Keeping Weight Off

Less then 5% of those that are successful at losing fat are able to keep the fat off for a year or more.

A depressing statistic for sure. So how do you elevate yourself to this pantheon of successful fat losers? You employ the same level of diligence and persistence that allowed you to lose the fat in the first place.

When I returned from vacation vowing to get my then 38 inch waist back down to 35 inches, I knew I needed to account for the calories I was consuming more diligently then I had during or even before my vacation.

Fortunately, calorie counting is not as time-consuming an activity as it was when I had to use a calorie counting book to do so back in the 80s and 90s.

Nowadays we have these wonderful things called apps and for me the hands down best app for keeping track of my eating is MyFitnessPal.

Here are the steps I took to ensure I maintained my fitness achievement:

• I tracked everything I ate, even on weekends, using a food scale, a measuring cup and MyFitnessPal.
• I weighed myself every morning upon waking and averaged my weighings by seven to get my average weight for each week.
• I took my waist measurement at the level of the umbilicus every morning.
• I continued to exercise as usual which, for me, meant two strength training sessions and two to three submission grappling sessions per week.

Since achieving my goal of a 35 inch waist on 2/15/19, I’ve been able to maintain that measurement while my weight has gone up a couple of pounds.

But the best thing is that I’ve been able to increase the amount of food I can eat daily from 2100 calories a day when I was losing fat to 3500 calories a day now to maintain my waist size.

I have to say that the only thing sweeter then maintaining your fitness goal is being able to eat 1400 calories more each day while doing so!

So contrary to popular lore, you don’t have to “eat like a bird” to maintain the fat you lost during a diet.

You just have to be measured and patient in adding calories to your diet over the course of weeks (usually adding no more then 4-10 grams of carbs and 10 grams of fat to your daily consumption on a weekly basis).

But if you do this, I think you will be surprised at how many calories the new, leaner you can enjoy while maintaining your leanness.

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Photo of fat caliper by showcake via Adobe License.