How to Stay at your Goal Weight

Congratulations to all the boot campers who met and exceeded their weight loss and body fat goals! Now that many of you have reached your goal weight, and for those who have already lost a significant amount of weight and are maintaining that weight until the next round of boot camp starts, here are a few tips to maintain.

• Continue your weekly weigh-ins - I recommend still jumping on that scale every Monday morning to make sure that number doesn't slowly creep up. By checking your weight weekly, it is so much easier to catch your weight up a pound or two and getting back in gear to lose a few pounds. Rather than getting on and "oh crap" you gained 10 pounds and now it is a lot more work to get back down.
  
• Calories Needed- Now that you have lost weight, it is important to re-calculate the calories you need to maintain your current weight. Just because you met your goal does not mean that you can eat whatever you want now or revert back to old habits. To keep it off it is still a matter of eating healthy whole foods and working out. Caution: We burn a lot of calories in boot camp, therefore, if you are not working out at that intensity or burning that many calories during the two week break, I advise you to cut back a little on your calorie intake.
  
• Journal- There are several options: 1. Still keep a detailed eating journal 2. Keep journaling, but not as detailed 3. Switch to a check off method - a chart with boxes of your servings of just making sure you get in your vegetables, fruit, lean protein, & low-fat dairy 4. Stop journaling, but if your weight goes up 3 pounds, get back into journaling until it goes back down.
  
• Motivation- Write your list of reasons why you don't want to gain weight as well as all the benefits of reaching your goal and getting in great shape. Review your homework assignments from week one (internal motivations & obstacles/strategies handout). Have your before/after pictures handy to celebrate getting to your goal and remind yourself that you want to stay there.
  
• Plan for Success- Continue to plan for healthy eating, having healthy food at home, write out what you are going to eat for the day, pack your lunch for work, look up the calories ahead of time when going out to eat, etc. Thinking and planning ahead is so important to make healthy eating easier.
  
• Keep the same healthy habits- Eat slow, sit down, have designated eating areas, practice mindful eating, get your water in, eat every 3 hours, workout consistently, etc
• Keep up the workouts- Working out is the first thing most people drop off when they get busy. Make a plan- write out when and what you are going to do for your workouts. Keep up the support with other girls in the class. I know many of you are still meeting at the same time and location of class and just running and working out together. Some of you are also meeting at other great running locations around San Deigo on different days, which is a great way to have some accountability and make working out enjoyable and fun.
  
• Reminders- Say to yourself daily have much you love being healthy, being stronger, thinner, sleeping better, feeling light and full of energy.

Make sure this thought process doesn't slip in.