How to maintain weight loss results: Q&A session 5

Q&A Session 5: How to maintain weight loss results

Question 1: Teacher, after losing weight and entering the maintenance phase, should I maintain the eating habits from the weight loss period or return to my previous eating habits? I've already lost 20 kg with a balanced diet and brisk walking! But I don't know how to eat or exercise afterward. Should I maintain good eating habits and combine them with occasional exercise?

reply:

Yes, if you successfully lost weight through a nutritionally balanced diet, you need to continue the dietary principles you followed during your weight loss period. However, you don't need to restrict your food intake as strictly; you can eat until you're full. You should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, which is the amount of exercise recommended by the World Health Organization for all healthy individuals. Especially as you get older, if you don't exercise for just one or two weeks, you'll tend to gain fat around your waist and abdomen, and your limb muscles will become loose. Even beauty pageant winners and muscular celebrities train at the gym for one or two hours every day to maintain their perfect physique.

Question 2: I successfully lost weight using the healthy weight loss method you recommended, and I'm very satisfied with my current weight. How can I prevent weight regain? How much weight gain is considered a rebound?

reply:

To maintain a good figure in the long term, strict daily management is essential. If your waistline increases by even a centimeter or two, or your muscles become slightly loose, you should immediately take action, identify the cause of the change, and promptly adjust your diet and increase exercise. As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure; this makes it much easier to maintain a good physique. If you wait until you've gained weight and your waist is too thick and your clothes no longer fit before you start paying attention, it will be too late.

Question 3: I feel I'm a little overweight, with a bit of extra fat around my waist and stomach. I attended a one-month weight loss camp. I exercised for two to three hours every day, and the instructor kept telling me what I couldn't eat-I was afraid to eat any staple foods, treating rice like a monster. I did lose weight at the time, but after returning from the camp, I couldn't stop my body from protesting. Now, I can't even lift my leg when I pass a bakery, and I feel incredibly happy eating instant noodles. My body probably thinks I'm in a famine, so it craves high-energy foods while simultaneously fearing normal eating. What should I do? If I don't eat, I feel very depressed and uncomfortable; if I do eat, I'm afraid all the weight I worked so hard to lose will come back!

reply:

Many people go through arduous workouts to lose weight quickly, but in reality, they lose not only fat but also muscle. The brief joy of weight loss is followed by the daily struggle between eating and not eating. Many people who weren't significantly overweight, let alone obese, find that after rapid weight loss, their waist and abdomen become looser, and once they eat normally, the excess fat on their stomach is even greater than before! Many lament that they weren't fat to begin with, but insisted on following the trend to lose weight, only to gain more weight instead, and deeply regret it.

What you need to do now is forget about your weight. While you may gain a slight amount of weight after getting enough nutrition, the changes in your body shape won't be as dramatic as you might imagine. Taking a walk after meals and doing a little exercise won't increase fat around your waist and abdomen. Most importantly, you can gradually return to a normal eating pattern, eliminating the risk of rapid weight regain.

Here's a comment from a netizen: "After starting to eat properly, I gradually learned to get along better with food, and I feel my happiness in life has increased significantly. I've lost my self-blame and inferiority complex, and gained confidence and self-love. The focus of my life is no longer on what to eat, how to eat, how much to eat, or how much energy to consume, but rather on experiencing other aspects of life. I've discovered that the best food isn't cookies or bread, but ordinary meals! The key is that I eat three satisfying meals a day, without overeating or related health problems!"

Question 4: My daily diet consists of a bread roll and a cup of soy milk for breakfast, half a bowl of rice, half a portion of tofu, and half a portion of vegetables for lunch, and a sweet potato with some vegetables for dinner. I get hungry again two or three hours after meals, and what I crave most are snacks like cake, cookies, puffs, and potato chips. Even though I eat three normal meals a day, why can't I control my appetite?

reply:

Just eat a little more at your main meals. For example, add an egg to your breakfast; have a bowl of rice and double the amount of vegetables for lunch; add a cup of yogurt in the afternoon; and add half a bowl of lean meat for dinner. When your stomach is full, your cravings for snacks will naturally decrease. Whenever you're hungry, drink yogurt or soy milk; whenever you have a craving, eat a few pieces of beef jerky. Take a multivitamin and mineral tablet with your breakfast every day. If you stick to this for a month, your appetite will gradually return to normal, and your physical and mental state will also improve.

Question 5: After losing weight, I've become increasingly unsure about what to eat. I'm terrified of calories, and I never dare to eat my fill at any meal. Afterwards, I always crave snacks, and if I can't control myself, I start binge eating and giving up. Now, I think about food constantly: whether to eat, what to eat, how much to eat, and what to do if I eat too much. I know this is a pathological mindset, but I don't know what to do. I'm now heavier than before I lost weight, and worst of all, my appetite is becoming increasingly uncontrollable.

reply:

Most people think eating is a natural thing, and once they're full, they won't want to eat anymore. The reason you're suffering so much, with your mind constantly occupied by thoughts of food, is fundamentally due to two reasons: first, long-term insufficient nutrient intake, leading to a severe feeling of dissatisfaction and a surge in appetite; second, psychologically unable to accept your original body shape, let alone the rebound after weight loss, thus denying your body the opportunity to improve its nutrition.

If you are truly unable to overcome this, you should seek help from a behavioral therapist specializing in eating disorders. Ultimately, only by addressing the nutritional deficiencies can you achieve true peace of mind and body.