Maintenance Plan

August 2012

Although I am far from goal , have never gotten to goal, I have been reading lately about having a maintenance plan. This resonated with me because I regained half of the 113 lbs I lost a few years ago. I think that had I had a maintenance plan already in hand that I could pull out and use even though I hadn't made it to goal yet, much of this could have been avoided.

So I have 2 things I am going to ruminate over and get in place in the next few days.

1. A plan of attack for maintaining my weight loss that goes beyond "I won't gain it back". I need to have a precise, coherent, step by step attack for maintaining my weight, whether I ever make goal or not.

2. Decide on what I have heard termed a "scream weight" - the number on the scale that will make me scream and get me back onto what ever weight loss plan I am following (in my case, Medifast). This one is going to depend on what I decide, in the end, is my goal weight. I had thought 150 for so long that it feels like cheating to set it any higher. It is the highest weight at which my BMI is in the normal range. But it may not be doable. I may be better to set it at 160 or 165. So, that may take some time to decide.

Regardless, I need to not only look at this journey as a day by day process, but I need to plan for what I need to do to maintain my loss. I think that the steps I come up with to maintain it will be the same ones I need to use to attain it.