Maintenance is Hard Work!

I certainly understand why I have gained back weight (and more) on previous weight loss efforts.  It is not easy to keep the weight off!  Numerous scientific and semi-scientific studies have shown that the body has several built-in mechanisms that work together in our bodies to try and make it regain significant weight after a drop in weight.  Thought to be an adaptive mechanism from primitive days to prevent us from starving to death if a future famine crosses the land - thanks a bunch.

When I had finished my maintenance phase of the Non-surgical program in November 2015, I was down to 149 to 151.  I would pop up a pound or two, then I would cut back a little and drop back down within a few days to a week.  Over the year that followed, I began to notice that my weight was slowly rising and the corrective measures that used to be effective helped a bit, but never brought my weight back down to the baseline, but hovered around 153 to 155.  Around Christmas, I was sick with bronchitis for a couple weeks and not able to exercise, and then by February my weight was sometimes hitting 159.  I'm starting to be really worried, especially in light of several studies that show that people that regain even small amounts of weight in the year following significant weight loss programs NEVER lose that weight!

On April 6, 2017 my weight hit 161 (well, actually 162 pounds because around 155 lbs I started reporting my weight 1 pound short of actual :-( - brilliant self-deception, eh!).  Upon reflection, I realized that several bad eating behaviours had been rearing their ugly heads over the past 6 months - things like unconscious/semi-conscious snacking, grabbing unreported handfuls of almonds, portion creepage, minor binge eating episodes, and increased evening snacking.  Not horrible, but enough to be significant.  I decided that I needed to do something to seriously reset my habits, as well as induce some quick weight loss.  I went to the store and found some President's Choice Soy Protein Meal Replacement shake mix that seems fairly similar in content to the Optifast.

On April 10th I started the following regime: regular breakfast of Greek Yogourt, fruit, Bran Buds; lunch of big salad, lo-cal dressing, 2 or 3 oz. of lean protein, and 1 serving of ww. starch like melba toast; mid-afternoon snack of 1 medium fruit serving; supper is a meal replacement shake in 1 1/2 cups 1% milk; evening is 1 c lite Carnation hot chocolate.

This has been really helpful.  Yes, the scale is down by 7 pounds (real weight), but the real value has been that it is helping to re-establish my discipline and self-awareness/self-control.  It has brought to light all the little 'indiscretions' to which I had become somewhat blind.

Another mistake that I've made is that I stopped charting and graphing my weight.  Yes, I had continued writing down my daily eating in my food journal - with some omissions, I guess - but I used to summarize these weekly and record the week's average daily weight on a graph.  I stopped doing this about October 2016.  I'm pretty sure if I had continued to do this the reality of things would have sparked me into action sooner.  I am in the process of this charting and graphing now, and I'll summarize my findings in a later post.

On a more positive note, I did continue to do a lot of the healthy habits through all this - 2.6L of daily water, 30 minutes aerobic exercise, limited treats, lots of veggies, low fat, high fibre.  I guess that's why I was surprised about the weight gain - I truly thought I was cutting back!

So I'm encouraged, things are slowly getting back on track.  But this experience of weight regain is a sobering reminder that this is a lifetime of vigilance, awareness, and careful monitoring and action.

A big 'thank-you' to my small group of support partners.  You have been a big help.

Another Milestone - I've Joined the NWCR

It's been 23 months since I began group sessions with the medically supervised weight loss (Optifast) program, and 3 yrs and 3 months since I moved to a small plate and asked for a referral to the Bariatric program.  It seems a little unreal.


One of the things that has motivated me has been the research material gathered by the National Weight Control Registry - a research study involving 10,000 subjects that have lost at least 30 lbs and kept it off for at least one year.  I signed up for the study and just completed my first hour long survey.


Completing the survey helped me to relive the weight loss journey and given me motivation to continue on and work a little harder to fight my body's metabolic attack to try and make me regain the weight - but ha, ha - I'm onto you :-)


I've kept the weight off well for the first year following the end of Optifast, going up and down within a 5 lb range.  I've hit some kind of a wall since about Christmas and I'm now up 10 lbs above my baseline weight.  I'm stressed, but still working at it - exercising more and eating less