to cut back on calories to lose weight, you’ll be able to eat a few hundred more now for maintenance. The reality is, though, you won’t be able to eat as much as you did when you were heavier. The fact is it takes more calories to maintain a higher weight, and now that your weight is lower you’ll have to find a happy medium between pre-diet intake and diet-intake for optimal maintenance.

2) Stay “on the wagon”. We tend to get a bit too excited about finally getting “off” the diet, and sometimes get a little out of control with the treats or a little lax with the exercising. Keep up the strategies that got you where you are today, whether it’s a favorite spinning class or a daily walk. Limit treats to a reasonable number that works for you such as five per week. The pay off, as you know, is well worth it.

3) Monitor your behaviors. Research shows that keeping records of food intake, exercise, and body weight is a great tactic to maintain weight. People who keep a food diary are much more likely to keep their target weight–the more days a week you record your intake, the more likely you are to prevent weight gain. Same with exercise and same with weighing. Figure out what works for you… some people like to weigh themselves each day and some only once a month. But it’s an important key to checking in and finding out where you are. Think of it as a bank account in which you regularly deposit money from income, pay bills, and check your balance. You probably know what happens if you go too long without monitoring and balancing your checking account!

4) Keep the rewards coming! Don’t kid yourself, you work hard to keep up that beautiful bod! Have a list of non-food rewards you can grant yourself at least once a week for all the discipline you’re showing. Remind yourself each day how you got this body you wanted and how you can keep it up. Give yourself a pep talk, or enlist others in your circle of friends to keep reminding you when the going gets tough.

Congratulations from me to everyone out there who has ever reached their goal weight! If you’ve done it before but slipped back into old habits, dust off your sneakers and your food diary and get out there and do it again!