Stopping Weight Regain

BarbaraJatmfp

I have been struggling with weight regain for about six months now. I lost 61 pounds on WW and lost my focus with all their disastrous changes. (Not an excuse; just a time frame.) I haven't recovered my discipline so I am researching the internet for ideas on how to reacquire my dedication to my goal of -100.

I was pleased to see that the first step to stopping weight regain was to find out WHY I'm regaining. Good! I'm doing that: researching the internet is the first step I took.

So what is the next step?

Actually, there are several more steps to take to stop the weight regain. Here they are:
1) Re-examine your diet.
If you regain your weight shortly after dieting, it probably was too restrictive for you. Pick another diet, preferably one that teaches long-term lifestyle and eating habits.

2) Exercise.
Research has shown that people who decrease their exercise during dieting are more likely to regain weight later. At least 4 hours of moderate intensity exercise per week will maintain your weight after dieting. If you are already exercising, add some high intensity interval training and strength training. Building muscle will boost your metabolism.

3) Stay active all day.
This means non-exercise activity. Get up out of your chair and walk around instead of sitting at your desk all day or watching television (or posting on MFP!). Take stairs instead of the elevator - even one flight down is better than the elevator.

4) Get on the scale.
Once a day or once a week. The National Weight Control Registry has tracked successful weight-maintainers for 20 years. Those people weigh themselves regularly (once a day, or once a week). Weight regain is easier to manage when it is a small regain rather than a large one.

5) Get support.
If you have lost the support you had, get it back. A support group. online forum, or healthy friends who reinforced your healthy habits.

6) Keep a food diary.
If this was part of your initial weight loss program, get back to it. And include weighing and measuring. Portion sizes increase, mindless eating, or eating too frequently may be part of the problem. If you aren't feeling satisfied after eating, you may be eating too many carbs and not enough protein.

7) Monitor your body composition.
Your weight regain may be muscle and not fat.


If you are regaining weight, or struggling to lose more, think about this list. When you were successfully losing weight, what were you doing then that you aren't doing now?

BarbaraJatmfp

I thought about these items and I am guilty of being lax on most of them.

I evaluated my diet. I hadn't finished dieting but I was regaining weight. I had a lifestyle-changing diet (Weight Watchers) but I quit following the new habits I had acquired. Guilty.

I quit exercising. I don't know why. I just did. I used to swim laps 16 hours a week but I have to confess I don't exercise at all anymore. Big "guilty" on this one.

I am not active at all during the day. I'm not sleeping, but I am crocheting or on the computer. Another "guilty" for me.

I quit weighing myself. I used to weigh every day to monitor my weight and record it once a week. I don't anymore. Another "guilty".

I lost my support groups. I quit going to WW meetings, the WW message boards died, the WW challenges died, and my dieting best friend quit dieting. Another big "guilty" for me.

I quit keeping a food diary. And worse than that, I quit weighing my food. Guilty. Again.

I'd love to say my body composition has changed and I now have 50 pounds of muscle, but that would be a lie. I am not guilty of this one, which is too bad. More muscle would be a good thing. Fortunately, it isn't 50 pounds. I am stopping it long before it gets to that, but we all know that if we don't stop a weight regain, it will all come back.


As I review that list, it is not hard to see why I have regained my weight. So it is back to basics for me. I am STARTING a diet, just the same way I did when I started WW in February 2015. I weigh a lot less than I did then - good! - but I have a lot more to lose.

I can lose more weight if I do the same things I did when I started dieting.