How far have we come?

Congratulations for progressing this far into the program. Your persistence and dedication will pay off long term in your weight loss journey. If you implement what you have learnt from each module and have undertaken all your weekly homework tasks properly, you should have the building blocks to success. We have given you the steps, you need to practice so that you can re-programed the way your brain is wired about food and exercise.

It is time to review how much you have changed. Go back to Lesson 1.1 and print up the quiz you did at the beginning so you have a record of it. Or save a copy on Microsoft word by cutting and pasting your answers. Then press the “reset quiz” button and do the quiz again. Compare your answers and see how far you have come over the last 10 modules. Congratulate yourself for making these changes.

Now it is time to review the 10 modules.

Diet & Exercise

Recapping Module 2: Diet and Module 3: Exercise.

Controlling our intake is more important than increasing our exercise for weight maintenance. 

However physical activity must not be neglected as research shows that people who maintain an active lifestyle maintain their weight better. Find the exercises you like.

3 new things you can do today are:

• Exercise with a buddy
• Join a sporting team and
• Meet new people

Life Events

Recapping Module 4: Barriers and Module 5 Hormones and weight loss.

It is important to maintain weight during holidays, times of stress and periods of ill health and to be alert at these times. Some are predictable and therefore amenable to advance planning. Others are unpredictable and may only be open to corrective action after the event. 

Significant weight change must be spotted and quickly addressed. Once weight has returned to the target range, there must be a further correction in intake or energy output to maintain the new weight.  (recapping Module 5: Hormones and weight loss)

Final Tips on Getting Stuck

Don’t make your goals too remote.

Recapping Model 1: Goal setting.

Set small incremental goals for weight loss without any time frames and include dietary, exercise and psychological goals as well. Remember your non-weight goals. Focus on what has been achieved rather than on how far you have to go.

Weight plateau:

Recapping Module 5: Hormones.

Weight plateau is expected and is just your body adjusting to its new input and output levels and is your body’s natural hormonal process to try and drive you back up to your original weight. A plateau is a good thing as it means that your body is fighting this natural process. It is one of the most worrying things that can happen to someone trying to lose weight causing them to feel guilty about having problems or to question the usefulness of what they doing. It is important not to stress during these times. Completely change what you are currently doing like change the time, intensity or duration of your exercise or focus a bit more on portion size and cutting out desserts altogether for the time being. Remember a lot of the evidence behind weight regain is to do with hormonal changes in your body.

Sabotage from significant others:

Recapping module 9: problem solving.

If your spouse or other family members are sabotaging you either consciously or subconsciously by bringing trigger foods in the house, this needs to be addressed and that person reminded of what you goals are. This is a common reason why motivation can sometimes drop off. Not everyone will be happy for you to change your body. Sometimes the opposition  is not obvious or even verbal. It is more underlying and subtle. “Here try this?”, “One little piece won’t hurt you.”

In order to plan and to problem solve effectively, it is important to have supports systems fully around you.  Other people can help or hinder. They can try to undermine your efforts to control your eating for all sorts of reasons. This can be intentional or subconscious.

There is good help and bad help. Good help comes  from someone who is ready to help. (e.g is willing to go without takeaways for awhile). Continuous put downs every time you eat the wrong foods is bad help. Refusing to give in to pressures is hard and learning not to will take some practice.

Do the quiz below to review some of things you learnt from some of the other modules .