8 Healthy Ways to Keep Weight Off After Losing It

Losing weight is a big task in itself, but for many, it can be even more challenging to keep the weight off afterward. Someone who has successfully lost a significant amount of weight often falls back into bad habits and ends up gaining all the weight once again. It takes impressive dedication, discipline, and motivation to keep the weight off. Read the following tips to help keep off the weight you've worked so hard to lose!

8 Tips to Help Maintain Your Weight

1. Forget About the Diet Mindset
   

   Following a diet can be a very efficient way to lose weight and a great way to make your daily food decisions as simple as possible. However, a common problem with a diet is that it is monotonous. People burn out from following a diet for an extended period of time. For that reason, we recommend losing the "diet mindset" when trying to keep weight off. It is a great way to lose weight, but if you have to follow the diet after that, there's a big chance you burn out. Instead of trying to stick to a strict diet or fad, try to understand that it is a lifestyle change to continue eating healthy. With that, don't return to unhealthy meals every day, but ensure you commit to a diet that is sustainable.

2. Avoid Highly Processed Foods

   You've probably already guessed why – it is important to know precisely what you are putting into your body. Processed foods are damaging to the body and are often filled with artificial ingredients, trans fats, allergens, and hidden sugars. In other words, stay away from highly processed foods. For health reasons and weight-loss reasons, we recommend that you minimize the intake of highly processed foods. By learning how to read labels, you can easily avoid selecting processed food items, and thus make your day-to-day diet significantly healthier.

3. Remember Your Goals and Set New Ones

   First of all, you should remember where you come from. Remember that you originally wanted to lose weight, and take a moment to appreciate that you now have reached the point where your new goal is to maintain your weight. Every time you reach a goal, we recommend that you always create new SMART goals. These goals will help you stay motivated and focused. This will, in turn, help you keep from reverting to the old habits and thus maintain your great new weight.

4. Include Cheat Meals

   Enjoying a great cheat meal is a great way to reward yourself for all the hard work you've put into losing that weight. Without cheat meals in the diet plan, many people will undoubtedly quickly run out of motivation to follow the diet plan. For that reason, setting up a cheat meal once a week can help you stay motivated and ready to put in the work regarding your new diet plan. Having a cheat meal once a week with lots of calories doesn't harm your weight at all if you are consistent with following your diet plan the rest of the time.

5. Continue Working Out

   Working out is naturally a great way to burn calories. By working out, you can actively set a goal and calculate how long you have to work out to lose the desired weight. If working out has been a part of your life while losing weight, you should also keep working out after losing weight! Otherwise, your metabolism will fall through the floor, resulting in burning fewer calories during the day and, thus, gaining weight back. Additionally, it can be a good idea to try new things out. Switch up your workouts and try different workout styles – it keeps it fun and prevents burning out!

6. Have a Clear Plan

   When your goal was to lose weight, you probably had a very clear plan for how you wanted things to play out. By following this plan, it was easy to stay disciplined and to track progress as it happened. When all the weight is lost, one mistake people make is to stop planning. That means they suddenly proceed without a plan and gain all the weight again. Continue planning your eating and training, even after you've reached your goals.

7. Enjoy Making Food

   Maybe you love making food. Or perhaps you hate it. If you hate it, try learning new ways to enjoy making food. Having a good and healthy relationship with making food is key. If you begin to enjoy making food, you will suddenly start eating a lot more whole foods and healthy dishes that you've made yourself. Enjoying making food also makes it significantly easier to create and follow a plan from the beginning.

8. Remember to Rest

   Last but not least, it is also crucial that you make sure to get enough rest! Do not burn yourself out from working too hard. If you don't rest enough, there's an increased chance that you will burn out and end up gaining weight again. While it can be tempting to over-train, you get much better results from consistent training combined with plenty of rest.
   

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Let us know in the comments - What is your best tip to keep weight off after losing it?

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