Each year I release a blog post sharing my thoughts after another year of weight maintenance.
You can read about Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4, and this year is no different. I truly believe that we never stop learning about our wonderful bodies and changing in this process of personal growth.
This year has been the most rewarding and challenging for me in regards to my maintenance journey. I have honored my maintenance range of 150 to 160 pounds, but I have honestly hovered way closer to 160 for the second half of the year.
I shared with the Half Size Me community that I was going to resume Heather Weighs In videos in the community and that I would be sharing my weight as I move back down toward the lower end of my maintenance range.
I have found myself recently equating weight maintenance to being married for a long time. My hubby and I celebrated 20 years of marriage in 2016. Like my marriage, I see my commitment to myself and my healthy lifestyle as a relationship that I must continuously work on. If I want a healthy marriage and all the benefits that provide me, I have to work on maintaining it.
I realize that if I want to enjoy the benefits of a healthy body, I also have to put in the daily work it takes to have it. I have often jokingly said on the Half Size Me show that sustainable weight loss and maintenance aren’t sexy.
Yet, when I think about what I do to maintain my weight (and my marriage!) there is a lot of sexy there. So, this year I decided to share the commonalities I see between keeping a healthy marriage and maintaining weight loss. Here are four different ways I focused on improving this year.
#1 Find new ways to spice things up.
In marriage, you are with the same person year after year, so sometimes you need to find new ways to keep the romantic fire burning. This is very true in your fitness and health, too. This year I found jumping rope to be a new, fun way to work out. I have found a real love of jumping rope.
I managed to do multiple double unders and have become crazy good at jumping! My endurance and cardio training have improved drastically. This keeps the spice in my workouts and makes me want to keep doing the habits every day.
Check out some of my videos I shared over the past year:
#2 Nurture what you already have.
We pay attention to nurturing the relationship we have with our spouse if we want them around for the long haul. It’s easy to get distracted by something new and shiny, but if we want to keep what we have, then we must work on that.
We nurture the relationship when we are dating. We get dressed up, bring flowers, go on dates, write love letters, but after years of marriage, it’s easy to lose that focus on what was once easy or exciting.
I suggest nurturing your habits the way you would a new baby, new car, new relationship or anything else you care for. That means constantly going back to the basics. Realize that if you want to stay good or get better at something, you need to take the time to nurture the habits that contribute to your success. Never assume you have it down and all is good.
Keep in mind, being good at something requires countless hours of working on the basics. People do it without resentment if it’s something they love. The love you want to be feeling is for the body you have and the life it affords you. I fall more in love with the journey every time I reflect on what my healthy body gives me, like the ability to skate, ice skate, jump rope, lift weights and be active.
#3 Keep looking for ways to learn about yourself.
In marriage, we should be constantly learning about our spouse and helping them grow and change. Seeing my hubby become healthier, happier and more self-aware has helped me fall more in love with him every day.
As we age or our lives change, our bodies change, too, and it provides new ways to view ourselves and the life we live. I have learned to become wildly curious about myself and learning what I enjoy, what works for me and how to show love to myself.
I have not gotten frustrated because I need to tweak things, but rather I know I will need to tweak things, and I get excited about that and run toward it, not from it.
This year was interesting because I turned 40, and some things have changed for me. I started to experience the beginnings of some female changes. This presented some sleep issues for me. I struggle with making good food choices when I get limited sleep.
However, a blessing that came from this was it gave me the opportunity to do more research than I have ever done on menopause and how it impacts women and their weight. I was able to help many of my clients with issues similar to what I was experiencing.
#4 Focus on your minimums and parameters when life gets busy.
In marriage, there are minimums and parameters that are givens. They are the commitments we honor with our significant other. Minimums and parameters look different for each couple, but I have found they usually stem from our vows and some basic rules that have been established.
This year also provided me many opportunities to focus on my weight minimums and parameters. I have shared how important it is to know what our minimums are in order to not lose track of maintaining our weight.
We traveled more often this year, and I had times of low motivation due to lack of sleep; my minimums saw me through those times. My minimums have always been to track my food, no matter what I eat, and to do some kind of exercise for 30 minutes each day. I have become more secure in the idea of minimums.
I find that when I look at everything in my life from that perspective, I’m willing to do so much more, whether it’s establishing a minimum amount of money I will invest, a minimum number of shows I will release each week, or any other minimum.
The minimums seem doable to me and provoke little to no resistance, so it guarantees I’m moving in the right direction, in a way I can keep up with. One parameter I had to focus on was keeping my weight between 150 and 160. When I hit the top of my range, I had to take time to go back to my minimums and determine how I could improve.
My minimums have always been to track my food, no matter what I eat, and to do some kind of exercise for 30 minutes each day. I have become more secure in the idea of minimums.
I find that when I look at everything in my life from that perspective, I’m willing to do so much more, whether it’s establishing a minimum amount of money I will invest, a minimum number of shows I will release each week, or any other minimum.
The minimums seem doable to me and provoke little to no resistance, so it guarantees I’m moving in the right direction, in a way I can keep up with. One parameter I had to focus on was keeping my weight between 150 and 160. When I hit the top of my range, I had to take time to go back to my minimums and determine how I could improve.
I am excited to see myself growing and changing and realizing more and more that this is just a journey with no end point, just lots of learning and growth opportunities. I hope that you are thinking about how you will continue and grow in your journey, too.