Keeping Weight Off: Six Ways to Help You Stay Slim

After you have succeeded in losing your desired amount of weight, you will be faced with the challenge of keeping weight off. Losing weight is usually a short term endeavor, but staying slim after weight loss may require a permanent change in your diet and lifestyle. Here are six things that you can do to maintain your ideal weight.

1. Check Your Weight Every Day

It's important to check your weight regularly, so that you will be aware of any weight gain that occurs. According to research, daily weigh-ins are effective in helping people stay slim. However, weighing yourself daily is not enough to keep weight off; you have to change your behavior according to the results you see on the scale. If you find that the needle has crept up a little, you have to do extra workouts or reduce the amount of snacks you consume to stabilize your weight.

2. Change Fitness Routine

To maintain weight loss, you need to exercise regularly. However, doing the same routines over and over again for months and years can be boring, and it can make you give up exercising altogether. As such, you should change your exercise program once every few months. Perhaps you can go jogging during the fall season and practice martial arts during winter. Find ways to make your exercise programs fun, so that they won't become a chore.

3. Tone Up Your Muscles

You will lose muscle mass as you become older. Consequently, your metabolism will slow down, and you will gain more weight. If you want to maintain a slim and toned body, you have to do some resistance exercise. Lifting weights several times a week can help you keep weight off.

4. Add New Food to Your Diet

A healthy diet does not have to be a boring diet. You can make your diet more interesting by trying new foods. Read cookbooks regularly to find new recipes that can add excitement to healthy eating, and buy fruits and vegetables that you have never eaten before. You can also start or join a health-conscious potluck group and share recipes with the members. If you have an interesting diet, keeping weight off becomes much easier.

5. Get Adequate Sleep

If you don't get enough sleep, you will feel tired the next day. When you're tired, you'll probably try to eat more to gain more energy, and you may skip your exercise session. It's best that you get adequate sleep every day.

6. Get Support from Family and Friends

You will have trouble keeping weight off if your family members or friends don't know about your dietary restrictions. For instance, your friend may surprise you with a birthday cake that she baked herself, and you find that you cannot reject her kind gift. On the other hand, you know that eating the cake will jeopardize your diet plan. To prevent this kind of predicament, it is best that you let your family and friends know that you're going on a diet. In response to that, they will support you by doing things that can help you maintain your weight loss, such as bringing frozen yogurt and fruits for dessert, or going jogging with you.

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