It's official...the beginning of the rest of my life. Today, I officially began the transition process to the maintenance phase of this program. "Maintenance" is how I will spend the rest of every day of my life.
In knowing that I would be blogging tonight about transition, I searched for some "diet maintenance" links and here's what I found. I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone reading along.
Statistically speaking, about 90% of people who diet and lose weight, regardless of which method, gain every pound back. Ninety percent. That's huge in my opinion. I am of the belief, that the following is possibly why that number is so large. Another article I found entitled..."Life After A Diet" states that after months of hard work and abstinence, you've reached your target weight and return to your regular eating habits. At first, I stopped reading right there. My immediate thought was that was the problem. You simply can't return to your regular eating habits! I did finally read on to make sure that somewhere, the author brought that up, and yes, she did. I truly believe though, that's the problem with people gaining back the weight they lost. The definition of insanity, per Albert Einstein is doing the same thing, over and over again, and expecting different results.
Diet programs are just that...programs. They start, they stop and you go on. If you have not made the decisions throughout the program to change your lifestyle, then yes, I see where 90% can potentially gain their weight back. Those that go into the program of their choosing, with the determination to make a lifestyle change and not just a temporary solution should be successful in their endeavor to, indeed, change their life.
So, today's weigh in was the first one since May 18, because of the holiday last week. I didn't do as well as I thought I'd do. I anticipated two weeks ago, already being at goal. I did have a loss, however. I lost .6 pounds, my smallest loss yet, but still a loss. That brought the total to 74.4 pounds and 19.5% body fat lost.
Today, Dr. Armstrong and I met to begin the transition phase. What I learned today is that for the next two weeks, essentially, nothing changes other than a decrease in the medication and a slight increase in the amount of food I consume. The same food list still applies at this point. I have already started the medication transition. Not purposely, but the forgetting to take it, not taking it because I didn't feel like I needed an appetite suppressant if I wasn't hungry, kind of thing. I don't anticipate the next two weeks being much different than anything else from the past 23 weeks. He felt as though there was no reason I would not reach my 77.2 pound goal before fully moving into maintenance.
His statements to me were super encouraging. He reviewed with me that in 23 weeks, I'd pretty much lost 75 pounds and 20% body fat. The 20% body fat doesn't really do anything for me. I can't equate that to something. Actually, I struggle equating 75pounds to something as well! He said it was "amazing" (love that word, since he used it!) that the average was about 3 pounds a week and 1% body fat per week. He said I couldn't expect any better than that. It was great to hear from the doctor, himself.
He also told me that the transition phase is something to make participants realize that it hasn't been about the medication. That if I approach the transition and maintenance portion of this with the same attitude as I did the weight loss, there should not be a problem at all with maintenance. He said, I need to remember four key things. 1. Think about what you're going to do. 2. Make a decision. 3. Continue to drink the water. 4. Continue to exercise. By chance one of these things gets 'out of whack' the rest don't always work as well together. It made perfect sense. It's the same thing I did to lose the weight. It's all about making decisions. We all make decisions every day, from whether or not to get out of bed and go to work, to what we'll eat, what we'll wear, where we might spend our time. Thousands of decisions every day. The only thing I need to do is continue to make conscious decisions (think and decide) about the food that I eat.
I'm excited about the transition. I was nervous, but I know that I had the right mind-set when I started, and I know I'm ready to keep the mind-set moving forward. I didn't go into this looking at it as temporary. I was ready to make a lifestyle change. I'm still willing and anticipating continuing making that lifestyle change. There, honestly, is still nothing I miss that I'm not getting in my food plan. On occasion, it would be nice to not have to pick carrot slivers off of salad or to maybe have something a little bit different. I know those things will come, and I'm willing to wait it out, do what needs to be done and continue on.
More on the transition to maintenance next week. It's an 8-week process to completely be in maintenance. That includes the Zone consult, learning how to shop in the Zone, dine out in the Zone, eat fast-food in the Zone, a review of beverages and coffee house survival. As always, I'll keep you posted.
In closing...
There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.
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