The M.O. for Maintenance

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The post-weight loss Stabilization and Maintenance periods are to practice what you have learned about sensible eating behavior. In this way, the new habits become a permanent part of your lifestyle, as will being slim and staying slim. I stress that word LEARNED because if you’re always quick-fixing, you’re learning nothing . . . which is why you always end up where you began, or worse. Not so in my program.

Weight maintenance, unlike the weight loss process, is a LIFE MANAGEMENT SKILL. It does not end on the day you reach your healthy goal weight. Slim is a skill, and like any skill — from tennis to flying — it takes practice. Lots of practice.

Two particular habits which are particularly important to maintaining your new weight are:

1. Eat slowly, take small bites, and chew your food thoroughly at each and every meal. Don’t gulp down your food. It takes 20 minutes for the brain to register satiety.

2. Leave some food on your plate when you are finished eating. This is especially helpful when you dine in restaurants since portion sizes are usually far larger than normal. Many slim men and women live by the “only take half’ rule when dining out. In this way you can eat what you like and leave the table feeling trim and energetic instead of bloated and heavy from an oversized meal. If you must eat out, consider ordering appetizers instead of entrees, ask for grilled and baked dishes, request dressings and sauces on the side.

The third maintenance habit is to keep things in perspective. Never say, “I blew it.” It undermines your maintenance skills like no other phrase or thought. A far better response to an occasional slip-up, no matter how extreme, is to say nothing, do nothing. That’s right— nothing! Don’t berate yourself for your failure. Don’t give up and eat everything else in sight. Don’t try to make up for it by starving yourself later. Don’t try to work off the extra calories by exercising obsessively.

Acknowledge your mistake, pick yourself up, and get on with your life. You can’t turn back the hands of time, and you can’t make the calories you ate go away. It’s normal to feel some guilt when you’ve broken a commitment to yourself but beating yourself up won’t burn up any calories. Only stopping the behavior and moving on will remedy the slip. If you occasionally slip up in the practice of food control, don’t go into a tailspin of despair. Keep your perspective.

The fourth habit is to beware the “Tomorrow” Trap . . . the “I’ll start again tomorrow.” How many times have you said that in the past? And how many times did tomorrow remain just one day away—when you’d be feeling a little better, a little more motivated, a little less pressured or depressed, right after the holidays? That’s the funny thing about “tomorrow” and food control—it never seems to come.

If you slip up during maintenance, you don’t have the option of waiting until tomorrow to take back control. You can’t take back your mistake, but you can stop yourself from making another If you’re honest, you’ll admit that you won’t be good tomorrow. If you slip up, you need to “be good” immediately — not in ten minutes, not in an hour, not tomorrow, now!

And the last good habit absolutely necessary for maintenance is what to do when you have little or no choice.

No one expects you to live like a hermit. You have to interact with people, go places, and live your life in the real world. That means there are bound to be times when you will be in situations where there aren’t many smart food choices available. These special circumstances require special food control strategies.

1. You’ve got to politely refuse a portion of anything that could make you lose control. Your host will not be insulted if you pass up one particular item on the menu. You just need to be selective. It’s not as if you have to pass up the entree. If there is a creamy sauce, ask to have it served on the side. You DO NOT have to eat all of the “accessories” or “finger foods” — such as breads, rolls, fatty hors d’oeuvres, cheeses — and desserts. Take onto your plate only those foods you feel confident you can control.

2. If an entree is fattening and you can’t escape it or you do have some of your trigger foods at a party, forget about it. Once you leave the party, it’s over. Treat it as a single isolated incident and don’t waste time blaming yourself or feeling guilty. Remember the truth about your weight: It’s not the isolated incident of a dinner party but what you eat on a day-to-day basis that makes you overweight. Rather than blaming yourself once you get home, look for the patterns of what went wrong.

Did you go to the party hungry and therefore ate compulsively? Could you have brought a gift of a low-fat frozen yogurt dessert to your host, thereby subtly providing your own safe dessert? Did you sit in front of the bread basket and not ask for it to be moved (or not move yourself when you could easily have done so)?

3. When you know in advance that you will have little or no control – and let’s face it folks, that does NOT have to happen very often – plan ahead. Put that date on the calendar and then get back to the most rigorous part of your program for the week or two leading up to that event.

Your daily affirmation over the long-haul of your weight loss maintenance must be: Slim is a skill!

And you’ve got to use that skill every day.