Maintenance means simply guarding the status quo, but it requires a little monitoring—on the scale, in your portions, and in your daily activities. Yet, when suggesting that you monitor your weight, we are out of step with some of the clinicians and researchers of our day. For example, those who research and serve individuals with eating disorders say to avoid the scale, that getting on daily is indicative of an eating disorder. Writers who advocate intuitive eating and “Health at Every Size (HAES)” would choose to monitor inner body sensations of hunger and fullness over scrutinizing what’s on the plate or the scale. Lastly, although we say to monitor your physical activity, the last thing we want to be are fitness Nazis. We’ll leave that to the exercise anorexics who are around every corner of the Internet.
Yes, maintenance does require a little vigilance. But it is so different from dieting. My partner just mentioned that she went to bed hungry two nights ago. An unpleasant memory immediately rushed into my head: The entire eight months that I dieted, I went to bed hungry nearly every night. And that’s not the whole story, either. For every pound of fat I lost, I also lost about a third of a pound of lean tissue. So, no, maintenance is not like dieting. You never have to be hungry and you preserve your lean muscle. Maintenance is that wonderful state of equilibrium that tells you you are fine the way you are.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I naturally fell into maintenance when my body refused the dieting state. Week-to-week, I will take the easier road and maintain my current weight. Maybe I will try losing once again if run across a nice patch of willpower.
Stop Losing and Win 