I’m on vacation visiting my family, as I write this blog. And you know what time with family means—food, food, food! In my mom’s guest bathroom, an old, rusty scale leers at me: “Step on me. I dare ya!” So far, I have resisted, partly out of fear, partly out of resentment.

Weight management is a life-long process. I have no doubts that I will be looking askance at the scale every day of my life. Why the push and pull? On one hand, I want to know how I am doing; on the other hand, I have butterflies in my stomach, wondering what the scale will reveal about my value as a human being. And isn’t that silly!

The mind plays tricks on you. My mind says to me: “You are fine, you don’t have to worry that you’ve put on weight,” or “Bet you’re up five pounds, fatty!” But the scale can be relied on to provide objective data. It’s a dumb machine, a one-trick pony, that can only provide you with one piece of data about yourself: your mass today.

Evaluating my life, I realize that my mass today is only a tiny component of who I am. I am partner to a fabulous woman who makes every day an adventure. I am daughter to a mother who, at 99, is still vibrant and fun, if a little confused. I am sister to my writing partner and dearest friend who holds a mirror up to me everyday and says, “This is the you I see.” My life is rich beyond words and far more complicated that the number on the rusty old scale.

The takeaway is this: You are more, much more, that one data point. Life is rich and meant to be savored. Start each day with joy and gratitude, and put the scale in its proper place—way down the list in order of importance.

As you know, we are working on a new book, “Stop Losing and Win.” When we finished the first draft of
the first part, we asked our sister-in-law for feedback. She sent us two double-spaced pages, rich with
great ideas and lots of emotion. Here is a sample:
Hard to fight societies view of being defined by shape and size. The way women are portrayed in
advertisements is so detrimental to normal people’s self-esteem. Airbrushing and totally
changing cellulite and curves promotes unfair expectations.
Oh, they have us running around in circles, chasing our tails when we should be confident and proud,
solving the world’s problems. Who are they? We could blame the beauty industry, the fashion industry,
men, society, but the fact is that we are all complicit in oppressing women, immobilizing women with
messages about how we need to be “less.”
Our message to you is that we want you to be more. Go ahead and take up space, use resources, and
make some noise. Just because the whole planet is complicit in its effort to shut you up and shut you
down, you don’t have to buy into it. It’s a crippling message, so see if you can rise above it, at least some
of the time.
What makes “Stop Losing and Win” different from other weight management schemes? We want you to
be more, not less: More healthy, more energetic, more confident, and more yourself. When you read,
see, or hear the negative stuff, shake it off. That bulls***t is not for you!

It’s a simple principle, really: Eat when you are hungry; stop when you are comfortably full. How is it, then, that I still stuff myself at times? Yesterday, we went to an amazing Taiwanese restaurant, the kind where the courses just keep coming, and every dish is better than the one before it—you know the kind. Well, I blew past “comfortably full” long before I stopped eating. Not only that, but I came home looking for something else to eat, something salty and crunchy, always my “go-to” kind of food when I’m not really hungry. And I did eat popcorn until I almost popped. I’m guessing these behaviors are familiar to you—to eat is human, to eat mindfully is divine.

Generally, I do a pretty good job of stopping when I’m comfortably full. Not only that, but I can eyeball the portions that will be just right for me, so the gross eating story is not an everyday occurrence. However, I find that I need some help, not just when dining in a great restaurant, but for each meal. I propose what I want to call “scaffolding.”

Scaffolding, that structure that allows people to build skyscrapers, is also a term for the layered kind of assistance that we might provide a child who is learning a new skill. To learn to ride a two-wheeler, for instance, you might start with the tricycle, move to the two-wheeler with training wheels, take the wheels off and hold the bike as the child pedals, and then let go.

My scaffolding starts with a blank piece of paper and a pen. I make my grocery shopping list, focusing on the fruits and vegetables I love, referring to recipes I’ll use. When I go to the store, I stick to the periphery, foraging into the aisles for coffee, tea, tortillas, pasta, and other essentials. When I get my goodies home, I put them where I can see them, continually getting cues about what to eat. I eat big salads, huge portions of vegetables and fruit, because that’s what I have and that’s what I see. When I sit down to a meal, I try to pay attention to the food and how I feel. My scaffold doesn’t even have any junk food in it! It is constructed to give me constant cues about “what’s good” and “what can I eat now.”

I didn’t feel the need to forgive myself for ignoring my body cues and bypassing the scaffolding altogether, because I felt no guilt. Actually, I just felt a little sick!

I was doing some long overdue tidying this morning when I came across a pile of literature from WW. Out of about 135 pages of material, there were just two pages dedicated to maintenance. The “All About Maintenance” pamphlet features a really nice picture of a woman of uncertain heritage in a red hoodie, smiling broadly, seemingly because she reached her weight goal.

The advice in the pamphlet is exactly what I got from my WW leader when I reached my goal in 2017: Add five points to your tracker. Watch the scale and make adjustments accordingly. “Tips for handling setbacks” comprised a little less than half of the text in the pamphlet and advised the reader to (1) choose an intervention weight (at which you will take some kind of action), (2) go back to weight-loss mode by subtracting those five points you added earlier, and (3) make an action plan, specifying three things that you will do differently.

“Maintenance is not as simple as adding and subtracting by five.”

Karen and I pick up where great plans like WW leave you hanging. We know maintenance is not as simple as adding and subtracting by five. In fact, there is so much to it that we are writing a book to accommodate what we have learned. We know for certain that maintenance requires continuous attention. We also know that emotion, social factors, biology, and psychology all play critical roles in whether or not you maintain your goal weight. You need some powerful strategies.

If you are finding the blog helpful, please post and let us know what you are doing to maintain. Who knows? Your comment may make its way into our Stop Losing and Win book—coming soon!

Karen and I are currently writing the Stop Losing and Win book (hopefully out in the fall of this year), and we focus quite a number of pages on the psychological aspects of weight management. One of the topics we have not yet covered, though, is managing your weight during difficult times. I will attempt to do that here.

I just retired. I know, you’d think I’d be ecstatic, but I’m full of mixed feelings. Who am I if I am no longer a college professor? How will I fill my hours and days over the next two or three decades? On one hand, I’m thrilled for the freedom that comes along with retirement; on the other hand, I’m a little bit terrified.

What does this mean for my weight management efforts? As tenderly as I care for myself on any given day, I will need to redouble my efforts during this transition. Having wonky emotions naturally leads to out-of-control eating, too many hours on the couch, and bad feelings that seem to erupt out of nothing, and I need to guard against these dangers.

I know three things for certain:

1. Exercise is the best stress-reducer out there, so I’m taking more walks, doing more strength training, and finding new ways to get outside and have fun.
   
   
2. A life transition is no time to try to restrict eating. Simultaneously, I’ve never had so much freedom, so it is the perfect time to try new, nutritious dishes and combinations that I may not have attempted in the past. Bring on the cook books!
   
   
3. Crisis times require new strategies. I need to find new self-care activities as my stressed-out mind and body reach out for homeostasis, always being gentle and kind to myself.

Crises, whether they be an unwelcome birthday, a divorce, the death of a spouse, losing your job, a nasty conflict with a friend—even a long-planned-for retirement—can be a time of reflection and growth. At the same time, “going through something” makes you vulnerable to your turbulent waves of emotion as well as the ill-timed actions and reactions of others. A refrain throughout our up-coming book is to care for yourself as you would care for a child, with kindness, compassion, creativity, and infinite patience.

You have read what we have written over the past two years about keeping your eating flexible, but you might want to know exactly how this feat is accomplished while still maintaining your desired weight. How do you have a treat now and then, and stick to your plan the rest of the time? What will happen if you don’t have the treat you crave? Well, let me show you!

Today my partner and I went to “In & Out Burger” for lunch: Home of the “double-double” cheeseburger and the most glorious fries you’ve ever tasted. And just because the signature burger is a “double-double” doesn’t mean I have to eat a “double-double.” Nope. I ordered a “single-single,” a diet coke, and shared some of the fries—made from fresh potatoes before your eyes! Lunch was just as good as I had hoped it would be, and worth a small splurge to get the real thing.

I’ve learned a smart hack for maintaining my weight: When I crave something, I have that thing (not some other thing that I will eat before I actually eat ‘that thing’ I am craving). I have come to believe that bodies have a wisdom all of their own, and that cravings mean something. Karen has written about rejecting foods that just are not quite ‘it.’ If you do not eat ‘it,’ you very well may graze until ‘it’ is finally in your stomach (on top of a few other things).

Now it’s back to business as usual. Tonight, we’ll have a wonderful dish made of turkey Italian sausage, cannellini beans, kale, and tomatoes with fresh blueberries for dessert. I can’t think of any reason to feel sorry for myself about dinner, even though it’s loaded with phytonutrients, fiber, complex carbohydrates, and protein (unlike lunch was).

I have not experienced one moment of guilt or remorse and will probably not repeat this particular lunch outing for a year or more, depending, of course, on what I crave. Let’s review: listen to your body, honor your cravings, make rational choices about quantities, return to normal. That’s all it takes!

                Having tried and failed many times to manage our weight, we intimately understand how failure feels. Weight management becomes a moral goal, and any lapse in adherence to the behavioral standard we set for ourselves becomes a moral failing—a blot on our character. Let’s unpack this idea.

                Karen and I lost a substantial amount of weight and have been maintaining for several years. We have come to see weight management as a game of strategy, not a moral imperative. So, weight management shifts from an all-or-nothing, zero-sum game to a game of strategy. What lifestyle components can I manipulate to get the effect I want? How do I think about myself when the numbers go up on the scale (and eventually, they will)? How do I (re)define success so that the ups and downs of weight management can be defined as success?

                Maintenance, by definition, is keeping the boat steady, and losing weight is rowing the boat in a certain direction. Either way, you want to be in the boat. What do most people do when the scale goes up? They jump overboard. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we both lost our access to the gym. We both had too many hours in front of televisions, books, and screens and near our kitchens. Hence: we both put on some weight. Our strategies? We gradually figured out how to get more exercise (essential for maintenance) and re-adjust our eating (less snacking). This didn’t happen overnight. It took months to figure out how to steady the boat. We strategized with each other and exercised self-compassion. We patiently (and sometimes impatiently) waited for our strategies to work. When they didn’t work, we moved on to a different tactic. We tried various new things—I went on the Noom plan, doubled my exercise, and developed a water habit. Karen picked up new exercise classes.

                So much of success has to do with mindset! If you think of weight management as a game, you will take a tactical approach. If you think of it as a religion, you will self-flagellate when your weight re-adjusts. You’ll be tempted to throw yourself overboard. We like our strategic approach better, don’t you?