Balanced with a healthy lifestyle
Congratulations, after all that dieting you’ve reached your goal weight! Time to sit back? Well no, now it’s important to keep those lost pounds off. How do you ensure that you do not gain weight unnoticed?
After a diet you will no longer be able to eat ‘normally’ as you were used to. After all, your old diet made you overweight. But you also don’t have to watch the calories as much as when losing weight. The challenge is to find a new balance in your diet and in your exercise pattern.
crash diet
Have you lost a lot of weight in a short period of time? Then it is extra important for you not to surrender to binge eating. Your body has been missing quite a few nutrients for a while and will want to compensate for this as soon as possible. The risk is that you will soon be back to your old weight or even gain more kilos. A healthy lifestyle ensures that you maintain your ideal weight.
The US National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) keeps records of people who have lost more than 15 pounds and have maintained it for more than a year. This shows that there are similarities in how these people ensure that their weight remains stable:
- 78 percent of dropouts eat breakfast every day;
- 75 percent step on the scale at least once a week;
- 62 percent watch less than 10 hours of television per week;
- 90 percent exercise an average of one hour a day.
This already gives a good indication of what it takes to maintain your weight in the long term. But there are many more things you can do to avoid gaining weight. Ten tips!
1. Watch fat and calories
An adult woman may consume about 2000 kilocalories in a day, adult men about 2500. Please note: there are small personal differences! The amount of muscle mass you have or how much you exercise also has an impact on the amount of energy you use.
On the internet you can tools to calculate your ideal intake. So maybe you can eat a little more or less. To find out how many calories and fat you consume every day, you can check the website of the Nutrition Center food diary Keep up.
2. Breakfast
By starting the day with a breakfast put your digestive system to work. This prevents you from craving unhealthy snacks during the day.
3. Three meals
Eat three balanced meals a day. Never skip a meal, this will only make you want to eat something unhealthy.
4. Be Hungry For
Don’t get too hungry. Extreme hunger causes extreme binge eating and you don’t want that. Therefore, eat a healthy snack between meals. Fiber and protein provide a feeling of fullness for longer.
5. Make an exception
There is absolutely no need to never eat anything unhealthy again for the rest of your life. There should be room in your new diet for the occasional high-calorie snack. This keeps the spirit up and prevents you from turning into harmful binge eating, because you crave these snacks so much.
6. Don’t Drink Too Much
Avoid large amounts of alcohol. Not only does a night out provides you with a lot of calories, you can also resist a lot worse against all kinds of snacks when you are tipsy. The next day you will have a double hangover!
7. Keep moving
In any case, adhere to the Dutch Standard for Healthy Exercise, so five days a week, half an hour a day. To maintain your weight, it is also good to work on your muscles; muscles use more energy. Exercising is not only good for your weight, but also for your mood and overall health!
8. Weigh
Continue to weigh yourself weekly. It is normal to weigh a few pounds more or less every now and then. But when you see a change of 2.5 kilos or more, that is the sign that you need to take a closer look at your lifestyle. You may need to eat less or exercise more to stay at your target weight.
9. Support
Support from others can help. There are online waste communities you can join to find supporters, such as Valtaf.nl. But you can also find people in your area with whom you can find support and share experiences.
10. Hang in there
The most important thing is not to give up! It’s perfectly normal to have a few kicks from time to time, but that’s no reason to lose heart. You’ve come this far, there’s no reason why you can’t maintain your weight. Just try to figure out what caused you to momentarily get on the wrong side of the balance sheet and take action.
Sources:
* webMD
