The Code Red Lifestyle™’s one of the few programs out there that offers dedicated maintenance training.
My book, The Code Red Revolution, talks about it. I also offer maintenance coaching and support.
People are understandably curious about maintenance on Code Red. I don’t get into it a whole lot outside of the maintenance coaching group, because I want people to focus on losing their weight first. It’s so easy to borrow trouble and worry about keeping the weight off when you haven’t even lost it all, and I’ve seen clients get so worked up over worrying about it that they sabotage even reaching goal weight.
But in this blog post, I am gonna touch on one facet of maintenance that a lot of people have questions about: Reintroducing foods.
I teach a simple strategy to reintroduce foods without gaining your weight back. It’s really cut and dry in terms of what you do.
(To be clear, you ain’t ever going back to your old ways. Maintenance on Code Red is NOT about returning to the eating habits that led to your weight and obesity problems in the first place, got it?)
As Rebels in maintenance reintroduce foods, they discover what we call not worth it foods.
These are foods that, when you reintroduce them, one of two things happen:
1) You feel so horrible, physically, that it’s not worth it to eat the food. This is usually something from the foods to avoid in weight loss side of the foods list.
2) The food triggers you, and it takes a TON of willpower and bandwidth not to go crazy eating it. It’s so exhausting that it’s easier to not eat it than to fight the craving all the time.
On foods that rigger you, they may or may not be on the foods to avoid side of the list. Sometimes a Code Red-approved food you love can trigger you to wanna binge on it.
For example, one of the foods I have to be careful with are tortilla chips. I could easily inhale a whole bag of those things, but it would upset my stomach. For me, they’re a not worth it food. I don’t like how I feel, and I also don’t like fighting off that dang craving.
Maintenance as a Code Red Rebel is REALLY fun and sustainable. Yet being in maintenance doesn’t mean you get to be complacent. It means that you plan your choices, and if your weight goes up from reintroducing a food, you know how to get it back down. You’re forever FREE from the fear of gaining your weight back, because if you reach maintenance, you clearly know exactly what it takes to get the weight off.
If you’re not yet in maintenance, Iet that reassure you.
And keep following the program so you can get your weight off and be done with the weight loss mountain once and for all!