Goal Weight and Maintenance

Apr 17, 2019

There’s an interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed with my clients.

It’s about their goal weight.

They’re doing beautifully, losing lots of weight and nearing their target. They look great, feel great and have their food dialed in. They’re wearing a clothing size they’re real happy with.

The last couple of pounds often take a bit longer than the first because the new reasonable amount of food eaten each day reaches a comfortable balance with the amount of energy expended (calories in are about equaling calories out). Even with the slow down, they’re determined to get to that target number. Determined.

To be honest, it’s always perplexed me.

In my mind, it doesn’t seem logical to keep trying for 132 when you currently weigh an easily maintainable 134. The difference in how one looks at these two weights would be imperceptible.

But it means everything to the client.

I would occasionally (gently) point out this negligible discrepancy, in an effort to embrace success and in the name of self-compassion, but it rarely changed their goal.

Now I know why (and I’m glad they stuck to their guns!)

It turns out this striving is of great value to weight loss maintenance.

According to Monica Wadhwa, a professor of marketing at Temple University’s Business School, “not winning is, in fact, more powerful than winning,”

In this TED Ideas article, she goes on to explain that the motivation one gets from a just miss, is more powerful than if one wins or loses handedly.

And that makes sense, if you win (or get to your goal) the motivation was satisfied—game over.

If you lost by a long shot, then there’s no hope.

But if you narrowly missed, there’s every reason to think you can get the prize if you just keep trying. Motivation sustained.

The taste of success keeps one motivated to try for the ultimate goal. And we need that edge in weight loss maintenance. Once complacent, weight can start to creep back on as effort falls by the wayside.

Motivation needs to stay intact in order for weight maintenance to be sustained.

I’ve explained this in the past by describing a successful karate chop.

When martial artists attempt to break a block in half using only their hand, one important technique they use is focusing on a point that is beyond the block. The idea being that if you focus on “chopping” a point past the block then you will surely make it clean through the block.

You get the goal by planning to go past it.

The point of greatest impact is not the end, but just before the end.

Something to keep in mind when you decide on your weight loss target—plan for a number that’s both realistic for your current circumstances and would make you really happy, then subtract a pound or two.

But don’t tell yourself.

It’s the secret self-motivation technique for weight maintenance.

Motivation + Effort = Stable Weight Forever

Yay!

Goal Weight and Maintenance

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