Weight Maintenance When You’ve Hit “The Danger Zone”

I last left you with the cliff-hanger of whether I was able to stay on my health and fitness plan after the pressure of appearing in a bathing suit for the Mommy and Me swim class wore off. At this point, I was starting the fourth month of my weight maintenance program and I was in for a rough ride.

Part of my problem was that I was extremely busy and under a huge amount of stress. I was working in the garden and cleaning house, entertaining, taking the kids on vacation for a week to visit family (while my husband generously stuck around to work and fund all of our adventures) and spent almost a month in Richmond touring and entertaining my son while my older children attended summer camps.

Despite this schedule, I was still exercising regularly as I had been before and was even increasing my workout intensity but my diet was less and less controlled.

There were two other challenges at this point that affect anyone on a weight maintenance plan.

There’s no question there is a diet plateau, Ravussin says. “Four to six months into a diet program, this typically happens.”
–Patti Neighmond, How To Find A Path Off The Dreaded Diet Plateau, NPR, July 29, 2013.

Here I was in the 4-6 month plateau range. Since I wasn’t trying to lose weight but rather just maintain, I didn’t “stop losing” but instead my weight started creeping up and up. When I spoke with others about this, many were quick to suggest that “muscle weighs more than fat.” The problem was, my measurements were also increasing!

The other challenge at this point is that it was late summer. For some reason, late summer is a difficult weight maintenance period for me generally. It could easily be the vacations and parties but it also could be a basic biological rhythm that many mammals are programmed to gain weight at this time in preparation for winter.

“During late summer and early fall all bears have the need to gain as much weight as possible.”
–Kevin Sanders, Guide to the Bears of Yellowstone Park

I can’t find any research where anyone has suggested that humans might follow the same pattern but it is something that “feels true” to me.

I know to most people my photo evidence will look ridiculous and many people will say that they can’t tell I have gained weight at all. But to me, even without the numbers on the scale, I could tell I was overdoing it at this point. My clothes were fitting ever more snugly. I knew I was ok with a few more pounds but the problem was that there was no end to the steadily upward trend. I wanted that to change.

It was obvious to me that I was headed right back to where I had come from. It was time to mix up the routine. Before I tell you what I tried next, I have to give you a little bit of theory first . . . in the next post.