Why Maintaining Your Weight is Worth Celebrating

Maintaining your weight isn't just a stagnant phase in your health journey; it's a powerful win that deserves recognition. I always say that there's a season of life when you're going to push and there's a season of life where you're just going to sit still. No one can be in push energy all the time.

We have just had to navigate the holiday period – and part of that might have included eating foods you wouldn’t normally eat or going out for meals with family. But it’s not a problem if that means the scale stays the same – and it’s certainly not a failure. In fact, it’s an integral part of living a balanced and fulfilling life.

In this episode, we look at why weight maintenance is a win that should be celebrated and why it’s so important to diversify our focus beyond the scale.

References

InBody scale

Audio Stamps

01:42 - The holiday season can sometimes mean that you're not continuing to lose weight but that is NOT a failure.

02:34 - It is not normal or sustainable to be in push energy all of the time.

05:12 - When it comes to working on your metabolic health, somehow everyone expects there's always going to be perfection but it is totally normal to have periods of maintaining your weight. 

05:55 - We find out why we need to look at things other than just what the scale is doing.

08:09 - If you are maintaining, it means that you've achieved some level of equilibrium. It is not a problem, it’s a success.

Pull Quotes

“It is totally fine, normal and natural for you to have periods of maintaining. That's actually a massive success.” - Matthea Rentea MD

“We need to look at things other than just what the scale is doing. And just because the scale number is staying steady, that does not mean that your body is staying steady.” - Matthea Rentea MD

“It's not a problem if you're maintaining, it's actually incredibly hard for people to maintain their weight. And so this is a massive win.” - Matthea Rentea MD

“We've got to start realizing that it's not normal for your body to constantly be releasing weight.” - Matthea Rentea MD

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

Transcript

0:29

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Recently I have felt a lot more on this podcast, like just doing smaller episodes that are super relevant to what is going on at that moment around me and with my patients and something that I've been seeing again and again, I always joke that there's always a theme for the week. So either Everybody's having side effects, or everybody's losing big amounts of weight, or everybody's maintaining and having problems with that. So usually there's a theme to the week. This week, the theme has been, and this is quite classic by the way, because I record these podcasts a few weeks before they go out. So this is going to come out likely sometime in January, but The theme here is that maintenance is a win. I want to just double back if you're newer to me, I love that every day we have new people that listen to the podcast and first of all, welcome. You're in the right place. If you openly want to look at metabolic health, Part of that potentially being weight maintenance. You don't want to be judged for it. You don't think that shrinking your body inherently makes you better or solves all problems. We know that chronic illnesses exist in any body shape or size and that necessarily getting thinner does not necessarily solve all of that. Okay. So to come back to maintenance being a win, a lot of the times we have just been going through the holiday period. And part of what I really work with my patients on is that I want them to have whatever they perceive as a normal or healthy relationship with food. And part of that might be that over the holiday time, you might make Cookies with the kids and after they come out, you might have a fresh hot cookie and that might be something that is important to you that you want to do. Maybe you have a meal with family, things like that. Now part of that can sometimes mean that you're not continuing to lose weight during those periods. Maybe it means that there are some, I like to use the word indiscretion, some dietary indiscretions. that are occurring that you normally would not partake in, and that is not a problem. That is not a failure. That is not you not being able to do this. I always say that there's a season of life when you're going to push and there's a season of life where you're just going to sit still. It is not normal to be in push energy. I want you to imagine in football, I'm going to talk us here for a second with football. When kids are practicing they have these things to push, like these black, like, dummy, I don't, I'm not in sports, okay, these black, like, dummy things, I'm sure there's a name for them, and they're literally, like, dug in the ground, and these kids are, are supposed to kind of push them and, and make them go forward, and they're practicing how to do this resistance, how to, like, keep going against all this resistance, right? And I want you to imagine that's a small part of their practice. The rest of the time they're doing a lot of other diversified things. And so I just want to bring up here that every season of your life is not supposed to be hard and a struggle. There are periods where you can really commit to, yeah, I'm going to do a lot of changes. I'm going to implement a lot of new things. I'm going to give you an example. Sometimes I just have patients where they truly just come in with all the energy in the world and that's not a problem. They are really. Go getters. By the way, we don't all need to be made this way. I'm not this way. They want to go all in on the exercise and all in on the videos and all in on the dietary changes. And they're just in everything. That's amazing for that person, but that's not everyone's path. So that person will change a million things all at once. They are in push energy during that season. I'm here to tell you, they cannot sustain that. So part of my goal when they come in is that I sit down and I say to them, listen. I, I want you to notice all these things you're doing, and usually it's a personality type, by the way. And I say that's great, but when I look back on the things you're telling me, you could not sustain it. And so from here on out, I want us to figure out, can you keep doing this stuff or do we need to start actively modifying right now? But my point is this, no one is in push energy all the time, by the way. Two things that I think of when people are constantly in that type of energy. Number one. cancer. So cancers grow unobstructed. They literally will kill things around it in the name of growth. So that's not normal. And then number two, I think about with mental health. I think about mania when someone is truly thinking that they're on top of the world and they don't need sleep and they can accomplish everything. And it's actually dangerous. The type of things that they think they can do. They might spend all the money in the house. They might be having relationships with people that are not good for them. They might physically be getting into dangerous situations. Transcribed And they think they've solved all the problems of the world. It's called mania. Those are not normal scenarios yet when it comes to working on your metabolic health, somehow everyone thinks that all the time you're going to be busting it, that there's always going to be perfection, all these things, not true, not reality. So what I want to go over here is that it is totally fine, normal and natural for you to have periods of maintaining. That's actually a massive success. So I want to throw out there. The scale has not moved for you in a long time. I truly don't care because the question is, do you like the things that you are doing? Do you like the way in which you're eating? Are you proud of how you're moving the water that you're drinking? Or do you think that there's something there that you could up, up level and work on a little bit? Then that is where your energy should go. I am a very big fan also of looking at body composition. And so everyone is just obsessed with the scale. And one thing I want to point out is once you get to these lower BMI numbers, which I'm just going to classify as anything sort of like a BMI 28 or under, what I typically see is that If you're really fit and you're working out a lot and you're doing all that, sometimes just for the quote unquote, the scale number to go down, you're going to sacrifice a lot of muscle mass. And so it's not relevant. Only what that scale number is doing. This is why if someone can't afford the in body scale, that's one where I, if my patients have that, I can go over the numbers with them and I can really help them to interpret kind of month to month. Is the scale going down? Is it happening at the cost of their muscle? Or is it still okay how it's happening? And I interpret those numbers with them. If they can't do that, because the scale is quite pricey. It's like 300 something. Again, I'm not affiliated with it. Over Black Friday, it's 200 something. But If they can't get that, then we'll rely on body measurements, which is a pretty good proxy as well. But the point is we need to look at things other than just what the scale is doing. And just because the scale number is staying steady, that does not mean that your body is staying steady. I had a patient tell me this past week, yeah, this past month, that in the past month, the scale had stayed the same, but their inches are going down. These are the type of things that if you're only focused on one number and you're heat missile dead on it, you're going to say, Oh, this thing isn't changing. And then that means I'm a failure. And you almost want to give up on these things. We've got to start realizing that it's not normal for your body to constantly be releasing weight. That might actually mean that you're in this. I want you to look at, can that be a win? That it's staying stable? Can there actually be a lot else at play here that I'm not realizing? Are there other things that I could focus on? Because often I find if you're really only wanting the scale number to go down, that's the only thing you're trying to make happen. You're not really focused on. So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how you're making it happen, like really like marrying the journey. Like I like what I'm doing and I like where I'm getting to and I'm, I'm actually feeling better and stronger in my body, all those kinds of things. So today the whole message is, it's not a problem if you're maintaining, it's actually incredibly hard for people to maintain their weight. And so this is a massive win. I've just had so many people this week where they've been maintaining their weight, but they look back and they tell me, but I did all this and that with the holidays and they had multiple birthdays and they traveled and never in their life have they gone through a season. where they were able to keep these things steady during that time, and that is incredibly hopeful for them because they've learned to look at it in a different way. So remember when you're at maintenance, it just means that you're supporting your body right at that level. It might mean that there are other shifts occurring in your body, and so you need to stay alert. So again, if you are maintaining, congratulations, because that means that you've achieved some level of equilibrium, some level of it working for you at the moment. That is not a problem. I'm going to leave it there. I want to remind you if you're loving this podcast, please leave a review wherever you're listening. It really helps us to be able to grow this podcast and get to other people. All right. Hope you have a great rest of the week.