Weight Loss Maintenance
So it has now been 5 weeks since I have stopped strictly counting my calories. Now I am in weight loss maintenance mode. Like everybody else after losing weight I want to keep it off. I learned a lot by counting my calories but, it is not something I want to have to do forever. The goal over the last 5 weeks was to see if I could keep up the new habits I developed with the aid of MyFitnessPal. My weight now is 73.2kg and my waist measurement is 80.5cm. I have a lost a further 1.2kg in weight and 2.5cm from my waist in the last 5 weeks.
Whats been happening with my food intake?
Before weighing myself I was confident that I had been able to maintain the weight I had lost. For weight loss maintenance MyFitnessPal gave me an extra 900 calories per day to consume! I was pretty excited when I saw this as my first thought was about my beloved mini chocolate muffins! But then reality hit and I had to think how was I going to manage the extra calories. With these extra calories the old eating habits could have crept back easily.
The saying you are what you eat is true. Also, what you eat has created the body you have now. If I was to let my old habits come back then in a matter of time I would have my old 80kg body back! Or worse maybe an 80kg body plus a little extra! So I kept the same size meals as I was eating when I was counting my calories.
One challenge that came up in regards to diet was going away for the long weekend and 4 days of buying meals. When away it can be difficult to find a good restaurant and also get a balance between good food and not spending a fortune. Fast food is always an easy option because you know what you are getting, even though it is not always the best food. The closest thing that came to fast food was Subway. So for lunch a few days it was a Subway 6 inch roll with meat, salad and a small amount of sauce. In the past I would of had a foot long and washed it down with a 600 ml coke. I still had the coke but shared one with my girlfriend. Dinners were relatively good choices ie mexican, grilled fish and chips. My aim with dinners besides being a healthy meal was to make sure I did not over eat. I felt I was able to do this successfully when away.
What about the mini chocolate muffins?
They are back! But I had to make some changes. I purchased an 8 pack of muffins, came home and put them in the freezer. On days where I cycled for at least one hour I would defrost a muffin for my reward. Today I finished the last of the 8 muffins after buying them 4 weeks ago. It wasn’t easy seeing them in the freezer everyday! I talked about discipline in my previous blog and it is just as important for weight loss maintenance.
My exercise
I have been a little slack in the last few weeks. I had been training hard for a local charity ride over the last few months. After completing the ride I felt like a needed at least a week of from my cycling. This turned into 2 weeks. During this 5 week period of weight loss maintenance I had significantly decreased my exercise. My safety net had gone! This made me pay attention to my diet even more especially when away for the long weekend. Despite this I was still able to lose a little bit of weight. This showed me the importance of diet in regards to not just losing weight but in weight loss maintenance too.
