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#173 - How To Keep The Weight Off For Life: 7 Steps That Work
1 Playsin 55 minutes
Losing weight is part of the challenge. Building a lifestyle that allows you to keep it off for years is another. Millions of people can lose weight.
Many of those people struggle to keep it off. I've maintained my 100-pound weight loss for a decade and helped others do the same.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why the way you lose weight can determine whether your results will last long-term
- The core habits successful weight loss maintainers continue using after the weight loss ends
- How to use your environment, accountability tools, and a maintenance range to prevent small setbacks from becoming major weight regain
- The identity shift that may be the biggest difference between people who temporarily lose weight and those who keep it off for life without constantly relying on motivation or willpower
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. It is time for that
Growing the Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
weekly episode. Before I get into that, just a quick reminder, if you can continue to leave reviews, continue to share this out with people who you think could get some value from these episodes. I greatly appreciate that, making this show grow and getting this information out to the people who can use this the most to help look better, feel better, live longer and happier lives. That is the entire goal of this show. And that happens by you. The fastest way and the most popular way that podcasts grow is through sharing it to other people. So I appreciate you if you have done any of those things and continue to listen and support the show, help to help more people improve their health. That is the entire goal. And it doesn't happen without you. So I appreciate that.
Weight Loss vs Maintenance
00:00:52
Speaker
The episode that I have in mind for this week, I wanted to do an episode on the difference between people who lose weight and those who actually lose weight and keep it off.
00:01:03
Speaker
I have found that a lot of people can lose weight. Not many people can actually keep that weight off. And especially when we're talking about a substantial amount of weight, people really struggle to keep weight off for the long term. And so I've thought about this question a lot. As you know, my story, I've been able to lose weight and keep this 100 pounds off for around a decade now, but I know that that is not very common in my whole goal with coaching people with helping people. A lot of that centers around weight loss because weight loss is one of the simplest and quickest ways to actually help people improve their health, improve their quality of life, improve their confidence, and improve so many different aspects of their health by losing weight.
00:01:44
Speaker
But losing weight is difficult and especially losing weight and keeping it off is very difficult for a lot of people.
Habits and Trends in Weight Management
00:01:49
Speaker
So I wanted to do an episode where we talk about what are some of the things that we can actually learn from people who have been able to lose weight and keep it off, not just from my experience, but actually looking at other people who have lost a lot of weight and been able to keep it off. Like what are some of the common trends? What are some of the common themes? What things are these people actually doing? Also, just understanding why losing weight and more importantly, losing weight and keeping it off, why that is such a difficult thing. Because I think if you can understand what the actual issue is or what the problems are, it's much easier to actually address and solve those problems. And then thirdly, just getting into some very tangible things that you can do starting today with helping you to lose weight, improve your health, keep the weight off, all those good things. So
00:02:33
Speaker
Doing this quick little thought experiment, if I were to offer you a million dollars to lose 30 pounds in the next six months, do you think you can do it? If I had to bet money on it, I think a lot of people would be able to lose that 30 pounds. But now if I ask you, you have to lose that 30 pounds and you have to keep that 30 pounds off for the next five years.
00:02:55
Speaker
I'm not betting on that because I don't think most people would be able to do it. When you ask people to do some of those things in the short term, they know exactly some of the things that they need to do. They need to probably track some food. They need to eat more whole, minimally processed foods. They need to exercise more consistently, probably turn down certain things, eat out less, drink less alcohol, maybe make some sacrifices here or there. They know some of the things that they need to do. But when it comes to doing this for a long period of time and really turning this into a lifestyle, people really struggle with that.
Sustainable Weight Loss: Lifestyle Change
00:03:23
Speaker
And so I wanted to talk a little bit about how do we actually make this into a lifestyle? So it's not just a three-month challenge or a six-month challenge, but how do we actually turn losing weight and being more healthy and embracing some of these healthy habits? How do we turn this into a lifestyle thing that we can do for years to come so that we're able to keep all those results that we get? so we're able to feel confident. so we're able to live a long, happy life. so we're able to improve our quality of life.
00:03:48
Speaker
And so with this podcast, I wanted to dive into some of those things. When we think about weight loss in general, you'll see lots of statistics thrown around about like how 95% diets fail.
00:04:00
Speaker
That exact number is debated a lot because it's really hard to put numbers on those things. But what we do know is that losing weight is pretty common. A lot of people can lose weight. But we also know that maintaining weight loss, especially a lot of weight, is a much harder thing to do. But with that being said, there are some positive things that come out of looking at this problem because, as I said, myself and lots of other people have been able to lose weight and keep it off for long periods of time. And so there's lots of things that we can learn from those people. And just understanding and just knowing that there's people out there who have been able to do it, even if it's not necessarily an easy thing to do, should give you a lot of hope that it's something that is possible. And with the right tools, with the right mindset, with the right approach, you can be one of those people who lose the weight and keep it off. That's one of my...
00:04:47
Speaker
biggest goals when it comes to this podcast when it comes to coaching people when it comes to sharing all the things that i know and sharing my experience is just you show people that it is possible for them to and then ultimately give you some real practical tools that you can use to start doing those things and so getting into this podcast starting out with step number one is first just understanding what actually controls your weight i have conversations about weight loss all the time with people because they know my story and they just ask me questions about these things and pretty quickly on i can tell how much of an understanding that people actually have around some of the basics with weight loss and lots of people just don't understand weight loss in general like everybody knows to lose weight you have to eat less and move more but people don't understand on a general level like what that actually means like there's so many different factors that influence your body weight things like food intake your exercise and daily activity Genetics play a role in your environment, your sleep, your stress, medications, and health conditions can play a role. How fast or slow your metabolism is, your body size, your body composition, social things like relationships, work, family demands all play a role in your body weight. All these things are affecting the underlying mechanism of weight loss, which is energy balance. So when I list all those things, that doesn't necessarily mean that those things are making you gain weight or lose weight, but
00:06:08
Speaker
They have an effect on your lifestyle. They have an effect on your behaviors. They have an effect on your health. And all those things can influence how easily or how hard it is to lose weight or maintain weight. but When you understand that that mechanism is still the same energy balance. If you eat less and move more, you will lose weight. That doesn't really help us too much understanding that. But when you understand some of these factors that influence how easy or how hard it is to maintain or even lose weight, then you can start addressing some of these things one by one that actually need to be addressed so that you can make this easier to actually make happen.
Energy Balance and Habit Changes
00:06:44
Speaker
So when thinking about energy balance, all you need to understand is that if the calories that you are consuming is more than the calories that you are burning, you are going to gain weight. If it's the opposite, if you are consuming less calories than you burning, you are going to lose weight. And if it's somewhere in the middle where you're consuming around the same amount of calories that your body needs or your body uses to burn throughout the day to do all the basic things that we do, then you're going to maintain your weight. When you understand that basic thing, when you understand energy balance, you actually have a much better grasp of how to lose weight, gain weight, maintain weight. And that should always be the foundation when thinking about this, because there's so many different things out there that can be super confusing, especially on social media about like how to lose weight and you're storing fat because you're too stressed out or you're in starvation mode or all these other things. And it's really easy to get mixed up around these things and start to lose sight of what's actually important, which is energy balance. Energy balance is the principle of how you lose weight and understanding that will help to drive all your other decisions.
00:07:45
Speaker
So the question is, after you actually have a good understanding of energy balance, how do I actually consistently eat less to lose weight? Or how do I, at the very least, if maybe you're just trying to maintain your weight, maybe you lost that weight, how do I influence myself to not overeat so that I can actually maintain my weight? And then also, how can I move more, exercise more so that I can help to keep that weight off? And then how do I make changing this behavior stick for years to come? So understanding those questions i think is a lot better than just thinking about i need to eat less move more because that's just very generic basic advice that doesn't really help anybody but when you think about this a little bit more deeply and you understand all the things that are involved in this and also understand just the underlying principle of this all you can start to approach it with a little bit better mindset and so the take-home point of this first step is just to understand
00:08:38
Speaker
energy balance is important understanding that will help you to make better decisions and then two understanding that all these things around you are influencing that energy balance and so how can i start to think about this in a different way to make better decisions step number two is matching your lifestyle to your goals The previous habits that you have have gotten you to the point that you're at today. And what I mean by that is if you look in the last six to 12 months of your life, if you look at your body, if you look at your body weight, if you look at your health, if you look at the situation that you're in, all those things have culminated over the last six to 12 months over the habits that you've been doing.
00:09:12
Speaker
So if you look at yourself, if you look at yourself in the mirror, if you look at your body weight, if you look at your health, you don't really like where you're at. That probably means that your habits over the last six to 12 months have not gotten you to the place that you want to be. If you want to be somewhere different, you need to start look at how do I change these habits so that in the next six months I look back, I'm actually in a place where I want to be. I've made progress. I'm in. a better body. i have lost some weight. I've built some muscle. I've increased my healthy habits, all those different things. And so understanding that means that if you want to have different results, you're going to have to start to shift your old lifestyle to a new lifestyle. because if you're hanging out with the same people if you're eating the same things if you're exercising the same way if you're doing all the exact same things you're probably not going to see much change and that's not to say when you look back on the last six to 12 months that if you aren't in the exact spot that you want to be that doesn't mean that you have everything wrong there's likely a very good chance if you have been thinking about changing your health and different things like that you probably have some of the things in the right place like maybe your exercise habits are in place but your diet's a little bit off or maybe your diet It's pretty dialed in, but maybe you're not training consistently or lifting hard enough. So you're not really seeing the results that you want to see.
00:10:24
Speaker
Maybe you are somebody who has been doing these things sometimes, but you just haven't been doing them consistently. I see this all the time with people who are good during the week, but then the weekends hit and they just go off the hinges and they're eating everything. They're not training. They're just kind of setting themselves back. So they're always in this hamster wheel of like, they feel like they're doing some of the right things, but then they're never actually able to see progress because they're not consistent enough.
00:10:46
Speaker
Or maybe you have been doing things consistently, but you need to do them a little bit more consistently. So what I mean by that is, Maybe you have been doing some of the things right. You've been getting some steps in, you've been getting some workouts in, you've been eating fairly healthy, but you just haven't been doing those things to a high enough level. So maybe you've been getting in 5,000 steps when in reality, you probably need to be getting closer to eight to 10,000 steps, or maybe you've been eating somewhat healthy, but maybe you need to start to track calories a little bit more or up your protein or eat more whole foods. Maybe you've been getting in the gym a couple of times a week, but you've just been going through the motions and you haven't really been pushing yourself so a lot of times people do have some of the habits in place but these things start to slip over time and so just realizing that and understanding that you need to just maybe up things a little bit if you do want to see some of those changes can be super helpful i think when you start to think about making this a lifestyle for a lot of people that can be kind of discouraging because when you start this whole process especially if you're brand new to this changing your lifestyle is very intimidating
00:11:47
Speaker
But you can understand that the things that you're doing now, they are going to get easier over time. So like when you first start dieting or when you first start trying to increase your activity or you start to improve your diet, those things feel very hard and difficult. But over time, the more that you do these things, the easier that these things become. And on top of that, when you think about dieting versus maintenance, those are two very different things. When you're dieting, like when you're really trying to improve things, when you're really trying to dial things in and track food and hit all your goals, those things take a little bit more effort and take a little bit more time. But as you start to get better at these things and build those habits, eventually you'll get to a point where you're just trying to maintain your weight.
00:12:28
Speaker
And maintaining your weight, especially if you do it in the right way, is much easier because you do have more flexibility. You don't have to be quite as dialed in with your diet all the time. You can take a little bit more breaks. You can have some more flexibility. You can do more social events or maybe you go out to eat or do those different things. You can miss a few workouts here or there without having that affect your results.
00:12:48
Speaker
So understanding that those things are going to get easier over time and you're going to build the skills, build the habits so that maintaining this is easier as long as you're doing it in the right way should be encouraging to you to help actually embrace this new lifestyle. But if you're only shooting for these temporary changes, if you're looking for the quick fixes, if you're looking for the eight or 12 week programs or doing this quick little thing, this new diet or this new fad that you think is going to get you those results, those results are only going to be temporary. If you focus on temporary changes, short term changes, you're going to have temporary or short term results. So we're worried about making this a lifestyle and really embracing the right things.
00:13:29
Speaker
step three when you're thinking about all this is thinking about losing this weight the right way as i just mentioned so many people try to use fads or use quick diet protocols or use certain things that they think are going to get them fast results but none of those things last because i think the thing that so many people just overlook with this whole process is in order to lose weight and keep it off you have to build the right skills along the way and you have to learn about the right things.
00:13:58
Speaker
The way that you lose weight matters a lot. So if your methods are unsustainable, the results are also going to be unsustainable. So think about it like this. We've all been through school. Maybe you went to college as well. We've all had that instance where we've just tried to cram for a test.
00:14:13
Speaker
And maybe we even got a really good grade on that test. Like you cram the night before you stayed up, you pulled an all nighter and you did really well on that test. But doing well on the test and actually learning that knowledge so that it sticks for the long term are two very different things. There's many a times where I just studied a lot before that night before the test or a couple of days before the test crammed, memorized all the information and got a good grade on the test. and then completely forgot everything that i learned but if you actually take some time to learn the content if you're studying a little bit each night if you're really trying to solidify that knowledge in your brain when the time comes to take that test you're going do well on that test and when that test is over you're actually going to retain some of that information be able to use that information that's the same exact way that i think about weight loss because there's plenty of things that you can do to get you short-term progress to lose weight very quickly but the skills that you learn
00:15:08
Speaker
are very minimal. The things that you are doing are things that are not sustainable. So you may get that quick result. You may lose five pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds, 20 pounds in eight weeks, but you're not actually going to be able to keep that weight off because you're not learning anything useful or valuable to help you keep that weight off in the future. And that's how you should think about weight loss. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to learn the right skills and learn the right information to be able to keep that weight off for the long term. And that takes time. You can't just do that in a couple of weeks. That takes months and sometimes even years to really solidify these habits and solidify the information that you need.
00:15:43
Speaker
to be able to keep this weight off for the long term. But when you think about it like this, if you trade a year, two years, even three years to, let's say, lose 100 pounds, like in my case, and then that impacts your life for the better in pretty much every way imaginable, and you're able to keep that weight off for the next 40 years, 50 years, 60 years for the rest of your life, trading a couple of years to live the next 50 years in a much better place seems like a pretty good trade off. So There's no reason to be in such a hurry because it is going to take some time, but that time is necessary to build the skills that you need to be able to sustain these results for the long term.
Skills for Successful Weight Management
00:16:20
Speaker
When I think about weight loss in teaching skills and learning all these things, I think about a conversation that I had with a former client of mine. His name was Kyle, and we actually did a podcast together. And one of the things that he had mentioned that stuck with me was he said, as weird as it sounds, as an adult, I had to learn how to eat again.
00:16:36
Speaker
We all have been eating from the day that we were born and you're to eat till the day that you die. But a lot of us were never taught the skills to eat a healthy diet and to understand portion size and understand calories and protein and macros and to understand how to manage hunger and all those different things. And so when it comes to weight loss,
00:16:55
Speaker
especially if you have gained a bunch of weight or you never had learned these skills or you've struggled with food or dieting or all those different things. There's some things, there's some skills, there's some lessons that you need to develop throughout this process of weight loss. You need to understand calories and protein and portion sizes. You need to understand how to build a balanced meal. You need to find foods that you genuinely enjoy that also fit into your goals. You need to figure out ways that you can actually manage hunger in a healthy way. You need to understand how to handle cravings in a healthy way. You need to figure out how to navigate weekends and holidays and vacations and social events and going out to eat and creating an exercise routine that you can actually be consistent with and how to get back on track when you have these minor or major challenges.
00:17:39
Speaker
All these things are skills that you learn throughout the process of losing weight, but you don't learn those things when you try to follow some new fad or try to get quick results. These are things that you learn when you approach this the right way.
00:17:50
Speaker
when you approach this process in the right way you should be thinking about how can i improve with building better habits how can i build a stronger mindset how can i create more self-awareness how can i start to shift my identity to somebody who values health and fitness and all those different things because many crash diets many quick fixes they'll work for a very short period of time but eventually they're going to fail they will help somebody lose weight but they will not teach them how to maintain that weight You can even see this with things like GLP ones, which are very common now, or people who get weight loss surgery. Those can be very powerful tools.
00:18:24
Speaker
But if you're not pairing those tools with lifestyle change, they're just bandaid fixes. And so there are things that you are using to get some temporary results. But if you're also not pairing that with some of those lifestyle habits that we want to implement, like building healthy nutrition habits, like regular activity, like strength training, like learning to track food or different things things like that, like pairing it with some support or some accountability. Those things are just going to be a bandaid. Those things are tools that can help with weight loss. But when you think about it like this, just because you have tools, doesn't mean that those tools are going to build a house by themselves. You still need somebody who can handle those tools, who has the knowledge, who has the skills to build a home in order to put those tools to use. So
00:19:08
Speaker
If you are so using some of these GLP ones or using different things to help you lose weight, you still need those lifestyle habits. You still need the knowledge. You still need all those things that are going to help you make weight loss sustainable for the future. And so you can't just think that a quick diet or a quick fix or something like that is going fix the problem because I promise you it's not. Many people have been Trying to find the quick fix for weight loss for a very long time. And there is still not one out there. There's things that can certainly help. Some of these medications that people are using now are very strong and very helpful with weight loss. But again, without pairing those things with good lifestyle habits, you're just putting a bandaid on these things. And you're not ultimately going to get to that place that you want to be where you can feel your best, look your best, be able to have a high quality of life, all those different things without pairing it with the important lifestyle change that needs to come with it.
00:19:58
Speaker
Step number four in this process is building on that foundation. Once you start to lose weight the right way, you're just simply going to start to build on top of that. So a lot of the things that you use to lose weight are the same things that you are going to use to actually maintain that weight loss. And so when I think about this, there's four main things that I think about. And so there's the activity side and then you have the food side. So with the activity side, I think about workouts and I think about steps.
00:20:27
Speaker
With our workouts, we want to make sure that we are getting at least a couple workouts in per week, somewhere between like two to four workouts per week, hopefully including some strength training stuff with that.
00:20:37
Speaker
Steps, we want to be making sure that we're hitting a step goal somewhere between eight to 10,000 steps. It's really good goal to shoot for. food side of things we want to make sure that we're hitting a calorie goal and a protein goal so maybe doing some things like tracking some food and just focusing on learning a little bit more about food so you can better manage those calories can be super helpful and then focusing on a high protein diet so getting at least 0.7 grams per pound of body weight of protein per day to help us get to those benefits that we really want to get when it comes to building muscle managing hunger all those different things so focusing on these four main core maintenance habits are going to help you with maintaining your weight loss and so you just continue to build on that foundation that you started with losing weight by focusing on some of these things same things And one of the nice things about actually just maintaining the weight versus losing the weight is once you have lost a good amount of weight and you start to go back into that maintenance period, you don't have to give quite as much detail to these things. So you have a little bit more flexibility and a little bit more freedom when it comes to these things and you don't have to be so detail oriented. But when you are losing weight, there's probably going to be a period of time where
00:21:48
Speaker
three months, six months, maybe even a year where you do have to be a little bit more strict, a little bit more dialed in, a little bit more aware about these things and build the right habits. But understanding that eventually you're gonna get to a point where you are just maintaining and you do have a little bit more freedom and flexibility. And I think understanding that is helpful again to people who maybe they get into weight loss and they just think, I don't want track my food for the rest of my life. I don't want to have to measure out every single ounce of food that I'm eating or different things like that. And the honest reality is you don't have to do those things forever. But spending a period of time doing those things is going to prove to be invaluable to the rest of your life with learning about food and learning about portion sizes and all those different things that I mentioned earlier. You're going to learn a lot of those things from being more dialed in and paying more attention and being more detailed and having more self-awareness around these things. So just understand that as you're starting to build on this foundation and as you're starting to get into a period where you're getting close to that goal, you eventually are going to have a little bit more freedom and flexibility
Creating a Supportive Environment
00:22:48
Speaker
with this. But you still want to continue to build on those good habits that you set from the time of losing that weight.
00:22:54
Speaker
Step number five with this whole process is to build the environment that helps support your new lifestyle. So now you've gotten to a point where you've lost some weight or you're getting very close to that goal. You really continue to build on those foundational habits and just starting to do a lot of really good things. You want to make sure that you are building an environment that supports this new lifestyle. so Understanding this, i think, helps to get rid of some of those issues that people feel with not being motivated or feeling like they need to use willpower all the time because willpower is nice and motivation is nice when it's there, but you don't want to be relying on those things all the time. if You can start to set up your environment in a way where you can make the healthy decision, easy decision.
00:23:36
Speaker
maintaining your weight is going to be so much simpler. And this is something that I've noticed with people who are more fit or people who have lost weight or people who have built their dream body. They're really good about building a good environment around them to help facilitate those goals that they have. And what I mean by that, giving you some really tangible examples is like your physical environment, you want to make that as conducive to healthy things as possible. So simple things like keeping more nutritious food available in your house or at work,
00:24:04
Speaker
Maybe meal prepping so that you have access to good quality meals, keeping good snack options available, keeping more fruits and vegetables visible in your house and some of that stuff that is very easy to overeat, maybe less visible or even keeping that stuff out of your house so it's not constantly available and you're not tempted to eat those things. Making exercise and movement easier. i mean, a simple example of this would be like i have a walking pad in my house.
00:24:27
Speaker
So it makes it very easy to get my steps in. And I also have a home gym in my house, so it makes it really easy to get workouts in. Now, you obviously don't have to have an entire gym in your house to be successful with your weight loss goals. But the point is just to make your environment easier to eat well and to move more often so that you will do those things more often.
00:24:45
Speaker
Humans love convenience. And the easier things are, the easier we make things on ourself, the more often and the more consistent we're going to do those things. And so if you want to do more healthy things, make it easier to be healthy.
00:24:57
Speaker
from a social standpoint you can also start to change your social environment so spend time with people who are more supportive and more like-minded with your goals maybe get a workout partner or work out with a group join a group exercise class or something of that nature work out in a gym that pushes you that you actually enjoy going to find some active hobbies that you can be social with other people with so maybe joining an intramural league or playing pickleball or Doing something like that, joining a run club, those are all really good examples. And then you have like your lifestyle environment. So you want to make sure that you are setting yourself up so that you can protect your sleep, so that you can manage stress, so that you can build routines for your busy weeks, so that you can plan for weekends, so that you can prepare for traveling and holidays, having like quick go-to meals and workouts when you're really busy. All those different things that you know are going to come up within your just normal everyday lifestyle. When you can start to think ahead on those things and just set yourself up in a way that helps you to do the right things. This whole process is going to become easier because you don't want to rely on willpower all the time. There definitely be times where you will have to use it and you will have to flex that muscle sometimes, which is a good thing.
00:26:08
Speaker
But the better strategy is, especially if you want this to be a long term thing, is just to set up your environment so that you can thrive. Just think about how can I make the healthy decision, the easy decision? I mean, a simple analogy would be like if I told you that you wanted to maintain your weight,
00:26:25
Speaker
it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to go hang out at an all you can eat buffet for every single meal for the rest of your life, right? You want to hang out in places that are going to make the healthy decision, make making those decisions that you want to make a little bit easier. So set yourself up to do these things. And again, I think this is such an underrated thing because you're in environments all the time and your environments play such a critical role in influencing your behavior. And you don't want to be having to turn things down all the time you just gridding your way through this all the time. We want to try to make this easier. So set yourself up, do yourself a favor, maybe audit your environment a little bit, start hanging out with people who have similar goals as you. Maybe start to think about how you can better set yourself up for better sleep or managing stress or building the right routines. All those things are going to go a really long way with being able to lose weight and then maintain this weight for a really long time.
00:27:17
Speaker
Step number six, so we got two steps left in this seven step process is to have regular check-ins. One of the things that I read about in some studies of people who have lost weight and kept it off for a long time is they do what's called self-monitoring.
00:27:33
Speaker
And so they track metrics to help hold them accountable and help keep them informed on what's actually going on versus just guessing. And what I mean by that is like a simple example of this would be like they weigh themselves either daily or weekly. That way they're not surprised when they step on the scale and two or three months that the scale is up 25 pounds. If you're doing that routinely, if you're doing that every day or at least every week, you know if that scale is starting to trend up that I probably better dial things back in. Maybe I've been letting some things slip. I need to start to get my things back in order. Some other examples would be like tracking your steps or tracking your workouts. If you're tracking those things, you know whether you are building some strength or building some muscle, you know how active you are being. Another quick example would be like tracking your food or tracking your protein. If you're tracking those things, you know for certain that you are on the right path and you're doing some of the right things. Because I think a lot of times with weight loss, it's very easy to be like, oh, I'm eating pretty healthy or I'm being pretty active. But when you measure these things out, there's no guesswork involved. You would not believe how many times I've heard, I don't really know why I'm not losing weight. I eat healthy most of the time, or I'm pretty active, or I'm i'm working out consistently, but I can't get stronger. I can't build muscle. I hear that kind of stuff all the time. And then I ask people, well, how do you know that?
00:28:47
Speaker
And they're like, well, i mean i just feel like i'm doing those things yeah i mean in the intention is great like it's there it's it's good to focus on healthy habits but the reality is if you're not being consistent enough or if you're not putting enough effort into these things it's very easy to let your weight slip it's very easy to start to move less it's very easy to not work out as much as you want to be working out but when you put some numbers behind these things when you track data when you track metrics you know for certain it's that old saying about what gets measured gets managed So having some ways to self monitor or have these regular check ins with yourself is a really, really good thing to do if you care about keeping this weight off for a long term. And I think one of the most simple ways to do this is just to weigh yourself either daily or weekly.
00:29:33
Speaker
There's other things you can do that I just mentioned, and there's lots of ways that you can track things, but I think this one is just so simple. And again, I'm all about simplicity. i'm all about convenience and weighing yourself each morning or at least a couple times a week. It's very, very simple.
00:29:46
Speaker
If you're going to do this, I would say you first need to understand that your body weight is going to naturally fluctuate. so water, sodium, carbs, your digestion, your bathroom habits. If you had a hard workout, if you had less sleep, stress, hormones can all affect how much that weight fluctuates on a given day. So understanding that, and you don't need to hyper-focus in that I need to weigh exactly 200 pounds, or i need to weigh exactly this certain number. You want to think about maintaining your weight as more of a range. For me, i want to be somewhere around 205 pounds. So i give myself a range about about like 203 to about 208 pounds. I give myself like a five pound range, sometimes a little bit more.
00:30:25
Speaker
that I want to be within because I know that scale is going to fluctuate. But also if I start to notice that I'm having a lot of higher weigh-ins, so like maybe I'm like 209, 210, 211, 209 again, i see that scale start creeping up pretty routinely, then I know that I need to tighten some things up. And that's just a really easy way to keep yourself honest and just to have those regular check-ins is just to know like if I have one high weigh-in, I don't really care. It's not a big deal. Maybe it's just a bad night of sleep or had alcohol or something like that. If I have several high weigh-ins, I start to pay attention. And then if I have like two or three weeks where that scale is trending above that range that I wanna be in, then I know it's time to dial back for a minute. So if that happens, now I might start to track calories for a couple of weeks just to dial things in a little bit. Maybe I'll eat out a little bit less for a few weeks or a month or so. Maybe I'll start to increase some activity or some workouts and steps. maybe i'll start to simplify or just make sure that i meal prep maybe reduce alcohol there's so many ways that you can do this to start to dial your way back in but i think the main point of understanding this is that it's much easier to correct things early on and to be able to look at this more logically versus just trying to guess your way to it because it's much easier to step on a scale and be like oh shoot my weight's up five pounds or six pounds versus when you step on the scale and four months after not stepping on it for a while and you go, shit, I'm up 25 pounds. That's a lot harder to deal with. And now you have much more work to do versus when you're just constantly just checking in with yourself on a weekly basis or every couple of weeks and just making sure that you are just having some honest feedback for you there. And that's all the scale is. It's not there to judge you or you don't have to get super emotional about it It's just there to give you some data and give you some feedback about where you're at.
00:32:07
Speaker
I think of it kind of like this. If I have one bad night of sleep, I'm not really stressing it. Like that happens all the time. Like you stay up later on a weekend, you have a social event, you do whatever, you just have one bad night of sleep, like not a big deal. But if that starts to happen every night, multiple weeks in a row, months in a row, like that's probably something that you're going to want to address before it becomes a really big problem and you start to see effects in other parts of your life.
00:32:29
Speaker
Weight is the same way. So like if I'm weighing myself and I have one high weigh-in, probably not a big deal. If it happens a couple of times, all right, I might start taking notice. have multiple. I'm like, OK, I want to actually address this sooner than later so that this doesn't turn into a bigger issue and it doesn't turn into this big snowball effect of where now this is much harder to dig myself out of this hole. That's exactly how I think of this self-monitoring and why I personally try to weigh myself daily and if not daily, at least multiple times per week. Super simple thing to do, but it will help a lot.
Identity Shift and Motivation
00:33:00
Speaker
And the last step in this whole process is starting to shift your identity so that you can actually solidify these results. And what I mean by this is that when you think about making this a lifestyle, your habits are going to determine this lifestyle, but your identity is going to determine how hard this lifestyle feels to maintain.
00:33:17
Speaker
If you don't want this to feel super hard, if you don't want this to feel like a struggle, then your perspective on how you view yourself and how you view health as a priority has to match.
00:33:28
Speaker
And so when you're thinking about making this a lifestyle, there's like two different types of motivation. So you have like your push motivation and you have your pull motivation. So I'm going try to explain this through athletics because I just think of athletics is something that just makes a lot of sense to me. And it's really easy to provide analogies to understand this. So let's say you have two different athletes.
00:33:47
Speaker
One of these athletes fully embraces the lifestyle of what it takes to be a high level athlete. Like if you have somebody who wants to be better than most people at athletics, you They embrace that lifestyle. They know they need to practice hard, but they also know they need to do other things outside of practice. They need to watch film. They need to get good sleep. They need to get enough food. They need to do all these little things that are going to help them be this high level athlete. And they love doing it. They embrace it because they want to do this. It's a big part of their identity and they actually enjoy doing these things. Like if they aren't able to do these things, they feel like they're missing out. Athlete number two, let's say they don't love it nearly as much, but they also want to be a better than average athlete. So they're going to do some of the things they're going to see some of the results, maybe put in a little bit of extra work, but they don't really love it as much as that athlete one.
00:34:35
Speaker
Which athlete in this situation do you feel is going to actually enjoy this process? And which one do you think is ultimately going to get the better results over time? probably going to be the one who like fully embraces this, who really values being that high level athlete versus the person who is actually just doing those things. Like you're going results in both situations. Like if you're doing the things, if you're doing the actions, you're going to get results, but how hard and how difficult it feels is going to be very different from one person to the other. I say that because when it comes to health, this is hopefully something that you want to do for the rest of your life. You want to look better. You want to feel better. You want to be fit. You want to have all those things that we get from having a high level of fitness and having good health.
00:35:15
Speaker
And the way that you can make this easier and actually embrace this is to make it part of your identity and make it something that you actually want to do. And the way that you do this is just by doing small little things over time so that you build this value into your identity as someone who identifies as someone who is fit, who is healthy, who does value these things. Because again, you can do these things, even if you don't necessarily love these things. And it's not really a big part of your identity. Like you can still do these actions and get results. But it's always going to feel like a struggle. It's always going to feel like hard work. It's always going to feel like It's not really something that you want to do. But when you turn it into something that is part of who you are and who you want to be, like, I do want to be this fit person. I do want to be this healthy person. I do want to be this person who loses this weight and keeps it off. Like when you really ingrain that and who you are and who you want to be, it feels a lot different than constantly trying to just put so much effort into these things and just not really enjoying this.
00:36:10
Speaker
And so trying to shift your identity into a person that really values these things is a big part of this. And the second part of this, helping to solidify these results is making sure that you have some other goals to chase once you do get to that goal weight. So eventually you're going get to that goal weight. It may take you several months, likely probably going to take you several years if you have a lot of weight to lose like I did myself. But eventually going to get to that goal.
00:36:32
Speaker
And that is good. That's a good thing. Like you want to get to that goal and then you need to find something else that motivates you then. So for a lot of people, this will continue to be an aesthetic thing. So maybe you want to build some more muscle, Maybe you want to focus on building bigger legs or building a bigger butt or bigger shoulders or whatever. And that's perfectly fine. But eventually you'll probably get to a point where like aesthetics become less of the goal. You're not really caring quite as much about what you look like. Or maybe you have gotten to a point where like you feel really solid and you really like where your body is. You probably want to find some other goals, maybe some performance goals or things to chase that keep you motivated to keep this lifestyle up.
00:37:08
Speaker
I found that with myself, like having some sort of performance goal has really helped to keep me invested and keep me engaged and keep me not just going through the motions, but actually putting in a lot of effort and intensity with these things. And so having some goals and really having something to drive you to keep showing up can be super helpful in helping you to maintain this lifestyle and continue to see good results so this could be something like getting stronger in the gym maybe you want to get your first pull-up or 10 pull-ups or maybe you want to build a certain amount of muscle maybe you want to do a fitness event maybe you want to run a race maybe you want to improve your cardio maybe you want to get better at a certain sport maybe you just want to be active with your children maybe you just want to get more athletic overall Maybe it's the simple fact of like you're showing up because you want to be a good example for your kids or for other people. Maybe you're going on a trip and you want to be able to go on those long hikes and do all the things like there's so many different reasons that you could show up and just continue to embrace this lifestyle. But I think having some certain goal is really helpful for a lot of people because it does keep you engaged and invested with these things. I know for myself, that's been a big part of training, like finding goals to train for. so I trained to dunk a basketball for the first time. That was really fun. I trained to run my first marathon. More recently, I've just trained to become a better runner. Like having something to train for, to put your effort and intention towards, I think can help you show up and continue to make this more ingrained part of your lifestyle and just keep you doing all those good habits that you've spent so long building. so
00:38:37
Speaker
Those two things, just the big takeaways, like if you want to have these results stick for good, make them a part of your identity. And you do this by doing those small actions and really embracing this lifestyle and really valuing those things and what it's giving to you. And then secondly, just continuing to chase goals that excite you. Like those two things, doing those two things will help you keep these results just as much as anything else.
00:38:58
Speaker
And then the last thing that I wanted to end this podcast off with, because there are some studies out there with people who have lost weight and been able to maintain it. They've looked at different things that these people have done. And so I wanted to just throw these at you just as some really practical, tangible things that you can do starting like right away. These are things that successful weight loss maintainers commonly do. They control their calorie intake. So simple thing here is just to track your calories for a period of time, really start to understand food a little bit more. They exercise regularly. So 90% of people who have kept the weight off reported that they exercise at least an hour per day. That seems pretty obvious, right? You need to eat less, move more. That's part of the move more part. So find a form of exercise that you like and can do almost daily. that's going to be helpful. They weigh themselves consistently. So three-fourths of people said they weighed themselves at least once per week.
00:39:49
Speaker
Number four is they monitor food intake. So mention that, but just having some food awareness, tracking calories, portion of control, using meal prep, those different things can help you to monitor food intake.
00:40:00
Speaker
They eat consistently across the week. So they have a regular routine eating schedule versus like eating more sporadically, which if you know anything about behavior, it's a lot easier to Keep your habits in place if you're doing those things at a set routine time. So just having a good routine with meals and keeping that up across the week can be helpful. They maintain a simple meal structure. So most people eat breakfast.
00:40:25
Speaker
Most people stick to similar meals. They eat simple things. and again this is just something that's just easily repeatable so when you have that good structure it helps you to keep these things on track so that you're not just falling off or finding yourself overeating too much so having some sort of solid simple meal structure is really helpful they limit sedentary time which this one was actually not really a shock to me but i just didn't really think about this as much so 62 of people reported that they watch fewer than 10 hours of TV per week. And it's not that you can't watch TV or enjoy your Netflix show or anything like that. But I just think it goes to show that people who are able to keep the weight off, again, are just more active, like they're finding more active things to do versus just sitting in front of screens all the time.
00:41:10
Speaker
And then last on this list was they respond to the regain early. So again, if they step on that scale and they see things start to creep up, they address that more quickly. If they feel like their activity is dropping way off, they start to increase their activity. If they feel like they're losing control of their diet or their structure, maybe they go back into a 30 day cut or something of that nature. So having some of these tangible things to really focus on, I think is helpful.
00:41:37
Speaker
There's this quote that I think about. It was Dan John. He was strength coach and he would say that success leaves tracks. So look at people who have already done the thing that you want to do and you can learn a lot from their patterns and their behaviors. and start to implement some of these things and maybe use one or two of these things can be helpful with your long-term success of losing weight and keeping that off.
00:41:57
Speaker
I think one last closing message is just to reiterate with this whole process. Like I just threw a ton of information at you, a lot of practical things that you can start doing. The big thing is, is to find things that work for you. You can learn a lot from looking at other people, but Not everything that I do or everything that I tell you on this podcast or everything that other people tell you to do are going to necessarily work for you. When you understand some of the principles behind these things, like the energy balance that we talked about, like progressive overload, like some of these trends or patterns or different things like that, those things are helpful. But ultimately, you're going to have to find a way to make these things work for you. And that happens by
00:42:32
Speaker
trying some different things and being open to maybe a new style of eating or trying this tip or trying this certain exercise routine. Like you have to find things that you are actually going to do consistently and things that you actually like. And the only way that happens is if you get your reps in and you're not afraid to try some new things. So don't be afraid to try some of these things, even if they don't stick for you originally. Like it's a good thing to look at patterns, to look what has worked for other people, and then try some different things and see what actually sticks for you. yeah,
00:43:00
Speaker
With that being said, that is the conclusion of this podcast. That was a lot. Hopefully it was helpful. If it was, if you could share it with somebody who you think get some value out of this, I greatly appreciate that. Or if you can leave review, also appreciate that. The one-on-one coaching link, if you want some actual hands-on help with this stuff, is in the show notes as always. But I appreciate you listening and we will see you next