“Willpower” is not enough to lose weight and keep it off.— Dr. Spencer Nadolsky (@DrNadolsky) March 29, 2018
Karen Parrott’s 20 Weight Maintenance Tips-
Keeping 70 pounds off 6 years. Previously obese or yo-yoing for 40 years. I’m almost 52 years old.
I’ve been in menopause 4 years. Hashimoto’s controlled with synthroid 20 years.
I’ve been in menopause 4 years. Hashimoto’s controlled with synthroid 20 years.
*edited for better formatting**
My maintenance
My 2 cents:
A. It is not easy, my weight wants to come back most days
B. It becomes easier when you test out different variables and keep what works
C. Everyone has different combos of obesity root causes
D. If you have multiple root causes, weight maintenance is going to be harder
E Age, body comp, autoimmune diseases, male/female will be variables
F. Genetics play a HUGE role in strategy. FTO Obesity Genes, Type 2 Diabetes genes that have already expressed extra ghrelin gene will bite you if you don’t mind them. I hurt just thinking about this…
G. Auto-Immune diseases will play a part. Particularly thyroid auto-immune (Hashimotos, Graves, parathyroid, Cushings)
H. Other disease states, colds, flu, shingles, gout, arthritis
A. It is not easy, my weight wants to come back most days
B. It becomes easier when you test out different variables and keep what works
C. Everyone has different combos of obesity root causes
D. If you have multiple root causes, weight maintenance is going to be harder
E Age, body comp, autoimmune diseases, male/female will be variables
F. Genetics play a HUGE role in strategy. FTO Obesity Genes, Type 2 Diabetes genes that have already expressed extra ghrelin gene will bite you if you don’t mind them. I hurt just thinking about this…
G. Auto-Immune diseases will play a part. Particularly thyroid auto-immune (Hashimotos, Graves, parathyroid, Cushings)
H. Other disease states, colds, flu, shingles, gout, arthritis
Here are my best tools & Tips for Weight Maintenance
- Daily weighing
and taking action every 4-5 days based on trends and shifts.
- Fasting and
eating my carbs early 6 am until noon or 1pm
- Eating low carb
so that I keep my glucose managed (by proxy insulin)
- Eating high
enough that I don’t lose my intestinal mucous (gut microbiome
will eat my intestinal mucous if I don’t feed it some dietary fiber, gross, I know) - Tracking my food
intake on my fitness pal (extra ghrelin makes sure I have zero full
signals most days)
- Getting support
from groups or individuals if I have a lot of binge urges
- Abstaining from
my binge trigger foods (all grains, all nuts, most emulsifiers like xantham
and guar gum)
- Checking food
labels and spending time identifying trigger foods
- Making 98% of
all food at home and bringing it
10 Meditation as needed (Calm, Insight Timer, Head Space)
- Exercising 60
minutes a day, moderate- say walking (track on MFP)
- Lift in the gym,
2X per week- or body weight exercises more at home
- Get lab work
done periodically
- Use your glucose
meter, ketone meter, and things like the bristol stool chart (gross I
know) , binge urges, and acne and joint pain to customize your food template.
- Attend
conferences. Meet people who had/have a history like yours. Or even talk
23nMe results. If they have the outcome you desire adopt it, if they
regain, see if you are doing something that causes regain also. Do the
opposite.That’s a tough message to hear, but do you want to keep regaining
or return to a normal weight weight or a best weight? ( that’s how I
learned eating to satiation did not work for me- a tough lesson, but not
an unsolvable problem to track food. ) If I adopted the Wheeeeeee eat all
the fat all the time, well, I wouldn’t be in maintenance. Eating all the
fat works for some, it doesn’t work for me and I own it.
16 .Tell yourself that other people lose weight and are weight
maintainers. Tell yourself you will be one of them and that you will take as
much time as needed to get the results that you need for your best health.
- Know if you need
to be at a “normal BMI” or a higher than normal BMI with equally good
health outcomes. Work, work, work to be normal if you need to for joint pain
or other health outcomes like insurance discounts. I’d be disingenuous to
my health and finances if I didn’t keep my weight normal.
- Adjust your plan
as you age, develop new diseases, go through menopause (female) , add any
medications or adapt to any combo of the above. What I do in my late 40’s
and early 50’s =/= what I’ll do in my 60’s or 70’s. I was obese from the
ages of 6-46.
- Read books or
material about weight maintenance and use your own food template. Refuse
to Regain- Barbara Berkeley, MD, Eric Westman, MD have loads of experience
with clients and patients who don’t regain the weight.
- Never ever stop
trying or adjusting.
