Exercise is an essential part of your maintenance phase. But at this stage, now that you’ve already achieved significant weight loss, it’s not about pushing yourself, it’s about keeping up progress.
You’re already well on your way to achieving your main goal, getting down to a healthy weight. Now it’s time to design a routine and habit stack that can comfortably fit into your new life.
The key to maintenance is a mindset shift. Let’s unpack the best ways to hone your mindset, daily habits, and routines to help keep you feeling and looking confident and strong.
Three key takeaways:
Exercise during your maintenance phase is about confidence, energy, and muscle mass support, not pushing yourself too hard.
Small, consistent movement habits tend to work better than intense routines, as you’re more likely to stick to them, making them easier to sustain.
Building muscle can lead to slight weight gain, due to muscle’s density, but not body fat gain. The numbers on the scale may go up slightly, but muscle gain improves long-term results and body tone.
Shifting into a maintenance mindset
The maintenance phase is all about shifting from a mindset of overhaul into one of longevity. You’ve already seen positive weight loss results and may even have reached your goal weight. Now it’s time to protect what you’ve built.
This phase is all about preserving the results of your hard work and building a routine that’s enjoyable enough for you to sustain long-term.
Give yourself permission to enjoy your new, healthier weight. Don’t think of movement as a chore that you need to perform to keep your weight down. Think of it as a way of celebrating how good it feels being in a healthier body that you’ve worked so hard to create.
Getting into the mindset for exercise
Similarly to passing any milestone you’ve long worked toward, it’s common to feel mixed emotions once you’ve reached your weight loss targets. You might feel relieved, fatigued, or worried about slipping back into your old habits and regaining weight.
The best way to help yourself feel in control and lock in the results of your hard work is to start thinking of exercise as part of your daily maintenance toolkit in the long-term.
Try to view staying physically active as part of a lifelong continuation of the steps you’ve already taken on your health journey, not a temporary solution to a problem.
Build physical activity into your daily routine in ways large and small. You’re not moving to drive big physical changes or to burn off calories, you’re moving for improved muscle mass, higher energy, better mood, quality sleep, and a sense of balance.
Best types of exercise for maintenance
The best exercise program for maintenance is one that combines both strength training and cardio, as both have important benefits.
Strength Training
The key benefit of strength training for the maintenance phase is that it helps to build and preserve muscle. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, even while resting.
If you’re losing weight, you’ll typically lose some muscle along with the body fat you’re working to reduce.
This is normal and nothing to worry about, but less muscle makes your body less efficient at calorie burning, so it helps to build and preserve muscle to keep body fat weight off in the long term.
More muscle mass also often leads to more aesthetic body composition for most people. Just two sessions a week can help you build strength that lasts. You can learn more about how to preserve muscle mass while using weight loss injections in our full guide, here.
Strength exercises you can try at home include:
Bodyweight exercises: like squats, planks, press-ups, pull-ups, dips, ab crunches, and sit-ups
Resistance bands: lightweight, convenient, affordable and portable, these rubber bands fit easily into a bag, if you want to work out while travelling, and add resistance to movements. So, you can perform the same exercises you would with weights; like bicep curls, chest press, leg press, lateral raises, and tricep extensions.
Yoga and Pilates: great for flexibility and balance as well as strength, you can perform yoga poses and Pilates exercises at home without equipment. And if you need some instruction and don't have time to take a class, there are plenty of free instructional videos online.
Steady Cardio and Active Living
Cardio has many health benefits. As well as helping you burn calories to keep weight off, it also improves your:
heart health
lung health
blood sugar control
blood pressure
circulation
sleep
Cardio exercises can also be more gentle and easier to work into your everyday routine than strength training exercises, as a lot of things you may already be doing count as cardio.
Walking, cycling, swimming, and dancing are all great ways to get your blood pumping that don’t require active-wear or a gym subscription.
Habit-Based Movement
One way to get yourself moving and stay active without reaching for the gym bag and leg warmers is to practice ‘NEAT’ cardio.
NEAT stands for ‘non-exercise activity thermogenesis’. Thermogenesis is when your body produces heat, which helps you burn calories.
You can incorporate NEAT activities into your day without the need to set aside extra time for structured exercise, making them a great choice for sustainable habits that deliver positive health impact. Some of them you’re probably doing already.
NEAT activities you can make daily habits include:
walking to work
taking the stairs instead of using lifts
cleaning the house
gardening
cooking
fidgeting
squeezing a stress ball
typing
playing with your kids
doing DIY
chewing gum
Building muscle and what it means for the scale
Muscle tissue is denser than fat, meaning it weighs more.
So, if you’re doing strength training and building muscle, you might notice the numbers on the scale creeping back up slightly during your maintenance phase.
At first, this might seem like something to be wary of, but weight gain from muscle building is nothing to fear. In fact, it’s a positive sign of progress and good health.
Although we use the term ‘weight loss’ to describe the part of your health journey that focuses on slimming down size-wise, what we really mean is ‘fat loss’.
Building a little muscle along the way is actually a good thing. Carrying more muscle improves your:
mobility
strength
posture
body mechanics
insulin sensitivity
injury risk
That’s why bodybuilders call the muscle mass they strive to develop ‘gains’.
When you lose fat and gain muscle, this is called ‘body recomposition’. This is actually a more accurate term for the goal of most diet and exercise plans than ‘weight loss’.
So, if you’re noticing your weight has increased slightly, but you’re not seeing yourself carrying extra body fat when you look in the mirror, it may just be that your denser muscle tissue is the answer.
Healthy weight gain as part of strength progress
You may end up gaining several pounds as you build muscle to help you keep body fat off.
If you’re finding the numbers on the scale going up as a by-product of your strength training - and you’re worried about how much of it is muscle as opposed to fat - it helps to find other ways of measuring your progress.
Besides simply weighing yourself, you can try assessing your body composition through alternative methods like:
measuring your waist, thigh, and upper arm circumference using measuring tape
taking photos of yourself on a weekly or monthly basis, to see how your body’s changed
using strength milestones, like how much weight you can lift for a certain movement (called your ‘one-rep max’) or how many reps you can do of a certain load, to mark progressions in your strength training
How much exercise do you actually need?
According to the NHS, adults should do two sessions per week of strength training exercises that target all the major muscle groups:
legs
hips
back
core
chest
shoulders
arms
You also need around 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic activity.
Examples of moderate intensity activities include:
aqua aerobics
brisk walking
cycling
dancing
doubles tennis
hiking
pushing a lawn mower
rollerblading
Examples of vigorous activities include:
aerobics
cycling fast or uphill
gymnastics
martial arts
running
skipping rope
swimming
team sports like football, rugby, netball, and hockey
walking up stairs
You don’t need to get your weekly 150 minutes (or 75 minutes of vigorous activity) all at once, though. If it works better for your schedule, you can break this up into 15–30-minute blocks throughout the week.
“The easiest exercise routine to stick to is the one that has the fewest obstacles to starting. If you plan on joining a gym, join one that’s as close to your home or work as possible. You’re more likely to go if it’s already on your way. If you want to do some movement snacking while working from home, put a yoga mat or some resistance bands next to your desk. If you want to go for morning runs, lay out your running clothes, shoes, and water bottle next to your bed the night before. Starting is often the hardest part, so hack your environment to make starting as low-effort as possible.”
One of the biggest barriers to sticking to any exercise routine is finding both the time and the motivation.
Let’s be realistic, you’re not always going to walk through the door after a hard day’s work and be in the mood to work out instead of flopping on the sofa to binge your shows. The exercise routine that will work for you during maintenance is the one that you’ll stick to.
One way to make sure you get some physical activity every day is to use ‘movement snacks’. ‘Movement snacks’ are micro-workouts; short, frequent bursts of movement in a ‘snackable’ format that makes it easy to fit around other activities in just a few minutes.
Examples of movement snacks could include:
doing stretches while watching TV
dancing while doing chores
jogging on the spot while waiting for the kettle to boil
doing push-ups during ad breaks in shows
standing on one leg while brushing your teeth
walking up and down the stairs for a few minutes
going for a walk while calling a friend or listening to a podcast
Frequently asked questions
Do I need intense exercise to maintain weight?
No, you don’t necessarily need to exercise intensely to maintain your weight. You can break exercise into short bursts of just a few minutes throughout the day to keep burning calories, or do longer sessions of more moderate activity like walking.
Can walking alone be enough?
Yes, walking can be enough to maintain your weight by itself, so long as you’re getting enough steps in to offset the calories you eat. You could also try brisk walking or ‘rucking’, which is walking while carrying extra weight, like a heavy backpack.
Is it normal to gain a little weight when building strength?
Yes, it’s normal for some people to gain weight when building strength. However, this weight is unlikely to be fat. It’s more likely due to building new muscle mass, which is denser than fat.
What if I’m scared of losing control after stopping intense workouts?
You don’t have to stick to one exercise type or routine. If you feel more comfortable exercising intensely, you can stick to that. You can also try more gentle workouts and measure your progress to see if you regain weight, tweaking your workouts as needed.
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