Weight loss is challenging, but maintaining it can be even harder. Here are some proven strategies
Ram, a 42-year-old gentleman of Asian origin, moved to the UK when he was 8; he was bullied in school and later pursued a very stressful job as a sales manager. He went through a couple of decades of yo-yo dieting without results.
Ram always felt tired and hungry, needing to maintain his energy level by eating three meals and three snacks daily. He had cereal for breakfast and a giant doughnut with his morning coffee. He then had fish and chips at lunch, crisps in the afternoon, before curry, rice, and naan bread for dinner. He went out with colleagues for a couple of beers after work every Friday and kept a stock of Bombay Mix, chocolate, and red wine to help him cope with marital pressures at home.
He weighed 120 kg, had a BMI of 41.5 (morbid obesity), a waist of 47 inches, high blood pressure of 150/90, prediabetic blood sugar of 6.6, high cholesterol of 7.8, a very high triglyceride of 3.3 and HDL, the good guy cholesterol, was borderline at 0.95. He attended the Vitality Clinic, seeking help to lose and maintain a healthy body weight, and you can read the rest of his story at the end of this blog.
In this blog, we will discuss the reasons behind the failure of the weight loss program after initial success. starting as a lapses that grow into a relapse; we will review triggers, high-risk situations, weight loss stages, and strategies that ensure lasting results.
Reasons for weight loss failure
Failure to achieve your weight goals could happen due to lapse and relapse in your weight loss program. You must try and keep a lapse from becoming a relapse.
A lapse is a temporary deviation or a slip, like overeating the wrong food occasionally or missing exercise for a few days. It is common (99.9%), affects almost every weight management program, and does not result in significant weight gain. Like have a cheat day, for example, eating the wrong food when going out with family or friends.
However, we must stay vigilant and identify and settle lapses immediately. Leaving lapses unchecked can grow into a full-blown relapse.
A relapse is a serious deflection in your weight loss program, throwing you completely back to square one – “Fall off the Wagon”, meaning you’ve returned to the same eating habits and activity level as before.
A relapse usually results from a series of minor lapses. It is associated with significant weight regain, which in turn sets off negative thinking – “there’s no point in continuing the program,” that sort of thing.
What causes lapse and relapse?
High-risk situations can be positive, like going out with friends or on holiday, watching a football match, or celebrating a wedding or birthday party. Alternatively, they can be negative, like doing a stressful job, feeling sad, having disputes with a spouse, or being angry, upset or frustrated.
To stop lapses from recurring, you need to resist the associated negative thoughts of guilt and shame and learn from your experience, developing strategies to combat the lapses.
Write down details of your personalised plan, with specific strategies to deal with the impulses that trouble you and put you at risk of making poor choices. Tell your family and friends about your plan and seek their support.
Stay focused on your goal and why you want to lose weight and keep a journal to monitor your progress. Be kind to yourself – forgive your slip-ups and reward your victories.
The underlying triggers for weight regain can be personal, environmental, or hormonal.
Personal triggers
Positive self-esteem and a good self-image are essential for any life program. If you are full of negative emotions, you will find it hard to achieve your weight goals without replacing this with self-love.
Personal triggers can also include being on autopilot – living in the subconscious mind. You leave home in the morning and stop in the café to buy giant, delicious doughnuts without thinking about it. Eating the wrong food saps your energy and gives you constant hunger, pushing you to eat energy-dense, processed foods for the rest of the day.
Social and environmental triggers
The sights and smells of food are common triggers: TV commercials prompt people to eat processed or fast food. People feel like they want to have a break from their diet when they go out with friends or on a holiday. Christmas is a big excuse for everyone to violate their healthy lifestyle.
Hormonal triggers
Ghrelin is a hormone released from the stomach to stimulate the appetite centre in the brain. It increases appetite and weight gain. A higher level makes you hungrier. You need to lower ghrelin levels to lose weight.
In the morning, your stomach is empty, and ghrelin is high. When you eat breakfast, your stomach is full, and ghrelin is low. You can keep a healthy ghrelin level by maintaining an ideal body weight, eating moderate protein, and having an adequate night’s sleep.
You can also settle ghrelin hunger by having a teaspoon of coconut oil in your morning coffee or drinking bone broth or Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) in hot water.
On to insulin. Eating sugar and processed carbs gives you a sugar spike, which stimulates insulin secretion from the pancreas to cause a sugar crash. High insulin makes you hungry and increases your appetite for sugar and carbs. You feel tired and hungry and crave sugar and carbs to boost energy levels – or strong coffee to boost energy and avoid a slump.
You can calm insulin response by eating low glycaemic-index carbs in real food, moderate protein and healthy fats.
Possible solutions
Solutions include mindfulness – staying in your conscious mind and living in the moment. Dealing with the actual cause can also help – are you hungry or experiencing work or family stress; are you sad, want to eat for comfort, or happy and you want to celebrate?
Enjoy restful sleep, reduce stress levels, have loving relationships, and get enough sunshine to stay healthy.
The stages of weight loss
1 – The honeymoon: you are making healthy food choices and following a good activity program. You start to lose weight and are optimistic about achieving your weight goals.
2 – Reality check: You reduced your sugar and carbs and started to feel tired and hungry. A calorie-restricted diet slows your metabolism, resulting in a weight loss plateau. This can frustrate and demotivate you. Use Apple cider vinegar (ACV) and moderate protein to curb your appetite.
3 – Fight the plateau: you should not get discouraged or demotivated; continue to make healthy choices, reduce meal portions, and stick to your activity program. You understand that the weight loss process will take time and effort.
4 – True lifestyle change: you have converted learning into habits. You make sustainable lifestyle changes. You eat real food – vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and protein. Your friends no longer question your food order. But, despite breakthroughs, you can still swing back to the early stages.
5 – Maintaining weight loss: everything is perfect; you eat healthy food, enjoy your favourite activities, restful sleep, and keep stress at bay.
A ground-breaking study showed that “maintainers” continue to pay attention to their food choices, anticipate and effectively prevent potential lapses when high-risk situations strike, and manage their impulses using distraction techniques, such as listening to music, watching TV, reading a book, going out for a walk, or phoning a friend.
Four pillars to ensure lasting results
- Ensure steady blood sugar within the normal range most of the time by eating real food high in fibre and nutrients.
- Exercise stabilises your mood and increases confidence; endorphins will keep you happy and fulfilled.
- Mindfulness – being aware of your thoughts and emotions, you can control your behaviour and response.
- Support – you need a supportive network of family, friends, and healthcare professionals.
You must understand the warning signs of a relapse when a high-risk situation strikes and develop a personalised relapse prevention strategy utilising available resources, including willpower. You can overcome challenges and achieve lasting results with the right support.
Continue to use behavioural strategies to maintain weight. Be aware of eating food as a response to stress. Use physical activity, meditation, or listening to your favourite music to cope instead of seeking comfort in food.
Why do people do what they do?
You have impulses, like an itch or pressure on your body or your head, at a subconscious level. You give in to settle the impulse by allowing the effect to happen. You take alcohol, nicotine, drugs, or food to relieve your impulses. But you can control your response by bringing these impulses into your conscious mind. In this case, you can change your response by making the appropriate choice that helps your weight loss program.
Many people eat poor diets when sad or happy; they want to celebrate with ice cream and doughnuts. You must be critical and ask yourself, am I hungry? Do I need to eat now? Do I want to eat this food? Questioning yourself will empower you to make the best choices to avoid lapses and relapses in your weight program.
You need to be brave and say I’m not hungry, and I don’t need food. I may feel better going for a walk, or phoning a friend or deal with these triggers using relaxation techniques like meditation and deep breathing without relying on food.
Other reasons for weight loss failure
Those who struggle in their weight management program often lack time to cook and exercise. They may find healthy food expensive, live or work with people who do not like healthy food, or take medication that interferes with their appetite.
Ram dealt with the actual problems
Instead of seeking comfort in food, Ram dealt with the actual problems
- He attended hypnotherapy to enhance his self-image and clear old baggage of bullying in the school.
- He enrolled in counselling to settle marital conflicts – Staying in a marriage because of the children was not helpful.
- He negotiated a reasonable contract at work to ease off work stress.
- He worked with the health coach to correct his diet, increase physical activity, reduce stress and harness loving relationships.
Ram kept a food and activity tracker. He planned his meals to make a calorie deficit, changed his workout program to avoid boredom, anticipated lapses and set up effective strategies to manage them. He also received support from family, friends, and professionals.
He made steady progress with his weight management program, moving confidently towards his weight goals.
So, my friends, maintaining your weight loss can be more challenging than losing that weight in the first place, but I hope that this blog helps. Please share your thoughts and questions by commenting on this piece, and please subscribe to the newsletter so you don’t miss further vital information. Thank you!
References
Preventing relapse. Live coach facilitation guide
https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/prevention/pdf/postcurriculum_session11.pdf
The five stages of weight loss: what you can expect when losing weight
https://310nutrition.com/blogs/all/stages-of-weight-loss
Cognitive and behaviour strategies to overcome lapses and prevent relapse among weight loss, maintainers and retainers: a qualitative study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7116423/
Maintaining weight loss
