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Search Results for: fight the weight gain

How Do I Stop Gaining Weight?

July 18, 2019 by HeatherRobertson

This question is the part of my job I find the most heart-wrenching. 

 

I get emails and messages from people all the time who have lost weight but then gained it back. 

 

And because they’ve gained some or all of the weight back, they share with me that they feel like they’ve failed. 

 

The truth is we are not guaranteed to keep off every pound of weight we lose. 

 

That’s why I encourage you to find a maintainable weight range you can live with. If you have gained back a substantial amount of weight after losing it, and you’re not feeling good about where you are, there is hope. You can get back to where you want to be! 

 

I’ve been in your shoes. I actually lost 80 pounds in high school. But then, throughout my early twenties I ended up gaining back all of the 80 pounds I’d lost and added an extra 90 pounds to my frame. 

 

It was a very hard pill to swallow. I’d done all that work. And then to have gone completely in the other direction. 

 

So, please know that if you’re dealing with weight regain: you are not alone. 

 

What we need to do is reflect on this as a learning opportunity. Ask yourself: why was your previous weight loss not sustainable? Maybe you’ve always picked diets and were able to adhere to them for a short time. Then, when life got difficult or you felt too deprived, you fell back on old habits. Or maybe you had some major life disruption that drastically altered your healthy habit behaviors in a way you didn’t expect. (I talk more about this in my “Which diet is best for weight loss?” blog post.)

 

Your habits constantly need fine-tuning. As our life evolves—we change careers, family members get sick, illness, or any other major change—our healthy habits are impacted. To avoid this, you need to evaluate what broke down in your weight maintenance system. This is what caused you to regain the weight.

 

Once you’ve lost the weight again, you don’t want to fall victim to those old behaviors. By understanding what caused the weight gain, you know what to watch for in the future. 

 

The next step is to stop approaching your weight loss the same way you always have. Often, people who have regained weight desperately want to get back to their goal. So they immediately start doing the same diet or program that helped them lose weight the last time. 

 

It’s understandable why someone might think this is the way to go, but it really makes no sense. 

 

Think about it: Whatever you did to lose weight did not prepare you for whatever caused your weight regain. You need to start to approach this situation differently if you want to get different results. 

 

Have you ever tried to maintain your current weight on purpose? Here’s what I mean: Let’s say you lost weight and got down to 160 pounds, But now you are 200 pounds. The knee-jerk reaction is to get back down to 160. But wait! Have you learned how many calories you need to maintain the 200 pounds on purpose? 

 

On purpose means you are not restricting your foods or binge eating. It means you aren’t only tracking and eating “on plan” Monday through Friday, but then eating whatever you want on the weekend. 

 

It does mean you should find a calorie amount that allows you to maintain your 200 pounds. Then, when eating at that calorie level, on purpose, and tracking your food every day, you’ll discover you can maintain your current weight.

 

But I can hear you now, “Heather are you crazy? I don’t want to maintain 200 pounds on purpose!” 

 

I get it. 

 

And when I was in my yo-yo dieting days I would have had the same response. But the problem is you are in a panic to get back to where you want. You are trying to rush back to what “worked”. But are you being honest about where you are now? Are you setting yourself up for success if you go down the same path you’ve gone down (many times) before? 

 

What happens on the day you can’t hit your weight loss calories? Do you have any other options for what to do? 

 

No, you don’t. And that’s because you don’t know your maintenance calories. If you’re going to lose this weight again, and keep it off, you have to take a different approach. 

 

Remember the definition of insanity? 

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

 

This is why I created the teaching toolkit Fight the Weight Gain. It’s an eight-step process to get you back on track losing the weight, but with a different approach than you did before. 

 

Let me help you the way I’ve helped others. 

 

Please know that this is possible, but you’re not going to be able to use the same methods you always have if you want to get the weight off and keep it off permanently. You’re going to need to learn from your past experiences and that’s what I want to help you do.

 

If you’d like to hear more about my teaching toolkit, Fight the Weight Gain, please listen to this episode of Half Size Me: Episode 385.

Filed Under: Blog

Two Year Anniversary

January 16, 2014 by HeatherRobertson

January 7, 2014 marks my two year anniversary date since hitting my goal weight. I’ve learned much during this journey and I share it all with you in a very special Heather Weighs In episode.

I wanted to share some of my personal weight loss history with you. I hope this post makes a visual point of demonstrating that it doesn’t matter how many times you “fail,” it only matters that you never give up.

It is possible to go from battling your weight your whole life to achieving a healthy weight. Even if you’ve never done it before, or if you are like me and have gotten there, but don’t know how to stay there.

Here I am at about 2 years old. I started the way most of us do: thin and healthy. I was so thin my grandmother jokes with me to this day that I was the only little girl she knew who needed suspenders to hold up her pants.

Heather--02

The problem for me was I was emotionally sad at a very young age. I felt like I had little control over it. So how did I deal with these negative emotions? I started my love/hate relationship with food. I loved to eat. It made me feel better in the moment. But I hated how it changed my body and the guilt I often felt afterward.

Heather--04

The weight came on slowly. But it became noticeable to me around second or third grade.

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Looking back over my elementary school photos I noticed that I don’t look genuinely happy. It’s sad to see a little girl filled with so much pain.

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As I got closer to puberty, I noticed my weight still increased even though I was a fairly active kid.

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I don’t have many photos of me at my heaviest in high school. But I weighed 225 pounds my freshman year. I went on an extreme calorie diet and over exercised out of pure desperation.

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As you can see from this photo taken at my Junior year prom in high school, the results of my desperation paid off in the short term. I weighed approximately what I weigh now, and I felt like a “normal” person for the first time in my young life. (And yes, that’s my future hubby…with hair. We dated in high school.)

However, I was struggling to keep the weight off. I hadn’t yet learned the art of maintenance.

Heather--08

Heather--01

This is me just a few years later. I had the moment in the pretty dress, and I knew what it was like to be smaller and get attention from boys and feel good in my skin.

But that all went away when I went back to my old eating habits and stopped exercising. Here I am about 290 pounds. This weight gain occurred in the span of only a few years. It didn’t just hurt physically, but it was devastating to me emotionally and mentally too.

Heather--07

Compounding the problem, my hubby and I decided to lose weight together. He far surpassed me as you can see in this photo from 2004. He got down to his goal weight and I was staying in the 250-290 pounds range. I knew how to lose weight, but felt so defeated because I’d gained it all back in such a short time.

Heather and Max, December 2006
Heather and Max, December 2006

I stayed this size for years.

The day after having my first son I stepped on the scale and found out I weighed 313 pounds. I finally decided to fight for myself, but I knew I needed to do it differently. I decided I’d focus on maintaining my weight, not just losing it. I could not handle the pain of gaining it all back again. I had to deal with the issues that made me want to self-medicate with food in the first place.

Now, I’m proud to be two years at my goal weight. I hover between 150-155 pounds and I feel amazing!

I started in 2008 really tracking my progress and my waist was 48 inches back then. Today my waist is 30 inches. That means I lost one-and-a-half feet from my waist. I’ve managed to build muscle too and I’m so happy and grateful with all my progress.

It is possible. You can do this. If you want to know what I do now to maintain my weight, I urge you to listen to my the latest Heather Weighs In (episode 8).

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Photo on 12-13-13 at 7.51 AM

 

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Below are just some of the documents that reflect more than a decade of starting and stopping my weight loss journey.

Even though these documents aren’t “flattering” I need to share them with you. If you’re like me, you have a drawer in your home where you keep these type of documents safely hidden.  And they represent all the times you took a shot at getting what you really wanted but fell short.

You may look at them from time to time and wonder why you’re not able to get to your goal weight. I know I did.

But now I see them as symbols. They show me that even if I fail or fall short of my goals it doesn’t mean the goal is impossible to achieve. It just means I need to keep trying and take the time to learn how to get where I want to go.

Whenever you look at your own records or photos, realize that, one day, you’ll view them as badges of honor for a job well done. Like battle scars proving you never gave up the fight.

Be patient and kind with yourself. Look at photos from when you were young and innocent. Fight for that little kid inside you who wants to be free.

You can do this!

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Click here to sign up for the Heather Weighs In podcast and hear the story behind these photos. 

Filed Under: Blog, Maintenance, Weight Loss Inspiration, Weight Loss Journey

Wednesday Workouts: Week 6

June 19, 2013 by HeatherRobertson

by Heather Robertson

Here is week six of our Wednesday Workout series. I’m giving you two different days worth of workouts. These are workouts you can do in about 30 minutes or less.

(Click here for last week’s workout.)

And don’t worry if you don’t have equipment like kettle bells or weights. I’ve provided “optional” exercises you can use.

There are also example videos linked to each exercise to help you see how they are performed correctly. If these exercises are new to you, or it’s been awhile since you’ve tried them, please watch the videos and practice before doing the workout.

You don’t need a lot of time to get a great work out. Remember to take your time, stay safe, and keep your body moving!

[Read more…] about Wednesday Workouts: Week 6

Filed Under: Blog, Fitness, Kettlebells, Workouts

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