Second Helping Toolbox
Taking on Now what?: “Maintenance Predictors” Part 3 of 3

Emotional whammies lead to mindless eating. Managing your emotional health. The good news -- that doesn't have to require therapy, or "healing" from your pain. The good news is many of the exercise/eating elements of maintenance can help balance the Emotional Whammies out.

Many of the predictors suggested by the National Weight Control Registry are subjects all of Team Second Helping spends this entire Web site analyzing and picking apart.

Still, we’ve been pouring through the research and asking ourselves, “How do we implement these predictors into our lives while also still managing time/money/emotional energy/stress?” In a world determined to just survive, how do you thrive?

This is the final two predictors, and they’re both doozies.
More frequent breakfast consumption

So what’s often the busiest time of day for most of us is also one of the most critical times to keep. Most would call it impossible; none of us put much credence in that.

• Think about it breakfast when you have time, not when you don’t | Prepping breakfast on your counter before you sleep makes throwing together a fast breakfast possible. Otherwise, yogurt, oatmeal, cottage cheese, “dump in a bowl and eat” breakfasts.

• Contingencies | I love how most weight loss discussions talk about strategies but not contingencies — day to day structures are important, but . You also have to plan for things (often) going wrong; even better when one contingency plan addresses two possible pitfalls? Case in point: Remember the “Just in Case” stash in your car to help avoid fast food? It also makes for quickie breakfasts during morning emergencies.

• Divide the time | Many times, I’ll go to work with breakfast in hand and eat it there, which gave me time to cook an egg and make a quick scramble, omelet, egg sandwich or wrap, etc. I mention pizza often as a trigger food, but so was fast food/dashboard dining. So I turned a weakness into a strength by making quick-prep breakfasts at home. Rather than take the time to also eat at home, I ate them in the car or taking them to work. Examples include: scrambled eggs in a low-carb wrap during Atkins years or low-fat cottage cheese and thawed frozen berries during low-fat years.

Lower levels of depressive symptoms and dis-inhibited eating

Here is the good news. Many of these “branching out and trying new things not related to your waistline” activities reduce depressive symptoms and dis-inhibited eating. Not because you’re “healing” or “mending” from past wounds — but you’re building a life in which those wounds mean nothing about who you are. You make the wounds moot, powerless.

After a whole bevy of  ABC Afterschool Special-worthy events in my life, what helped me most in the long term wasn’t therapy, or people in my life suddenly not acting like assholes. It was working out, feeling I bent food to my will, not the other way around. No matter what happens or happened, it doesn’t mean you can’t run, or lift, or swim, etc. It doesn’t have that power.

Unless I give it that power. Five years later, if the Struggle of Maintenance or previously stated Afterschool Specials bog me down, I’m experienced enough to realize that isn’t really what’s bothering me. It’s not always what you first think.

A good workout usually helps place all the post-weight questions, daily stressors and Big Issues in perspective. In other words, the mechanics of maintenance don’t help you have a better life automatically — it just provides safe, solid ground to stand on. Something that makes  sense when all else is confusion and uncertainty and a longing to return to a life that was more miserable and unclear, but far easier. After all, back in the day we could always blame the weight, right?

But the actual “changing of life” — the decision to change jobs, start/end a relationship, try new clothes or sports, push your life forward, maybe speak with a therapist to tackle something dieting won’t fix — comes from your own courage, compassion creativity and chutzpah. Your own ability to keep making progress with becoming the person you want to be. Achieving your weight goal was just the first step.

And therein lies the key difference between weight loss and weight maintenance: results vs. progress. Weight loss is all about hitting a number, achieving a goal; maintenance is about the paradox of staying at said number while continually, gradually, building a life that makes the number irrelevant.

There’s isn’t a Result to achieve anymore — it’s already been accomplished. The reward comes from finding ways to keep progressing in all the areas of your life while everyone else sits in a corner and mopes. I had enough moping and misery in my previous life, thanks. I demand better; I receive better each time I leave the gym, or try new clothes, or branch out of my comfort zone.

Learning to love making progress — not just on your body, but your entire life — is what can enliven post-weight living. Anything that hampers progress and growth, even if it looks nice and seems nice, is the enemy. Results bring excitement, sure. But with progress comes power, and all the “depressive symptoms” merely become things to handle. They’re not more powerful than you.

Questions for You | What contingencies can you put it your life to sidestep usual excuses (“I don’t have time for breakfast, or to cook, or I can’t control night eating.”). What hampers your progress in life while managing your weight? What activities have you not tried that would take you out of your comfort zone (even more than the weight loss did)?

Russ Lane created Second Helping after going from 350 to 155 pounds while working as a food writer in the Carolinas. Learn more at the Team Second Helping page, and be sure to sign up for our newsletter Under Maintenance.