So you’ve stuck to a long term healthy plan of exercise and diet and you were successful in reaching your goal weight. You’ve received a clean bill of health and for a short while people have been falling over themselves to congratulate you. Then it all goes quiet, the new you is now the new normal and everyone assumes that you now have the perfect life and can’t fathom that you feel a little bit lost and confused.
For me I found that losing 8 stones led to as many questions as answers and some realisations about other people and society that had never occurred to me when I was bigger.
With that in mind this post will aim to look at some challenges you may face and some ideas you might find helpful.
1. Find a new challenge
For a certain amount of time now, weight loss has been a major project for you and likely taken up a lot of your time and thoughts. No surprise then that suddenly you feel at a loose end when you no longer have to think about it so much.
The question now is what to do to fill the void? What have you wanted to achieve that you felt you were held back from in the past? Could a new career be a possibility?
Challenging yourself keeps life interesting and means you can achieve things you can look back on with pride.
2. Learn to love food again
It is likely that food has become a source of fuel and pleasure is a rare treat. That is a basis for maintaining a healthy relationship with food for the rest of your life. However, life gets in the way sometimes. I remember that for several years after I lost weight I remained very strict and abstained from alcohol, chocolate and eating at restaurants was a cause of stress rather than enjoyment. Eventually this led to resentment that I had worked so hard but I didn’t get to enjoy my slimness or my life as it meant constantly saying no. This is fine if you really do my want something but who wants to go to a wedding or celebrate Christmas and not being able to eat all the wonderful food on offer?
The answer is learning to be flexible, you are not aiming to lose weight but rather to maintain it. Making sure you meet your body’s nutritional requirements and allowing for the occasional treat or meal out allows for balance and avoids unnecessary guilt.
3. Be realistic
Life moves on, what was news yesterday is forgotten by tomorrow. You may no longer be getting positive attention from others but the reality is you don’t need to if you learn to develop a positive relationship with yourself.
Accept yourself and remember to congratulate yourself for your accomplishments. Resist the temptation to pick at your “imperfections”, because we see so many airbrushed and photoshopped images we forget what real bodies look like. Yours is beautiful and valid, you need to believe it.
4. Everyone is conditioned by society, don’t be upset by others reactions
Do you remember not so long back when you looked at people who didn’t have a weight problem and you envied them and/or thought they had no problems in life. Guess what? Others now think that about you! You are now one of those people who have “made it”; people I meet often express surprise I was ever big when they tell me how lucky I am to be slim!
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One thing I did struggle with was trusting people after I had lost weight. This was on two counts:
A. People who treated me appallingly or worse like I didn’t exist when I was bigger suddenly started being nice to me and including me.
B. People who had failed to mention or denied my size when I was big now telling me how well I had done!
The first situation is probably easier to understand and deal with. Although annoying you at least know that these people are not the sort you want in your life at any size. It is however hard to be faced with evidence of just how little value is put on the emotions and humanity of people who society seems “fat”. I am still the same person and I can’t pretend that I wasn’t hurt badly by past treatment.
The second one though is trickier because it usually involves people you love and trust. It may make you question why they told you you were fine and didn’t need to worry but now they are telling you in the nicest possible way “you look so much better now you’re not fat”! Because of culture and a keenness not to hurt your feelings they didn’t say anything, they accepted you the way you were. Again because of Society’s conditioning they see weight based compliments as a good thing. It IS good to be congratulated on your good work but it nevertheless can make you question their sincerity.
5. Exercise for love and strength
As with nutrition it is likely that exercise has been seen as a way to further weight loss and was probably cardio based. I walked and swam my way to weight loss and I do not remember particularly enjoying it, it was just what you had to do! I never set foot in a gym and the idea of liking much less loving exercise did not occur to me. Now you have achieved weight loss you have the opportunity to find an activity you can love for its own sake and not just because it burns tons of calories.
I personally advocate weight training as it has a host of benefits for women including increased confidence, bone density, a sense of achievement as well as making it much easier to maintain a healthy weight due to increased muscle mass. It might not be your thing but there are so many activities out there to be discovered.
6. Love yourself
There’s a reason I left this until last because it is the hardest but most crucial part of the process. In an ideal world you would have been working on self acceptance and love from the start of your journey. Experience tells me that this is likely not the case.
Many of us are so conditioned to hate our bodies and think that changing them will bring about confidence and high self esteem. Unfortunately, we can come to the point where we have reached goal and find it is rather a hollow victory.
However it is never too late to start to learn to love yourself and your body. There are many ways to do this, for me it was by taking up powerlifting which took the focus off my looks and onto the amazing things my body is capable of.
Affirmations are another effective method for a lot of people, they may have to start small and fairly neutral but over time you can become more specific and confident in the positive messages you send to yourself.
I hope this article has made you feel less alone and hopefully you can take something useful from it. I know it can be isolating and that this is a common emotion. The reality is that the fitness and diet industries do their best to fuel our dissatisfaction with ourselves and often ignores those who maintain in the long term as they don’t provide much of an income stream!
You have been on an amazing journey so deserve the fruit of your labours, remember that.
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