how to maintain your weight

Maintaining weight is a useful skill to learn not just for after you hit your weight goals. I think the majority of people underestimate how long it actually takes to lose weight and expect to go full speed from beginning to end. Of course while that seems ideal, the thing we tend to forget is weight loss is a journey happening alongside life. We gotta work through career, studies, relationships, physical/mental health along with it and sometimes life gets too overwhelming and we need a break. It’s totally ok and normal to put the weight loss goal on pause and come back when life’s a little more under control.

Pausing the weight loss journey it doesn’t mean you just completely give up on your diet altogether. It really just means that you’re still in control of your diet but you give yourself way more flexibility on a day to day basis.

So what’s the difference between maintaining weight and losing weight?

Well if you’re on a weight loss diet, you’d be eating in a calorie deficit which is eating less than your body expends. Simply put you’re eating less food. If you’re on a maintenance diet, you’re eating roughly the same amount of food as your body expends, which means you get to eat more food (as compared to a deficit).

Another thing is while losing weight you’re chasing a single number (your goal weight) over time while maintaining weight you’re keeping yourself at a w

eight range.

Example:

So say you’re currently 60kg and you want to maintain your weight for now before continuing your journey to your goal of 55kg. Maintaining 60kg doesn’t mean you’re trying to keep your weight at exactly 60kg everyday moving forward. Maintaining is a range, roughly 1-2kg above or below your maintenance weight. So for 60kg that would be 58-62kg, anywhere in that range is considered maintenance.

What’s the use of the range?

The range is keep you in control so you don’t ever drift too far from your end goal, and also gives you the flexibility to be less precise with your day to day diet. How does it look like in “real life”? If you’re maintaining weight and you see your weight drifting closer to 62kg, perhaps even dabbling into 62.8kg then that’s a sign for you to maybe tighten up your diet cos you’re starting to consistently eat too much. If you’re drifting towards 58kg, you can take it as a sign that you might not be eating enough lately and make sure it’s not a hindrance on health.

Remember watching how your weight moves is always over time, not day to day changes. Day to day weight fluctuations are super normal and are numbers that should not be taken seriously. Put more emphasis into your weekly average weight and compare them amongst other weeks to get a more accurate idea of how your weight is moving over time.

I hope painting this picture of maintenance today helps, I get a lot of messages about the frustrations of maintaining weight cos it can feel scary to see the numbers go up and down a lot especially if you’re coming off of a deficit. Maintenance is supposed to be a lot of up and down even in the long term. It’s a range, and within that range you’re totally fine and still in control. The range is what keeps you on track. When you start slipping outside that range it’s not the end of the world either, it’s just telling you where you gotta make adjustments to stay within the range.

You might not be considering maintaining weight currently, but I hope this letter eases your concern when that day comes.

Till the next one, hope you’re well!~

— Po