10 Myths About Weight Loss Maintenance (That Keep You Stuck)

Once you understand weight loss maintenance, you can learn to prevent weight regain.

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A few months ago, you started what seems like your millionth diet. You’ve noticed a vicious cycle that you can’t seem to break. You get excited, lose some weight, and then start eating “normally” again.

Then, you feel helpless as your weight comes back on. Eventually, you’ll begin again, harnessing whatever limited resolve you still have left.

The cycle of excitement, weight loss, and weight regain is frustrating and hardly good for your self-confidence. As many as 35 percent of dieters regain their weight in five years, most likely due to psychological and neurobiological factors.(1)

What if one way to break the cycle rested in gaining a true understanding of what is required?

Susan Peirce Thompson, a brain and cognitive scientist at the University of Rochester, has published a new book called Maintain, which follows many years of scientific research on the topic. Her studies have evaluated how to help people not only lose weight but also keep it off long-term.

She promotes adherence to four bright lines, and her protocol has shown that significant weight loss can also include sustained, long-term weight loss maintenance if the right factors are addressed.(2,3)

Here are 10 myths about weight loss maintenance that may be keeping you stuck and what to do instead, based on an interview with Thompson(4):

1. Once I lose the weight, I can relax. Maintenance will naturally happen. “The pervasive myth about maintenance is that once you lose the weight, the job is done, and you’ve crossed the finish line, and it doesn’t matter what happens after that because you did it,” says Thompson. Instead, the research shows that “Losing weight is one thing, and keeping it off is a whole other beast,” requiring specific food, actions, and support.
2. It doesn’t make sense to think about maintaining weight I haven’t even lost yet. “Successful weight loss maintenance requires losing weight in a manner you will maintain for the long term, for the duration,” explained Thompson. According to self-perception theory research, “Individuals learn about their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their own behavior and the circumstances in which their behavior occurs.”(5) Thompson explains that when you become devoted, you see your behavior and start to see yourself as someone who maintains weight loss, saying, “It’s an identity level shift.”
3. Once I lose the weight, it’ll get easier and won’t matter if I cheat once in a while. Thompson explains the importance of abstinence, saying, “Neural pathways get laid for obsession with food. And what we know about neural pathways once they’re laid is that they don’t ever go away really.” In her book, she discusses the issue of intermittent reinforcement.(3) The brain will generate what she calls “food thoughts,” and will create cravings and urges; if we reinforce those, we are setting ourselves up for a relapse of our old patterns. In the interview, Thompson explained that “The old neural pathways are still there, kind of like a dry riverbed,” and cheating reactivates them.
4. If I just reduce eating and start exercising when the weight goes up, I can bring the weight back down whenever I want. This “diet mentality” is pervasive in our culture. The disadvantage of this approach is that the brain can never relax into an automatic way of eating, and not everyone can resume so easily. Many gain weight with this approach, and often this is risky for those who are susceptible to the pull of prior foods and habits around eating.
5. I already know what to do. I just need to feel like doing it. Thompson’s research indicates that an identity shift comes from the repetitive use of a successful system. Devotion to a system includes the right foods, brain-supporting habits, and engaging in daily abstinence support, rather than just following a diet.(3) Ongoing repetition of a full system greatly increases the probability that you can stay on track.
6. I don’t need to advocate for myself if I’m just eating out once in a while. While eating out just once in a while might not throw you off, it can. Many restaurants include large quantities of oil, salt, flour, sugar, and dressings that add to flavor but also add to your waistline. Learning to ask questions and get specific about what you order is a skill set that could prove critical for those who eat out while attempting to maintain weight loss.
7. A little bit of sugar and flour is OK, especially if it is in a protein bar. Thompson explains that people deceive themselves by ingesting processed foods, especially sugar and flour, which hijack susceptible brains. She advocates abstinence, writing down and fully following each day’s meal plan the night before so as to reduce decision fatigue and increase willpower. Daily supportive connections accompany the application of principles of positive psychology.
8. I’m losing weight, so I’m not going to adjust my food intake before I reach my goal. Thompson explains that while a small percentage of people might be able to achieve maintenance in this fashion, most people cannot. In fact, according to her research, for most, it is a sure path for regaining the weight. She explained that as the body loses weight, changes in adiposity necessitate the addition of food so that we are not overly hungry or fatigued, states that can lead to eating off plan and weight regain.
9. If I criticize myself when I falter, that’ll keep me on my plan more than being nice to myself. In actuality, self-criticism can lead to shame, embarrassment, anxiety, and low moods that diminish the emotional energy supply needed to shop and prepare for healthy meals. Self-perception theory shows that we draw conclusions based upon what we observe ourselves to do.(5) Says Thompson, “As people have success in eating healthy, they start to conclude, ‘I do love myself, I am trustworthy, I do have willpower, I don’t have such deep-seated psychological issues that I can’t treat myself well.’”
10. I don’t need therapy, I just need to follow a good diet. In her book, Thompson teaches that becoming emotionally resourced, including practices such as self-compassion and gratitude, is part of a second helpful identity shift that takes place in people who are successful at maintaining weight loss. Though you might not need therapy, often, people benefit from “doing the inner work,” according to Thompson. Emotional eating, for example, can be due to challenges with emotional dysregulation, difficulty with affect labeling (due to a poor emotional vocabulary), and conflating emotional cues with hunger. Interrupting the pattern includes learning a new relationship with one’s emotions.

As you consider the myths, you’ll begin to see that help is available if you’re willing to learn to play the long game.