Losing is the easy part

Okay, not really.  Losing weight is HARD, especially if you have over 100 pounds to lose like I did. 

But, even tougher is maintaining your weight after you’ve dropped those pounds, and we never really talk about that.  So why do we have so much trouble keeping the pounds off once we’ve dropped ’em?

I think it has to do with our instant-gratification culture.  In fact, I was just talking about this very problem last night with one of my pole class instructors.  She is also one of the owners, and she started the business in Canada.  She told me that people in Canada have a very different approach to exercise and joining “gyms”.  She said, in Canada, they can count on a new customer staying in the program for about a year and half.  Here, in the U.S., they’re lucky if they see their new customers for three months.  We just don’t seem to hav the same stick-to-it-iveness as the rest of the world.

This “solve it in 30 minutes” mentality is perpetuated by shows like The Biggest Loser, where overweight people are put into a very artificial environments, losing weight too quickly and exercising at extreme levels that generally cannot be maintained once they get back to their real lives.  Case in point: Erik Chopin, season three Biggest Loser winner, dropped 214 pounds (starting at 407).  In the three years since winning, he has gained back 122, now weighing in at 315.  And, in reading about other Biggest Loser winners, I’ve discovered that most of them have gained significant amounts of weight back.

Interestingly enough, I find this encouraging.  I get so frusrated when my weight goes up a couple of pounds.  I’d like to feel like I’ve reached my goal and I’m done, that I don’t have to think about it anymore.  But I do have to think about it.  I have to continue to work my plan, day in and day out, in order to keep off the weight I’ve lost.  And reading about others’ struggles lets me know that it isn’t easy and that I’m not alone… and, more important, that I’m doing pretty well.