(To lose, maintain or regain).

I have written elsewhere about how bariatric patients are invariably MASTER dieters… That there’s very little you can teach us about health and nutrition that we haven’t encountered somewhere along the way… But that if we’re not able to APPLY something, then that knowledge is relatively futile, and even toxic and destructive.

Knowing-and-not-doing is far more dangerous than simply not knowing. In the second position, one is simply yet to acquire the knowledge they need. In the former position, it would seem that the alleged knowledge is inadequate and insufficient, leaving us up the creak without a paddle. And rather hopeless.

Some coaches even argue that if we think we know something, but don’t apply it, that we haven’t, in fact, learnt the lesson at all.

I’ve also written elsewhere, in a similar vein, of how bariatric surgery almost gives an ‘engine’ to the ‘bicycle’ of diet and nutrition. How all these things we knew, but couldn’t do or sustain, pre-surgery, become far more viable, possible and sustainable post-surgery. The synergy of a medical intervention and a bit of head/heart work becomes EXPLOSIVE, and success a very real inevitability.

And so, with this as caveat and preamble, I want to share with you something I’ve always known, that has actually made sense and burst into (very practical) life in recent months.

Please forgive me in advance: this post contains content that I know is potentially super obvious. This is DEFINITELY not rocket science, and I’m sure there may be an overwhelming “DUH!” response as you read it. But, humour me please, as, since maintaining my goal weight - and moving up and down the same 10 pound range - I suddenly understand something I’ve always “known”.

Context:

Many, many moons ago, when I was a Psychology trainee, I was a group facilitator on a franchised mindful eating program. One of my participants went on to have a RNY, and was actually the first person I’d ever known to have weight loss surgery of any type.

I remember her bemoaning the fact that “I don’t ALWAYS eat badly! There are times when I eat very normally, and days that are off the charts. But WHY DOESN’T IT LEVEL OUT? WHY IS IT SO EASY TO GAIN BUT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO LOSE?”.

I remember staring at her blankly, in my almost-adolescent naïveté, without an answer to give. I didn’t know either, and shared her frustration at the injustice.

But now I know the answer, because I have experienced it:

Eating NORMALLY (maybe 1600-1800 calories per day, depending on your own physiology) will only ever MAINTAIN weight. Whatever your weight is, today, this week, this month – a maintenance caloric intake will create maintenance.

Eating MORE will almost certainly produce immediate GAIN.

And the only way to LOSE is to restrict caloric intake to a deficit level (maybe 1000-1400 calories per day, depending again on personal physiology). And oftentimes for several days longer than the eating badly happened for.

So what this lady was doing was:

• Bingeing and gaining.
• Calming down, eating “normally”, sufficient to maintain but not to lose.
• Thus maintaining her new gain.

And what she failed to do was to restrict sufficiently for long enough to neutralise, stabilise and lose.

Profoundly obvious, I know. But the learning for me, as I maintain on a 10 or 12 pound continuum, is that a 2000-calorie day simply HAS to be followed by a few 1000-calorie days, or regain will be inevitable. But the corollary of this is that a hopelessly 'bingey' day CAN be offset, if only we would DO it... Our tendency though, I find, is NOT to offset it... We feel like a failure... We wander around in a carb-coma, feeling revolting and hating our lack of resolve... And resolving, at best, to be 'a little more careful'. But what we REALLY need to be doing, after a horrible, compulsive day, is to pour all of our faculties into a day of perfect abstinence. (As an aside, this "Abstinence Week" is exactly the principle I teach on may BACK ON TRACK MASTER PLAN Mini Course, that is really affordable, with invaluable content.

This would, obviously, require a defiance of physiology, as sugar-rushes beget sugar cravings, overeating begets hunger, etc.

So on a 'Post shitty-eating day' we are faced with what I call "Dopamine Dumps" - hits of dopamine that incline us to repeat the offending behaviour. When this happens, we need to see it coming, take it for what it is, and urge-surf and tolerate distress until the wave of craving passes.

Obvious as it is, it's easy to wrap my mind around now, in maintenance, than it ever was when I was obese.

• There is an intake level that results in (almost immediate) gain.
• There is an intake that maintains - (and, sadly, maintains even NEW gain).
• And an intake that causes loss.

And these things occur almost on a daily level, but certainly weekly and fortnightly.

I’m no longer frustrated by this. I now find it liberating, and empowering, through understanding. The very simple transactional nature of it also demystifies the whole notion. It enables and empowers me to have better days and worse days, but to be extremely mindful of where things are on the level of 'nett effect'.

Each person obviously needs to troubleshoot to ascertain for themselves what caloric intakes create each scenario. I am aware that some bariatric patients are cautioned to eat at the 1000-calorie level forever, even in maintenance. It really is a trial-and-error affair, that forms part of a long-term maintenance endeavour.

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

If you are keen to get YOUR eating ‘back on track’, I have a short and punchy ‘BACK ON TRACK Master Plan Mini Course’, that will guide you from being ‘off the wagon’ and ‘off track’ through to a really strong and empowered decision to pull it all in the right direction. You can purchase that here.

And if you are dead-sick of regain, of compulsive eating, of spinning your wheels with head hunger and heart hunger, and you are ready to do the real work towards peace, empowerment and long-term bariatric success, have a look at my Bariatric Mind Masters program here.