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What Happens After You Lose the Weight?

Lisa Eirene

About Lisa Eirene Lisa lost 110 pounds through calorie counting and exercise. She swims, bikes, runs, hikes and is enjoying life in Portland, Oregon. Her weight loss story has been featured in First Magazine, Yahoo Health, Woman's Day and Glamour.com.

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18 Comments

  1. Daphne @ Daphne Alive

    Don’t worry, I’m on a weight loss journey and I can totally relate! Right now I’m at the stage where I’ve lost 100 lbs and my face is definitely getting really pretty and I’m slowly starting to get a figure. (I have about another 90 lbs to go before I’m at “goal”) and I’m starting to get more positive attention. I’ve been asked out a few times at work (how cool is that?!) and every time my mom sees me she flips out about how good I look. I’ve been looking forward to the future and how I’m going to deal with that. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if weight loss is fueled by the goal to look better, to get more compliments or to be healthy!

    I think I wont’ really know until I’m at my goal weight, but for now I have been setting more goals beyond just hitting my weight loss goal. My goal afterwards is running a 5 or 10k, and having children, and to go hiking in the mountains, and maybe even *gasp* trail running! I think it’s important to not let your goals end at a certain weight or size!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Congratulations on losing 100 pounds so far! It’s definitely a good feeling to reach a goal, and then get attention for it. I think the positive attention is definitely a motivator, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Whatever POSITIVE method makes us keep going is good in my book.

      And I agree, setting OTHER goals after goal weight is the right way to do it. That’s why I started running. I reached goal weight and was like “What now??” so I started training for a 5k. Good luck on your goals! 🙂

  2. Roz@weightingfor50

    What a wonderful post Lisa. I’m not at goal weight yet, but now I know what I may feel as the journey moves forward. You are wise and inspirational. Have a great Tuesday.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      I don’t know about wise, but I do hope inspirational. 🙂

  3. Marc

    I considered your blog a “maintenance blog” This is my 2nd time around at losing weight. The 1st journey was over 10 years ago. I lost about 10 lbs each month and in 9 months was down 95 pounds. I did it through very strick calories counting, daily food journal and exercise journal, and daily exercise and popping ephedrine tablets 4 each, 3 times daily. My motivation was all wrong psychologically. I kept the weight off for about 3 years before it crept back. Seven years after losing it all, I had gained it all back. So this time I’m taking a different approach. First off ephedrine pills are banned in the U.S. otherwise I might have gone that route again. I don’t count calories, I don’t keep a food journal or an exercise journal. Before I allowed myself sugars and wheat products so long as I kept track of the calories. Not this time. No white sugars, no white flours. I eat mostly meat and veggies, fruit occassionally, about 1 or 2 times per week. I try to get some form of exercise daily for at least 20 minutes. The weight is coming off, though much slower than 10 years ago. I’m fine with that. My motivation is more psychologically healthy this time. I hope to be down at least 52 pounds by the 1 year anniversary of the start of my blog. That would equal an average weight loss of 1 pound per week. I’m about 7 lbs from reaching that goal. My long term goal is to get down another 44 pounds past that to reach goal weight. That will be sometime next year.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Thanks, Marc. I appreciate your insight and story. It sounds like you have a healthier approach to the whole process this time around. And while it may be taking longer than it has before, it sounds like you’re doing it the right way and that’s how it is maintainable. It took me nearly 2 years to lose my weight. It was slow at times and frustrating, but because it took so long, I think I appreciate it more and work harder to keep it off. I know how hard it was to lose it and don’t want to do it again!

  4. Lori

    This is a great post. I am at the acceptance part. I still have a lot of fear of really regaining, though. Even after all this time. For me the challenge is learning to accept the post weight loss body as it is and not perfect, especially pushing my mid 40s.

    One of the reasons I am glad my blog doesn’t really have a weight inspired name because as I have transitioned it to just a blog about my life it works well.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      It definitely makes me feel better to read that you have similar experiences and feelings as me. I have only a few blogs that are maintenance blogs and I appreciate yours and their insights.

      I consider your blog more a biking blog, sometimes. 😀

  5. Deb

    Three years ago, I lost 64 pounds. I still had more to go, but I got complacent, and somewhere along the line I lost track of what I was doing. Fast forward 2 years. Add almost all that weight back on again. So now I’m doing it again, am down about 45 pounds now, and this time not planning on ditching everything that has the weight coming off… again. Seriously, losing it twice? Sucks! Not going for a third time! lol

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Good for you! You have the determination not to make it a third time. I can tell!

  6. Abby @ BackAtSquareZero

    I am the same way. I lost my 25 pounds before I started blogging so my blog is kind of about my journey to continue living healthy, get used to this new style, and discover my new found love of running.
    At this point I too am in the acceptance stage of this is who I am, but occasionally I forget and still see myself as the person I used to be.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Really? I am the opposite and sometimes look at all pictures and can’t believe that was me!

  7. Karen P

    Had similar stages, although I had my mind firmly made up that with 20 pounds left togo (of the 72 pounds l lost), I was going to study weight maintainers blogs like they were a school subject. And that I was going to work the Refuse to Regain book – 12 Rules to keep the body you’ve earned.

    It was so important to read that there were other long term maintainers out there. Once I realized that I would likely need to eat Primal/paleo to maintain, I studied that subject like I was in school. And I started making plans for different ways to eat and different food templates to experiment with ( I transitioned off a commercial weightless plan that only had one meal that I made and packets from the company- great for loss, but maintnence is a whole other place)

    Once I was right at weight loss to transition, I did a 90 day opt out ( see the Refuse to Regain book) where I fine tuned my primal/paleo style diet while not introducing any of the foods that caused me to gain weight. This strategy was brilliant. No exposure to trigger foods and I learned to identify with the skinny me. I also tried new exercises and times that I ate during the day.

    Is still make assessments on the last 3 months of my daily weight data. ( I use my fitness pal) I’ve learned so darn much by looking at the data, then making decisions on my plans for the next week or two. I’ve become my own “subject matter expert” on my own weight maintnence , with support from others, both in real life and on the blogs.

    This is the longest I’ve ever maintained any weight loss ( 8.75 months, 72 pounds). I’ve been looking for this kind of success 40 years. I’m only 46!!! Your are so right, the excitement and comments fade away. I think that when you expand your life in non weight loss ways , ones that you may not have done or tried being overweight, that’s the real motivation. Living the life I choose , because I can physically and mentally do more things. Keeps me on track.

    Glad your bog was there. The more of us who are maintaining out there is a good thing. Support is key, and collecting up what works for yourself by borrowing from others is so valuable (IMO). The more of us out there , the better off we all are-stronger together. Good post, Lisa.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      I love that you tackled all of these issues as if you were studying it in school. It’s exactly the way it should be…For me, it was a very lonely road because I didn’t know any people who had lost a lot of weight and kept it off. When I found the blog world I was ecstatic! People like me! The blogs about maintenance are still few and far between but they’ve been so inspiring and helpful. Which ones do you read?

      Congrats on the 72 pounds, too!

  8. Diane, fit to the finish

    Wonderful post Lisa! You are right in that the “after” of weight loss is a new journey and a new life. It would take a book to write my experiences in maintenance for all these years, but I will say that losing weight was hard, but living life at a healthy weight was worth every hard day.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      “living life at a healthy weight was worth every hard day.” <--I love this!

  9. Jodi @ Jodi, Fat or Not

    It’s so weird to have people in my life that only know me now and have no idea about the “old” me. It’s still something that takes getting used to, and since I’m still in the losing stage, I end up telling most people about that old me anyway.

    I used to be worried about maintenance, but now I’m not too scared of it. The question of “what now” still makes me nervous. My whole life is losing weight, I’m not sure what will happen when I’m done losing…but that’s probably another 6 months away!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Isn’t it a weird feeling having to tell people you lost a significant amount of weight? I don’t tell everyone but sometimes they find out from other people and then ask me about it. It’s always weird!

      As for the “what now” question…when I went through that, I started running. I decided to train for a 5k. The rest is history. 🙂

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