How to Maintain Your Weight Loss

How many times have you lost weight, only to have it creep back up again? It makes you feel so dejected; all that hard work, gone down the drain. You felt so good about yourself and proud of the fact that you did it – you lost the weight, and now here it is, staring you in the face again. It usually seems to happen right before an even where you will see people you haven’t seen in years – just to top your frustration off with some feelings of embarrassment and inferiority! Life is wonderful…

There are some things that you can do to make sure you maintain that great new figure, and never go back to the “old you” again. In other words, you can throw out your fat pants! You won’t be needing them again. A recent study has proven that your environment more to do with losing and keeping off weight than even willpower and motivation. These findings surprised some and confirmed what other people were already thinking. Most of the researchers, however, were surprised to see just how much your environment has to do with whether or not you lose weight and keep it off.

The first thing to look for when improving your home environment is how many TVs you have. The more televisions, the less your chances are for maintaining your weight loss. Try only having one or two TVs in the house. Put one in your bedroom and one in the living room or in your basement. The more rooms in your house that have TVs, the less likely you are to exercise in those rooms. The TV doesn’t exactly inspire much movement does it? It makes you want to sit on the couch and eat.

The next thing you can do is lay out some exercise equipment around the house. Put a treadmill in one room, and some weights in another. If you have an exercise room and put all of your equipment in that one room, chances are you will be avoiding that room at al costs! Instead, disperse your fitness equipment in rooms where you know you will be often when you are home.

Another thing the study found was that if you left it up to willpower and motivation alone, you aren’t likely to succeed. When it comes to willpower, don’t give yourself a chance to have to use it. Just don’t have unhealthy foods in your house at all, and you won’t be tempted to eat them! When it comes to motivation, it is not enough to get you to exercise. In addition to strategically placing your exercise things, you can also make appointments with a friend to go for walks or runs or hit the gym. Choose a friend who has been supportive throughout your weight loss journey, and who can keep you accountable.

The last thing you can do to maintain your weight loss is to watch your mindset. Don’t view your dieting as a one time thing; it should be a lifestyle change. If you go back to your old way of eating and living, you will not likely keep the weight off very long.