What is weight maintenance?
Weight maintenance is about keeping your weight stable, which means not losing, gaining, or regaining weight. You might notice that your weight naturally fluctuates daily and there may be times when your weight goes up or down. If you are within a healthy weight range, weight maintenance is about finding a balance that helps you stay within that range.
If you are above a healthy weight and your weight has been changing, it can be best for you to start your healthy weight journey by finding the right balance for you. So your weight is stable at your best weight (even if this is above a healthy weight) and you are living a healthy life.
What are the challenges?
You may have noticed that your weight has changed at times, often because of life events, holidays or changing circumstances. This means you may:
- Be eating or drinking more or differently
- Have times when you are not as active, for example a holiday, illness or changes at work
- Regained weight you have lost
- Have reached a weight loss plateau
How can I maintain my weight?
Weight maintenance is about finding the right balance for you so that the energy you consume is the same as you burn off through your activities.
Top tips that can help you:
- Keep a record of your diet or activity (self-monitoring) to help you work out what goals you could set or what has changed
- Set realistic goals that work for you
- Choose the right changes that fit into your day-to-day life
- Commit to changes that you can keep to in the longer term
- Choose support that works for you
Benefits of weight maintenance?
Keeping to a healthy weight range has many health and well-being benefits for you. You might find it helps with your physical health, your self-esteem, your sense of control over that part of your life.
Remember, weight fluctuation is normal when things change in your life. It's good to sport these and make changes when they happen to get back to the right balance for you.
Asking yourself these things may be helpful
- What is the difference between then and now?
- What could help you stay on track?
Continue your journey
You have reached the end of the Mood journey. The next pages are all about Mental Wellbeing, starting with Emotional eating.
