Do I have to do this FOREVER?
Let’s talk today about maintenance. How do you maintain your successes after you have achieved them? Do you have to keep eating strictly and exercising so much? Can you slack off a bit?
The answer is an infuriating “it depends”. It depends on how you achieved your results in the first place. If you achieved your results by using a diet like weight watchers, jenny craig, sureslim etc etc, then you are clearly going to have to find a way to eat that isn’t that diet forever. The trouble with losing weight with ‘diets’ is that you can’t do it forever. You can’t be in a calorie deficit (eating less calories than you burn) forever. The trouble with low calorie diets is that they destroy your metabolism – when you go back to eating regular amounts of food, you’re going to pack the weight back on.
If you achieved your results by doing heaps of exercise, like an hour or more a day, well that probably isn’t realistic for the long-term. Not only does it take up your time, but extended periods of intense exercise causes your body to be stressed, increases inflammation and weakens your immune system.
I totally agree that you can’t keep up the above regimes for life. That would make for a pretty miserable life. What I do think is that you can follow a realistic eating philosophy and workout the right way 3 times per week for 30mins each time. That is a great way to both achieve AND maintain results. If you think that you have to eat bread, pasta, rice, sugar, chocolate, wine etc every day, well you can’t eat that stuff and expect to either achieve or maintain your results. Sure you can eat that stuff every so often, but not every day. If you can base your daily food around quality fats, proteins and less than 150gms (that’s plenty) of carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts etc then you’ve got an eating philosophy that will let you effortlessly lose and maintain fat for good. It tastes great, you can eat yummy food, you’re not hungry and you feel great - you wouldn’t want to stop doing that would you?
Let’s talk about the exercise bit. If you can’t find 30mins three times per week to workout using resistance training mixed with cardio, plus a few hours to just hang out in nature and walk lots, well you may as well just choose to stay fat. 1.5 hours a week of structured exercise is nothing compared to the benefits it gives you. Exercise has to be a part of your life, not just something you do to achieve a goal. Walking in nature helps your movement patterns to stay balanced and helps you to de-stress – boosting your immune system and reducing stress in your body – win-win!
Achieving results requires lots of hard work and commitment and you may as well just do that once and do it right! Performing 1.5 hours of structured exercise per week, plus following a healthy eating philosophy is an achievable and maintainable thing. You can keep your fabulous new body for life – maybe even keep improving it past your initial goals.
Make the commitment to good health for the rest of your life – not just until you lose 10kg, 20kg, 5kg or fit into your wedding dress. It’s surprisingly easy to keep your results. Many people struggle to motivate themselves to exercise even after they have got into a habit of it. If that’s you (and I think its like 90% of the population!) you might need to maintain a personal trainer at some level for the long-term. If you’re training with me that could cost as little as $20 per week for 2 group training sessions. That’s the surest way to make sure you never lose your results or slip backwards!
Want to get started with personal or goup training right now? Click here to book a free consultation today
The answer is an infuriating “it depends”. It depends on how you achieved your results in the first place. If you achieved your results by using a diet like weight watchers, jenny craig, sureslim etc etc, then you are clearly going to have to find a way to eat that isn’t that diet forever. The trouble with losing weight with ‘diets’ is that you can’t do it forever. You can’t be in a calorie deficit (eating less calories than you burn) forever. The trouble with low calorie diets is that they destroy your metabolism – when you go back to eating regular amounts of food, you’re going to pack the weight back on.
If you achieved your results by doing heaps of exercise, like an hour or more a day, well that probably isn’t realistic for the long-term. Not only does it take up your time, but extended periods of intense exercise causes your body to be stressed, increases inflammation and weakens your immune system.
I totally agree that you can’t keep up the above regimes for life. That would make for a pretty miserable life. What I do think is that you can follow a realistic eating philosophy and workout the right way 3 times per week for 30mins each time. That is a great way to both achieve AND maintain results. If you think that you have to eat bread, pasta, rice, sugar, chocolate, wine etc every day, well you can’t eat that stuff and expect to either achieve or maintain your results. Sure you can eat that stuff every so often, but not every day. If you can base your daily food around quality fats, proteins and less than 150gms (that’s plenty) of carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts etc then you’ve got an eating philosophy that will let you effortlessly lose and maintain fat for good. It tastes great, you can eat yummy food, you’re not hungry and you feel great - you wouldn’t want to stop doing that would you?
Let’s talk about the exercise bit. If you can’t find 30mins three times per week to workout using resistance training mixed with cardio, plus a few hours to just hang out in nature and walk lots, well you may as well just choose to stay fat. 1.5 hours a week of structured exercise is nothing compared to the benefits it gives you. Exercise has to be a part of your life, not just something you do to achieve a goal. Walking in nature helps your movement patterns to stay balanced and helps you to de-stress – boosting your immune system and reducing stress in your body – win-win!
Achieving results requires lots of hard work and commitment and you may as well just do that once and do it right! Performing 1.5 hours of structured exercise per week, plus following a healthy eating philosophy is an achievable and maintainable thing. You can keep your fabulous new body for life – maybe even keep improving it past your initial goals.
Make the commitment to good health for the rest of your life – not just until you lose 10kg, 20kg, 5kg or fit into your wedding dress. It’s surprisingly easy to keep your results. Many people struggle to motivate themselves to exercise even after they have got into a habit of it. If that’s you (and I think its like 90% of the population!) you might need to maintain a personal trainer at some level for the long-term. If you’re training with me that could cost as little as $20 per week for 2 group training sessions. That’s the surest way to make sure you never lose your results or slip backwards!
Want to get started with personal or goup training right now? Click here to book a free consultation today
