why maintenance is challenging: key reasons and solutions

Emily Field 00:00:00  Welcome to episode 30 of the Macros Made Easy podcast, where we explore often overlooked challenges of transitioning to maintenance after a weight loss or fat loss journey. Inspired by my longer term work with clients, we’ll talk about why maintaining weight and body composition is not just about holding steady forever, but requires ongoing effort and adjustment. We’ll clarify the significance of this phrase, dispel myths about maintenance, and provide practical solutions to make this transition smoother. Welcome to Macros Made Easy, the podcast that takes the confusion out of tracking macros. I’m your host, Emily Field, a registered dietitian that specializes in a macros approach. In each episode, I help you learn how to eat in a way that supports your health, body composition, and athletic performance goals. We’ll cover the basics of macronutrients how to track for various goals, the role of macros in your health, and how to make sustainable changes to your habits. I’ve helped hundreds of people experience more food freedom and flexibility while navigating their nutrition. So whether you’ve tried macros and it just didn’t stick or you just heard the word macros yesterday, I can’t wait to help you too.

Emily Field 00:01:07  Maintenance describes the phase where you’re eating enough. You’re eating as much as your body needs to thrive. It’s where your body wants to be. It’s where it feels safe and satisfied, which often translates to happy hormones, balance, moods, soaring energy, and all of that. Oftentimes, we hear about maintenance as the place that you get after a weight loss journey, but it’s much more than that. So that’s what this episode is going to cover. I will say, though, this phase does help prevent weight regain by balancing caloric intake with physical activity supporting metabolic health, and gradually increasing caloric intake from your deep deficit that you might have been in when you were losing weight or losing fat. It also helps promote psychological well-being by offering some relief from restrictive dieting, understanding, and addressing common misconceptions, like the idea that maintenance means giving up or that fluctuations in weight are failures is key to navigating this phase successfully. There are several myths that can complicate the understanding of a maintenance phase. Some believe that it means that you’re abandoning your health goals, while others believe it’s a continuation of your weight loss habits.

Emily Field 00:02:19  Weight fluctuations are often misinterpreted as failures, though they are normal, and there’s also a misconception that no further effort is needed. But that can lead to the return of old habits and eventual weight or body fat regain. In reality, though, maintenance requires careful adjustment and ongoing commitment to balance eating and physical activity. I usually say that this means a transition, like a lifestyle transition from diet and exercise to eating and training. These are two totally different ways of looking at your health habits long term. There are many reasons why maintenance phases might feel challenging to you, but I’m going to focus on four today in this episode. Number one is that the scale is your main tool of validation for progress and success. Number two is that you’ve never purposefully eaten enough. You’ve only been tasked, or if you only tried to eat for less than what you need, eat for weight loss. Number three is that you thrive in restriction. You really think that life begins when food is restricted. And number four is that you lack non physique related goals.

Emily Field 00:03:30  Really, the only goals that you’ve ever really tried to strive for have to do with the way that your body looks. Why is it important though, that we transition to maintenance? Why can’t we just simply keep at the habits that get us to our weight loss goals? Why can’t we just set out on a weight loss or fat loss goal and move through time and space and keep doing the things that we’re doing that initiate weight loss and fat loss forever? Why can’t we just do that? Well, if you’ve listened to any of the episodes that I’ve published previously about how important it is to eat enough, You’ll get a pretty good understanding of why eating enough or eating at your needs, not drastically under them, is going to be beneficial for a lot of reasons, but I’ll review just a bit here. Understanding that the primary goal of maintenance, especially if you’re coming up to maintenance calories after a period of weight loss or fat loss. The main goal here is just to sustain the results that you’ve seen.

Emily Field 00:04:31  All right. You’ve achieved weight loss and fat loss. And now you want to maintain those results. That should be pretty obvious. But without transitioning to a maintenance phase, you are at risk of regaining the lost weight that you’ve you know, those achievements that you’ve made and reverting to old eating habits and lifestyle habits. What I most often see here is that people set off on a weight loss or fat loss journey. They eat less than what they need. They’re highly motivated for weeks, maybe months, and they have an end date in mind where they want to achieve this weight loss or fat loss goal by. It could be a reunion. It could be a vacation. It could be to fit into a pair of jeans or a bathing suit, and having this finish line in their head often backfires because on the other side of that, there’s no real motivator to stick with or transition those habits into a new goal. I’m not saying that those goals are completely invalid. I do think there are better goals that you could set out to strive for, but I most oftentimes see people who set off in that weight loss or fat loss goal, and they do achieve some or all of that goal and fail to think about what comes next, Thinking that they just will continue on the same journey, eating the same way.

Emily Field 00:05:46  But as you know, the body is very well adapted and evolved to respond to that stressor of dieting and it will backfire. You will see some metabolic and hormonal adjustments that are not fun, that come as a result of under eating, and your body will win. It’s just a matter of when it will win. Our body is very well adapted. Like I said, it’s very well suited to withstand stress and to be in periods of low fuel or high fuel, making adjustments along the way to metabolism in order to accommodate those different situations, those different environments. So if your goal is to maintain or sustain the weight that you’ve lost, or the body fat that you’ve lost through a successful phase. Coming back to maintenance or transitioning to maintenance is going to be a key part of that journey. This should go without saying, but maintenance is essential for your long term health. It involves adopting a balanced eating approach and a balanced approach to exercise that supports your overall health and wellness. This is the phase that allows for much more flexibility and much more sustainability.

Emily Field 00:06:56  In that lifestyle, you’re going to reduce the risk of developing health issues associated with extreme dieting or yo yo dieting significantly under eating your needs has consequences, and I’m not going to go through all of them here today. There are several episodes in my podcast library that speak to this. However, another important reason that we want to transition to maintenance after a dieting or fat loss phase is to prevent metabolic adaptation. We know that during weight loss, the body adapts to that lower calorie intake. It’s essentially slowing down the metabolism to match the fuel that it’s given. Remember, if you eat less, your metabolism will shift down. It will become slower. If you eat more, your metabolism will shift up. It will become faster. So transitioning to maintenance helps gradually increase that calorie intake to a level that supports your overall metabolic health and energy balance. It also will kind of eliminate that metabolic shutdown or that metabolic adjustment. It will bring things back up to where they need to be. Think of it kind of like a engine revving.

Emily Field 00:08:02  We’re going to like slow down that engine. We’re going to conserve fuel when we’re in a weight loss or fat loss journey because we’re eating less. We’re doing more on less fuel. But now we’re out of that phase. We want to rev up that engine again. We want to feel awesome. We want to reap the benefits of having enough fuel and a healthy metabolism. Lastly, moving to maintenance after a weight loss or fat loss phase is going to promote psychological well-being. We know that maintenance offers psychological relief from the restrictive nature of weight loss and dieting. There’s a lot of sacrifices that you need to make in order to lose weight and to lose fat, and you can’t live in that space forever if you have tried. I know you know what it feels like to feel preoccupied with food, to wonder about your choices at any given moment, to feel stressed about eating situations. That’s no way to live. So moving back to maintenance helps you to enjoy a more balanced relationship with food. It’s going to reduce stress and anxiety related to strict dietary rules, essentially just giving your body a full break physically and mentally.

Emily Field 00:09:09  There are several misconceptions about transitioning to maintenance after weight loss. One is the belief that maintenance equals giving up on your health goals, but in reality, it requires ongoing effort to balance caloric intake with physical activity for long term health and well-being. You’re never going to totally give up on yourself during maintenance. Maintenance does not mean that you’re not chasing a weight loss or fat loss goal ever again, or that you do not care about your appearance or, you know, whatever. Let’s say you do feel like you are holding on to more weight and body fat than you would like. Then what you feel comfortable with just becomes you come back to maintenance. Doesn’t mean that you’ve given up on that goal. In fact, it means that you’re you’re being serious about that goal. You are trying to accomplish what many people cannot do by being mindful about the processes and the metabolism and the hormones at play, you’re being mindful about the long term nature of this goal instead of trying to achieve it as quickly as possible, and with as drastic measures as possible.

Emily Field 00:10:10  You’re going to take the slow and steady route, which is probably going to make you much more successful than your peers. Another misconception is that maintenance is easy. Some people believe that maintenance is simply a matter of just continuing to eat what they were during weight loss, and if anything, the reason why we are having an episode on maintenance is because it is challenging for a lot of people. It can be challenging as you navigate the shift from a restrictive eating pattern, a limited amount of food choices because your calories and macros are set lower to a more flexible eating pattern. A lot of people worry about this transition, and that can be extremely challenging. It’s one of my favorite things to work on with people through coaching is to get them back up to maintenance and enjoying maintenance, but that’s not to say that it comes without challenge or that it’s easy during maintenance. Weight fluctuations are common, and if you’ve been looking at the scale weight as a measure of your progress and success during a weight loss or fat loss phase, it can be really, really mind warping.

Emily Field 00:11:09  It can feel really frustrating to see those fluctuations. The truth of the matter is that minor weight fluctuations are totally normal. I usually tell women, especially if they’re strength training women, that you can fluctuate between 3 and 5  pounds at any given point in a week. All right. Those fluctuations don’t mean anything around your ability to lose weight or bitterly to lose fat, or that you have gained weight or lost fat. Those fluctuations are influenced by water retention, hormone changes, and even muscle gain. So a focus on your overall trends or weekly averages and then comparing those weeks upon weeks is going to be much more helpful than looking at the daily changes, and it will definitely give you a much more accurate picture of progress and if and when we’ve reached maintenance. There’s a common misconception around maintenance that there’s no more continued effort needed in this phase. The belief that once weight loss is achieved, no further effort is needed. That’s pretty false. Maintenance requires continued effort in terms of navigating your eating like you still care.

Emily Field 00:12:16  I can’t stress this enough. If you only care about your nutrition when you’re dieting, then you’re doing something wrong and you’re going to. You’re never going to see long term changes in your leanness, your fitness, your strength, any of that. There’s a fair amount of self-monitoring that has to happen in maintenance in order to ensure that your weight and body composition are being maintained, that you are sustaining your efforts, that your inputs, your actions are matching the goals that you have for yourself. So self monitoring, you know I have this is a hill I’ll probably die on is something that is gone out of fashion. We’re looking to others to tell us if things are going right and tuning outside of ourselves to capture that information when we should be looking internally. You should be able to reflect on your own habits and behaviors. You should be able to understand your own data and monitor it yourself to a degree, to be able to understand if what you’re doing is working or not working. Plenty of research indicates that people who weigh themselves on a semi-regular basis are much better at maintaining their weight or preventing regain than the people who completely ignore the scale.

Emily Field 00:13:29  Now, if you don’t want to weigh yourself, that’s just one example. In some way. I welcome you to Self Monitor, to pay attention to trends, to check in with yourself on a periodic basis, to see if the actions that you’re participating in are leading to or resulting in the in in the goals that you have for yourself, even if it’s just simply to maintain within a 5 pound range, up or down of where you landed after your weight loss goal or your fat loss goal was achieved. You’re going to have to monitor that somehow. And we can’t just completely ignore or have no effort there and expect to see maintenance of that goal. Lastly, I will say that it is pretty common for people to return to their old habits after achieving a weight loss or fat loss goal after having a stint with a deficit in order to try to achieve a weight loss or fat loss goal. And some may think that once they have hit that finish line, they no longer need to care, and they can just go simply back to their old eating habits and that will quickly lead to weight regain.

Emily Field 00:14:31  We have to address the elephant in the room, which is the habits and behaviors that got you here. What part of those habits and behaviors can we continue long term? No, they do not need to look exactly the way that they looked during your weight loss or fat loss phase. They can be and should be more flexible, and you should adopt more food freedom during a maintenance phase. But if you fail to recognize that your habits and behaviors must change from where they were prior to your weight loss or fat loss journey. You’re going to miss the point and you will regain weight. And that’s no place to be. That yo yoing up or down with your weight is super stressful on the body, and the more often that you do it, the harder it is to lose that weight next time. So I highly encourage you to really put energy into this when we’re trying to plan for your diet after the diet, the maintenance phase, after achieving some weight loss and fat loss is almost more important than the actual dieting stone itself.

Emily Field 00:15:29  Now it’s all easier said than done, right? So this whole episode, I’ve really kind of just been leading up to my experience with clients in maintenance. Why is maintenance so challenging for some people? Well, I will say, the number one reason why maintenance is so challenging for people is because they are using the scale as their tool for validation, the scale providing immediate feedback, and that can be super tempting to rely on as a measure of success. When the numbers go down, you feel validated and successful, reinforcing the idea that a lower weight equals achievement. It creates that binary view of success and failure, where people judge their days as good and bad solely based on the scale they are disregarding other health indicators under other success indicators. We also know that society’s believe that they can only succeed when they restrict their food intake, leading to a mindset that equates food restriction with success.So if you’re somebody who really feels an aversion to eating enough or eating more to follow through on the recommendations that me and my team or another skilled trainer has provided for you. If you feel resistance to eating at maintenance, I’m going to question you on how you’ve been using this scale, because this is a very common reason why you are challenged at maintenance or challenge to get back up to maintenance or to or live in maintenance. I don’t know how many women I’ve worked with. It’s countless women I’ve worked with that experience. Those intense emotional swings that weight gain and weight loss can bring for them. On the scale, weight decreases going to bring the feeling of elation and pride, while minor increases lead to despair. Frustration, self-criticism when self-worth is tied to the scale fluctuations deeply impacts self-esteem, making you feel like failures regardless of your effort or other positive changes you might be making in your life, even the anticipation of stepping on the scale can cause stress and anxiety, with people dreading the number that will ultimately dictate their mood and self-worth for the day.

Emily Field 00:17:56  Those weight fluctuations, influenced by factors like water retention, muscle gain, or time of day are completely normal. But people often overemphasize these changes overlook the broader picture of their entire health journey. Those emotional responses to the scale can lead to restrictive eating, excessive exercise, or even giving up entirely, and this ultimately leads to a cycle of unhealthy habits yo yo dieting, being on, and being totally off with your self-care habits. So how do we address this issue? I mean, especially in maintenance when the goal is not to be losing weight or losing body fat. Okay, we have to get that through our mind. It is extremely validating to engage in a weight loss or fat loss phase and see your measurements tick down, see your body becoming leaner in the mirror, see the scale kind of tick down over time. And so when we transition to maintenance, that piece is gone. So it can feel a little like okay, what’s happening. And so that can feed the cycle of wanting to dip back into a fat loss phase, to kind of go back to dieting when you know you shouldn’t.

Emily Field 00:19:05  What we should be doing instead is to look at your non scale victories such as improved energy, better sleep, more strength, better endurance because this is what will improve when you come back to maintenance. You are not thriving in the areas of energy and sleep and strength and endurance when you’re dieting. Okay, so when you see these things return, it should be encouragement that you are eating enough that your body is getting what it needs, that your body is starting to thrive again. That should be a really good feeling. Shifting your mindset away from weight to health is going to be a much broader picture. So we have to understand that the scale is just one of many tools and not the most definitive measure of success. And again, if that’s taken off the table because we’re now in maintenance and we’re really only going to see minor fluctuations now in the scale, we have to be able to widen our lens and look at things that matter to us. I know that for most of my clients who come out of a weight loss or fat loss phase and they’re coming back to maintenance, it’s extremely rewarding to be able to go up and weights in their strength training program again, to feel like they’re not completely dead after their training session, that they’re completely recovered by the time they want to train again the next day or later in the week, something like that.

Emily Field 00:20:23  Maybe they’re putting new goals on their calendar. So instead of a weight loss or fat loss like a body composition related goal, they are putting fitness related, endurance related strength related goals on their calendar because they now have the bandwidth, they have the energy to do so. So if you’re kind of feeling like that, you’ve gotten pretty far in a weight loss journey. I would say the people that get the most caught up here with using the scale as validation, making it really difficult to live in maintenance, are people that have experience with extreme dieting. So there are the Optavia people there, the HCG people They did medically assisted weight loss. Maybe they did bariatric surgery. Maybe we’re going to see it with GLP ones and some of these injectables. If you lose a massive amount of weight and it comes off at a fairly predictable rate across many months. You are feeling on top of the world watching your scale weight tick down a fairly quick pace, like a quicker pace than regular diet and exercise, like just simple, sustainable changes that maybe a macro tracking approach might promote.

Emily Field 00:21:31  I get it, like I’m right there with you. I completely understand where this came from, but if we’re looking at transitioning you from using the scale as your validation tool and knowing that you can’t just like lose weight into oblivion, you can’t just evaporate, it’s going to slow down and stop at some point we have to put our stock into something else. So I highly encourage you to tune in to what is actually important to you. How would you like to be living? What is 2.0 version of you look like? What do they act like? How do they feel on a regular basis and then break that down even further? What are the habits and behaviors of the 2.0 version of yourself that you really love? See, if we can’t get to a place where we’re using your pursuit of that person to be progress and success, something much more personal and much more meaningful, I’m sure. So the second common reason why I think maintenance is really difficult for people is that they’ve never purposefully eaten enough. They’ve only had experience with dieting and weight loss related nutrition, like if they’re working on their nutrition, if they’re paying attention to their food, it means that it’s because they want to be losing weight.

Emily Field 00:22:44  So working on your nutrition, working with a dietitian, changing your eating habits is so closely tied with eating less than what you need. One of the reasons why this is so challenging for many of my clients who are over the age of, let’s say, 35, but really on average mid 40s, mid 50s is because from a very young age you’re exposed to media portrayals of celebrities who achieve their, quote, perfect bodies through extreme dieting and rigorous exercise regimens. We have articles and TV shows and social media posts that highlight the extreme measures taken by celebrities to maintain their figures, and sometimes that just makes it seem desirable and necessary in order to achieve that body. It’s gotten so muddy out there with advertising and marketing. The diet industry capitalizes on societal insecurities, promotes products that promise quick weight loss and unrealistic body transformations. We see advertisements for weight loss programs, detox teas, diet supplements. They’re all over the place, and it just reinforces the idea that eating less is key to achieving an ideal body. And I would say even now we have with the influence of social media.

Emily Field 00:23:57  Not only do we have it in our real life and through our professional media, but we have it at our fingertips through Instagram and TikTok. We are constantly inundated with influencers that are showcasing their lean physique and then sharing how they got there, and usually it’s through restrictive eating habits. It’s just a constant exposure of curated, perfect images of thin, fit bodies, and that can tend to distort our perception of what normal, healthy body types look like and what nuanced eating patterns and nutrition recommendations might look like. And even if you’re really good at spotting celebrity diet trends, advertising and marketing, maybe even that social media influence. You’re probably not safe from your parental modeling or your family influence countless clients. Once we start digging, start to reveal their earliest memories of when they were starting to be aware of their body. The people that are most influential in your life, like your parents or grandparents, siblings, peers at different moments in your childhood can have a really profound impact on the way that you perceive your body.

Emily Field 00:25:06  Comments about your weight, your food choices. Your body size can leave a lasting impression, which can make it really difficult to eat enough to go to a place where you’re not focusing on weight loss or fat loss, and you’re just living and thriving while eating what your body needs. Now, I will say I’m sensitive to this issue, that there are challenges other than the mindset or the emotional reasons why it might be difficult to eat enough. Certainly, many people are unaware of their actual caloric needs for maintenance, and they often underestimate the calories required to support their body and the activities that they love. It can just make the idea of eating more seem counterintuitive and really uncomfortable. I think this tends to come from the very prolific standard numbers that are just really thrown out there the 1200 calorie diet no more than 1500 calories, these numbers that seem to just be branded in our brains for one reason or the other, and we never get any context for what that means. How many calories from protein, fat, and carb would never know Or does that count? You know, when you’re sedentary? Or is that if you’re active? Or what about if I’m five foot ten or what if I’m four foot 11? There’s really just no context or nuance to those standard numbers.

Emily Field 00:26:29  So when I come along and I tell people to eat 1800, 22,200 calories or more can feel really, really, really high. And I get that. But I have to remind you that you are not the expert here. As a registered dietitian who has studied this area and has worked in this space for over ten years, I absolutely understand more than you in this realm around how much you need to support your active lifestyle, and at some point, you do need to trust the experts. I know we’ve gotten to a place in our society where we want to question everything, and we think that everyone is working against us, especially people who have professional titles. And that’s a topic for another day. But trust and believe that when I work with clients, it’s a very much collaborative relationship, and their feedback about how the calories feel absolutely influences where the prescription is set. So together with your feedback and our expertise, we can get to a place where the calories feel comfortable and manageable, and they are leading to the results that you want to see.

Emily Field 00:27:33  For people who have never purposefully eaten enough, I think that a lot of it can come down to a fear of weight gain. To them, weight gain is a horrible consequence. It is the worst thing that can happen to them. I have empathy for this person. I know that this is something that we can work out through coaching, but if you’re trying to do it on your own, it’s really, really difficult to kind of master your mind around that concept. You’re mistakenly equating eating more or increased calorie intake with an inevitable weight gain. I think it automatically means that they’ve heard eat less, move more their entire life, so eat more, move less. Sounds like absolutely crazy. And I get that you’re overlooking the importance of eating enough, and that being crucial for your overall health and metabolic function. Well, lastly, say that for some people, under eating provides a sense of control and security. They are exercising their need for control through their nutrition, and this is oftentimes tough to spot if you’re just like a friend or family member.

Emily Field 00:28:40  But for a coach and experience, coach is very easy to spot. Now we’re going to elaborate on this in just a second, but I have empathy for these people. That predictability and structure of a restrictive eating pattern can feel safe, especially in a world where things feel chaotic. And there are certain aspects of your life that feel uncertain and uncontrollable. I get how this happens. It’s not lost on me how this happens. I’m trying to shed light and see if this resonates with you, but essentially, we’re going to want to address this issue and get you to a place where eating enough or eating at maintenance is no longer challenging. So how do we address this issue? How do we get people to purposefully eat enough? I’d say that we got to first address that education and awareness piece. And if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably already there providing accurate information about caloric needs and the importance of eating enough to support your bodily functions is crucial. And a lot of that you’re getting through this podcast, and from my free and low cost resources on my website, I know that education doesn’t necessarily change behavior, but it can certainly lay the foundation for future changes.

Emily Field 00:29:53  Educational resources can dispel myths about nutrition and emphasize the benefits of adequate calorie intake. I think a big piece here is to have positive role models, people that model the person that you want to be or somebody that you really look up to. Who is fueling, well, eating enough, not succumbing to the constant cycle of restriction and deprivation? I would recommend finding these people in your real life, but then also flooding your feed with people like this as well, because it’s almost like your internet version of yourself, or your internet interaction is just as powerful as your real life interaction, and we can influence both positively and negatively who we surround ourselves with in person and online. I would love to see you seeking out stories of individuals who have successfully transitioned to maintenance, and they’ve experienced improvements in their health. Maybe they have moved away from body composition or physique only scale, only goals. That would be really great to watch and to surround yourself with. I would recommend role models that advocate for balanced eating and self-acceptance that can help you shift your perception.

Emily Field 00:31:09  I know for me, when I started at CrossFit where there were no mirrors, it was a completely different world from my gym and college and then the Globo gyms that I went to after college, where there’s mirrors everywhere and depending on the time of day, really only saw a very limited number of diversity. There was really no body diversity at the gym, is what I’m trying to say, especially in college and grad school. So going to CrossFit and seeing people put emphasis into other things other than their body weight and their body size and their leanness was awesome and probably key for me to understand what it meant to fuel for something other than weight loss, or staying thin, or staying tiny. That’s a story for another day. But I guess I’ll say that if you find yourself lacking those spaces, it’s probably your sign to go seek them out, whether that’s online or in person. If you feel yourself resonating with many of the things I’ve just talked about specifically never having experienced eating enough, having a fear of weight gain, really falling victim to diet trends and advertising marketing, maybe even seeing that there was some familial influence on, you know, the way that you perceive your body.

Emily Field 00:32:25  I think that working with a professional is probably what you need. Dietitians specifically, and nutrition coaches that are well versed in this area can help you shift your perspective. It can help you get that personalized support and that reassurance that you might need in order to develop an eating pattern that is healthy and wholesome. It is rooted in being your best you, not just your thinnest or lightest you. Another reason why maintenance is challenging for people is because they think that they thrive in restriction. We know that restrictive eating patterns often provide a sense of safety and control by limiting the types and amounts of food people consume. It helps them create a comforting sense of order and predictability in their eating habits. And no doubt, this can be one way that people exercise control in situations where they otherwise feel chaotic. This predictability reduces anxiety around food choices and mealtimes, as people can plan their meals and know exactly what to expect. Clear rules and boundaries simplify decision making, making it easier to stick to the plan and avoid feelings of guilt or shame associated with breaking the rules.

Emily Field 00:33:39  So people are creating the rules. They’re adhering to the rules. They can avoid those feelings of guilt and shame that come with breaking the rules. And sometimes adhering to a restrictive diet can be perceived as discipline and self-control. And so following through on that give somebody a sense of achievement and boosted self-esteem. This is what I see where the line teeters, right? So we can especially on social media, we are seeing somebody at so dedicated to their diet, to their eating pattern, their exercise program, they look great. And deviating from that plan is just not an option. And we might say to ourselves, wow, that person has incredible discipline. They are so focused on their goals, nothing is going to get in their way. We’re in the Olympic season. We know that the athletes that got to the Olympics and are excelling at the Olympics have some sort of regimen and discipline. They’re following through. With that said, there is a time and a place where that breaks down and there’s probably more flexibility and more freedom in the eating pattern.

Emily Field 00:34:47  And if there isn’t, especially if low self esteem and shame and guilt come with deviating from that pattern, that would be a sign that we’ve maybe gone too far, or that we are thriving in that restriction. And that’s something that we would want to address. A person who is challenged to adapt to maintenance probably feels like it’s difficult to adapt to the abundance or lack of strict rules in maintenance. They may feel like if I’m left to my own devices, I’ll just go overboard. They oftentimes find themselves overwhelmed by food choices, so that that move to maintenance introduces a wider range of food options and larger portion size, and that can feel overwhelming. The freedom to eat more and include previously restricted foods can create anxiety around making the right choice without strict rules to follow. You might fear that you’re going to lose control over your eating habits and revert to old, unhealthy patterns that you really don’t want to go back to. That lack of clear boundaries can make it difficult to know when to stop eating, or how to balance meals.

Emily Field 00:35:53  Decision fatigue plays a role here too. That constant decision making required and maintenance can lead to fatigue, because you don’t have that simplicity of restrictive rules that limited foods list that lower calorie amount. You only know so many foods that will fit into your eating pattern, so you got to navigate a lot more food choices and meal planning decisions, which can be mentally exhausting. I see this a lot with clients. They feel as though they’re ready or excited for calories to drop and enter into a deficit because they feel overwhelmed about maintenance. But we can absolutely work through this. And in coaching we do a number of things. Number one being a gradual transition from a deficit backup to maintenance. So making a gradual transition from a deficit to maintenance eases that adjustment. You’re slowly increasing food and introducing more variety, which can allow your body and mind to adapt at a manageable pace. We often call this the reverse diet. This is the phase that bridges the gap between a deficit, where your primary goal is to lose weight or lose body fat.

Emily Field 00:37:03  Back up to maintenance. We’re not making that jump overnight. Research shows that you can make that jump overnight. You can make that as quickly as you want. But I find that my clients who I’m speaking to right now, who struggle with the fear of weight gain, who struggle with that decision fatigue, kind of like highlighting some of the things that tend to be challenges about maintenance. Going slower tends to be better. And we’re talking about making adjustments of about 150 to 200 calories every other week. And I’m positive that we can find some fats and carbs to add back to your eating pattern every other week so that it feels manageable. It’s not overwhelming for you to add those foods back in. By the time we’re out of that reverse diet and back up to maintenance, you can’t even believe you ate as little as you did at the end of your deficit. It’s a very common reaction. One of the reasons why I love macro tracking so much is that it allows for autonomy of food choices. You’re allowed to eat what you want, but it has some guardrails or some structure around how much to eat.

Emily Field 00:38:10  And this is often what’s missing for people when they opt in to a regular old diet, a traditional diet, a low calorie eating pattern, a regimented food plan, or something like that. Without that structure of knowing where to go after the diet is over. That’s what can lead to that overwhelm and that stress of, am I going to go back to my old eating habits? Or how do I prevent weight regain? There’s just so, so much lack of structure. So I find that macro tracking is the best of both worlds. It’s a bit of structure because you likely do not know how much food is appropriate for you. You don’t have that background, and it’s a bit of freedom and flexibility, and you can engage in that flexibility and freedom and structure as little or as much as you need in that transition from a deficit to maintenance. It’s going to be a lot of questioning. There’s going to be a lot of like being reminded of how good it feels to eat more. And so this would be a great time to practice some mindful eating practices to help you tune back into your hunger and fullness cues.

Emily Field 00:39:18  This is going to help foster a healthier relationship with food. That mindfulness is also going to help reduce anxiety about eating and help you to make more intentional food choices. So if and when there comes a time where you don’t want to track macros, you know diligently. You know how well it feels to feel well fueled. You know what it’s like to have a balanced meal, essentially what maintenance feels like in comparison to eating drastically less than what you need as you would during a fat loss or weight loss phase. I think especially for the person who says that they thrive in a deficit or thrive in restriction, this is going to be a really important step. We have to tie some of those wins to eating more. We need to color in more details about how eating more leads to XYZ, things that are important to you, and we need to constantly talk about it, especially in coaching. We might journal about it, you might share in your check in. You’re going to hear from other people that are validating your experience.

Emily Field 00:40:20  And in my opinion, that’s how you make true growth. So you don’t go back there where you’re really abusing a restrictive eating pattern or hoping that it like allows you to exercise some control over your life. There are much better ways that we can handle stress and exercise some autonomy over ourselves without using food and exercise to do so. The last reason why maintenance might be challenging for you is that you lack non physique related goals. Setting nutrition and health goals that do not focus on weight loss or fat loss is crucial for developing a holistic approach to wellness. These goals can encompass various aspects of your health such as physical fitness, mental well-being, and overall quality of life. So by broadening the scope of your health goals, you can cultivate a more sustainable and fulfilling relationship with your body and with your health. A really common transition for many of my clients from a weight loss or fat loss goal becomes a fitness related goal a goal that’s related to physical fitness, such as increasing strength, endurance, or flexibility. It can help promote a more comprehensive view of their health and kind of get them away from constantly focusing on that number, on the scale.

Emily Field 00:41:37  Certainly, if you are engaging in regular exercise, there’s numerous benefits beyond weight loss, including better cardiovascular health, better mobility, better mood. And by focusing there can really make for a better relationship with maintenance. Because none of these goals would be achievable if you were eating in a deficit or eating for weight loss all the time. I’d say that many of my clients are also interested in improving their mental health. So if you have goals to reduce stress and enhance your sleep quality, practice mindfulness. You’re probably going to have a mix of exercise and eating nutritious foods, and setting strong boundaries at work and logging off your computer. All great things. again. We’re moving away from physique based goals and into something that is much more meaningful or just meaningful for a different season. That said, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. I understand that setting non aesthetic or physique related goals can be difficult, especially when that’s been your focus for years and years. In particular, non aesthetic health goals lack that immediate gratification that weight loss can provide.

Emily Field 00:42:48  It makes it harder to stay motivated because they require more time and patience to see progress. And sometimes progress. And success is really like amorphous. It’s not very like concrete. You’re not quite there. There’s always something to work on. Whereas with weight loss it’s pretty definitive. We’re there or we’re not there. These goals, such as improved energy or better sleep or reduce stress, have less tangible outcomes, making it challenging to recognize and celebrate progress. How will we know we are successful? How are we going to know that we’re making progress here? It can be a little bit difficult to define, and I’ll also say that shifting the focus from weight loss to other health goals requires a significant mindset change, and that can be difficult to do on your own without the assistance of a coach or a supportive network, especially if you have long associated health improvements with weight loss. Society puts a high value on physical appearance, so if you’re not working on losing weight or losing fat, what are you doing? No goal is worthwhile.

Emily Field 00:43:53  Society equates thinness with health and success, and media representations frequently emphasize weight loss and body change, overshadowing the importance of overall health and wellness. It’s really difficult to show outwardly that you are a mindful person, that you are living true to your values, that you are following through on the goals that you’ve set for yourself. Whereas weight loss and fat loss aesthetic based goals are very much obvious and sometimes I think people are using nutrition and exercise to prove themselves in society or prove themselves to other people, prove their worthiness, prove their discipline, their self-worth. They are exercising through nutrition and physical activity, a change in their body. They’re trying to show outwardly that they should be taken seriously, and this requires a huge mindset shift to move away from this and to look internally for that validation and that self-efficacy that you can follow through on things that are important to you. And it does not matter what other people think of you or you know what they think of your body. Anyone who has experienced losing a massive amount of weight, or completely changing their body shape and size has gotten that verbal validation.

Emily Field 00:45:12  They’ve gotten validation and approval from others based on their success in that realm. They’ve gotten compliments, they’ve gotten positive feedback on that weight loss, and it reinforces the focus on aesthetics and physique. And that can oftentimes make it harder to shift towards health centric goals or non aesthetic non physique related goals. And I get that it’s going to take education and awareness, raising awareness, surrounding yourself with people who value non aesthetic health goals can be really helpful here. Surrounding yourself with professionals, whether that’s through podcasts or social media or people you subscribe to for email newsletters, will be really helpful to reinforce this narrative that health is much bigger than your scale, weight, or what you look like in coaching. I’m encouraging my clients to celebrate small non physique related victories, especially if in their in maintenance. There’s not a lot happening oftentimes in maintenance that would be really noteworthy from a week to week basis. But if they can recognize and appreciate improvements in their energy levels, their mood, their strength, their patience with their kids or their partner, how they’re experiencing food freedom and flexibility that can absolutely boost motivation and reinforce the importance of these non physique related goals.

Emily Field 00:46:31  I hope to also build a supportive community with clients that are like minded and going through some of the same things, oftentimes in coaching. This is the only place that my clients have to go to to, you know, celebrate these goals that are not so widely recognized in our bigger society. Outside of the group coaching program, clients can certainly find supportive communities where the value is placed on health and wellness over appearance that can be in specific support groups or fitness classes, online communities, specific people on social media, or particularly on Instagram and TikTok, maybe even YouTube. That can help reinforce this messaging that’s going to be really important to help them stay the course, not fall victim back to that cycle of using their aesthetic goals or physique goals to gain approval and validation in these communities. Or maybe within coaching might be the very first time that they ever realize they can set personal goals that really elicit an emotional reaction from them that align with their own interests and values. It might be the first time they’ve ever been tasked with looking outside of the scale, or the way their body looks for inspiration.

Emily Field 00:47:45  That can be really rewarding to watch as a coach. Their world becomes so much more opened up when they don’t equate nutrition changes and exercise habits to losing weight or being a certain shape or size. The world is so vast and you can achieve so many different things, but probably their best achieved if you are eating enough. If you are eating at maintenance where your body thrives. I cannot stress this enough. Your deficit phases where you are focused on losing fat or losing weight. Those are very valid goal, but if that’s your only goal, you’re going to hold yourself back. In this episode, we explored the challenges of eating to maintenance calories and why this phase can be difficult for many people. We discussed the importance of transitioning to maintenance to sustain weight loss and support long term health, prevent metabolic adaptation, and promote psychological well-being. We examined common misconceptions about maintenance, such as it being easy or equating to giving up on health goals. We talked about the psychological and emotional struggles people face, like reliance on the scale for validation and the comfort found in restrictive eating patterns.

Emily Field 00:48:58  We also highlighted the impact of societal and personal influences on under eating and the importance of setting non physique based health goals. No doubt that eating to maintenance or eating enough where your body thrives can be challenging for many people. But by addressing these challenges and shifting the focus from weight loss to overall well-being, you can develop a healthier, more sustainable approach to maintenance. Remember, maintenance is a crucial part of a healthy lifestyle, and seeking support can make that transition smoother. Thank you so much for listening to the Macros Made Easy podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the one you’re listening to right now to share it on your Instagram Stories, and tag me at Emily Fields so that more people can find this podcast and learn how to use a macros approach in a stress free way. If you love the podcast, head over to iTunes and leave me a rating and a review. Remember, you can always find more free health and nutrition content on Instagram and on my website at emilyfieldRD.com. Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you on the next episode.