Once you reach your goal weight, taking two specific steps can help you maintain a healthy weight and maximize the associated health benefits. Reducing caloric intake typically plays a more significant role in weight loss than exercise, but living an active lifestyle is the most effective strategy for weight maintenance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Finding the right balance of caloric intake and expenditure through a healthy diet and exercise regimen helps ensure your weight-loss efforts pay off over time.
Exercise
Even if exercise played little or no role in your weight-loss strategy, now is the time to begin making regular physical activity a lifetime habit. Exercise helps you balance your energy consumed and expended so that you maintain your desired weight. Depending on how much weight you lost, your basic calorie needs may be lower than when you started your weight-loss journey, since it takes fewer calories to support energy needs at lower body weights. Regular workouts that burn an extra 600 calories per week or more help counteract reduced energy needs.
Evaluate Your Diet
Although the tendency is for body weight to plateau as your caloric needs decrease with weight loss, you may need to tweak your caloric intake to prevent further weight loss once you reach your goal. Another advantage of reevaluating your calorie target after weight loss is to make you aware of how many calories it takes to keep you at goal weight. Otherwise, the temptation to add extra calories here and there without having a clear idea of your energy needs could lead to weight gain.
Trial and Error
Your exact calorie needs for weight maintenance depend on several individual factors, including your gender, age, body composition and weight. It may take you up to a month or longer to find the right combination of diet and exercise for weight maintenance. Adjust your caloric intake rather than cut back or skip exercise. Experiment with your calorie target, increasing or decreasing your caloric intake by 100 to 200 calories if you start to lose or gain weight unintentionally. Continue tweaking your eating plan until you get the desired results.
Considerations
Balanced nutrition is important during weight loss and weight maintenance. Plan meals and snacks to include healthy choices from each food group. Adopt a fixed exercise routine that provides at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week. Start with 15 to 20-minute sessions if exercise is new to you, gradually building up to 30-minute workouts, if possible. Consult your doctor before changing your diet and exercise habits if you have diet-related health issues, heart problems or a history of general health problems.
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