How To Maintain Your Shape - a Guest Blog by Michael Colombo
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 4:09PM 
If you have been working hard to lose weight and to be for physically fit, you have probably wondered what to do once you reach your goals. Many people who reach their goals ride the high of accomplishment for a little bit too long, which causes them to sometimes revert back into gaining some extra weight. Here are a few tips that you can follow to help you maintain your newly found shape once completing your weight loss and exercise goals.
The first thing that you should do when accomplishing your goals is to reward yourself. While many people reward themselves with a meal that they haven't been able to eat since starting their program, we would suggest maybe having a party or treating yourself to a new clothing shopping spree. The reason for celebrating without food is because when you celebrate with food, it can weaken the mental wall that you have built to help you stay away from harmful foods. If you have ever heard the old adage of "all it takes is once," then you can understand that all it takes is eating forbidden food one time to set off a high-calorie binge fest. To help prevent this type of downward regression from happening, always give yourself rewards that do not include food. Instead, go on a vacation, get that new electronic device that you have always wanted, or better yet, buy something else that will help you to remain in shape. By providing yourself with a constructive and helpful reward system, you will be able to better maintain your shape when meeting your goals.
The next thing to do when accomplishing your goals is to get right back into the grind and create a maintenance plan for your body. A maintenance plan is different than a weight loss plan as you want to learn how to effectively zero out your calories each day. This means that instead of consuming less and outputting more, you need to now find an equal balance that will allow you to maintain your weight and fitness. Once of the easiest ways to create a maintenance plan is to calculate how much you are currently eating by converting it to a caloric value. Once you know what the average amount of calories are that you consume in a day's time, it will be much easier for you to decide on what exercises you can do to zero out this calorie count. Planning daily exercise is the best way to do this as you are already used to having to exercise daily from the last routine you just went through. The only difference with a maintenance plan as opposed to a weight loss plan is that the amount of exercise, or types of exercises will be different than what you were doing before. For example, instead of lifting weight for 30 minutes a day, you may instead go on a walk, run around the track, or play a pick-up game of basketball in order to maintain the fitness that you have achieved.
Portion control is the last thing that you need to tackle when trying to maintain your weight loss achievements. While you can increase what you eat slightly, it is important to understand that the same care and consideration that went into your weight loss diet should go into your maintenance diet. This means that you should watch what you eat and make sure that your average calorie count is met. Going under or over the calorie amount can lead to regression when it comes to maintaining your new physique. Using a nutritionist or a new diet plan is recommended as you will be able to introduce some foods back into your diet that you were not able to eat previously. The thing to watch out for is a complete relapse of eating the same things that you ate before starting your weight loss program.
By following these tips, you will be able to be better prepared to maintain the new body that you have earned through completing your weight loss program and goals. Maintenance is possible by simply adjusting the regiment that you are already used to following in order to keep you weight and fitness on an even plane.
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Reader Comments (2)
Exercises and diet would definitely help, but for those who are in good shape you should definitely take care of it. live healthy so that you wont gain considerable amount of weight.
I have no doubt that by following those tips one would definitely get in best shape.