Chapter Four
EMBRACING THE NEW YOU: MASTERING MAINTENANCE
A huge congratulations! Completing your Extreme Transformation is an incredible feat. It is physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging—yet unbelievably empowering in every aspect of your life. Along the way, you’ve lost the weight, you’ve come to feel more energetic, and most importantly you have created love and belief in yourself! You now know that you can do anything you set your mind to… and that you’ve been worth it all along. We are so proud of you.
You’ve been working the lessons like a warrior and we know that you feel accomplished and alive. But just like all things in life that are of value, this incredible sense of self-esteem, confidence, and love will not last forever—unless you work at it. That’s what real maintenance is all about.
First, let’s define what maintenance means: It’s “an active process of ensuring that the necessities for a new or current state continue.” Just as it takes nourishment and maintenance to keep your lawn green and your flowers in bloom, it also takes nourishment and maintenance to keep this new state of awesomeness you are now living. You must actively eat and exercise to stay at the weight you have achieved. You must also practice the lessons of transformation daily. Maintenance doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process—it takes just minutes a day—but the fact remains that you still need to be beneficially selfish and spend some time and energy on yourself and your well-being every day.
In this chapter, we will lay out for you the pitfalls ahead, tell you what to expect, and help you create a bulletproof strategy to keep the weight off for years to come.
So here we are at a proverbial fork in the road. If you go in one direction, it will lead you right back to where you were. The frustration, the depression, the weight.
If you go in the other direction, it will lead you to a life of new food and physical experiences, new opportunities, and new possibilities at your ideal weight. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now, you’ll still be living life at a lean and healthy weight. It is totally possible.
If you choose to continue in the direction that will lead to a fit and healthy life, we say this: Welcome to your new normal! Let’s explore this new journey—to sustain your weight loss, live a happy, balanced life, and integrate some of our best tricks of the trade to handle the inevitable obstacles and challenges that lie ahead.
Read closely. This is how we do it.
ACTIONS FOR MAINTENANCE
These 8 Actions will help you maintain your weight loss and feel great!
All of us need direction. We constantly need something to work toward. Without a goal, a purpose, it’s easy to slip into a state of despair. And in despair we quickly find ourselves grasping for the comforts we once relied on to feel good and back in the grips of our vice—food.
To avoid this situation, immediately upon reaching your weight loss goal you need to have the next goal in place. Our brain needs something to strive for and a new goal or purpose to keep us happy. Think of it like that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Indiana Jones has to quickly switch out the gold statue with a sandbag—we’ve got to quickly trade your addiction again into something your brain likes for maintenance.
Over your weight loss journey, you have felt the thrill of seeing the numbers drop on the scale and squeezing into new clothes. You received accolades from your family, friends, and co-workers on a regular basis. These are payoffs you experience on a regular basis—and your brain processes these payoffs as rewards. As Bruce recalls, “Losing weight was awesome because it was always high fives and hugs from everyone. Now, nobody ever comes up to me and says, ‘Bro! You’re killing it in maintenance!’ Or, ‘Great job. You look the same!’” Now it’s time to maintain because the compliments will most likely dwindle or even stop. Your clothing size will probably regulate. And the number on the scale will more or less remain the same. The satisfaction that you gained from these changes will begin to peter out and the reality of maintenance will set in.
For many, the thought of regular daily workouts for the rest of their lives can feel daunting—like an endless cycle. Let’s be honest, working out just to work out can often seem more like torture. But training for something is totally different! We train for a payoff. Everyone we coach through maintenance continues to train for something to keep it fun and exciting—they regularly sign up for community events like 5Ks, triathlons, marathons, mud runs—any kind of activity to keep them getting fitter, feeling better, and thriving in their fitness community… but most important to keep them training toward another goal.
So what do you want to do?
Increase your strength? Get six-pack abs? Run a marathon? Enter a bodybuilding contest or a CrossFit competition? Rock a slammin’ body for spring break or your upcoming vacay? Your goals are limitless, and the best part is that once you reach one goal, you will always have another within reach! Whatever you choose, declare a new goal now, and make it SMART!
What are you going to accomplish next?
What does it look like? (Describe what it will take to achieve this goal and how you will feel when you reach it.)
When are you going to accomplish it?
Once again, surround yourself with reminders of what you will achieve next and let everyone know your new commitment. Place pictures, clothes, whatever around your house, car, workplace… everywhere!
If it’s an event, sign up weeks or months in advance. Heck, sign up for several!
Chris Tip 
Aside from physical fitness goals, there are other incredibly powerful motivators to help engrain the maintenance lifestyle:
- Date other fitness-minded people.
- Start a weight loss website or blog.
- Begin a new career that supports your new lifestyle.
- Get involved with your community, charity, or church.
As dedicated foodies, Hannah and her husband had to replace almost all of their social activities involving food. Instead of chasing the best new restaurant, they joined a basketball league and play sand volleyball Wednesday nights. They also joined an online culinary course to learn healthy new recipes that fit into their new lifestyle!
The more you can submerge yourself in the fitness community, the greater your chances for lifelong success… oh, and you’ll also meet the nicest, friendliest, most caring people in the world!
Review Your Support System
You’ve had at least 21 days to help identify who’s really on your team, including your superfriend. Maybe some of your teammates have come and some have gone in that time. Whoever is on your team now will be needed just as much or more during maintenance! Sit down and communicate openly with them about your new goals and aspirations. Get them involved. They can even commit to your new maintenance activities and goals with you!
Keep Doing the Extreme Cycle
Here’s the deal. Your body still needs real, whole natural food. You still need to eat five times a day and drink plenty of water. This is for your overall health and well-being! Guys, you will need approximately 2,000 to 2,500 calories to maintain. This number can increase to 2,500 to 3,000 after about six months as your body stabilizes.
Ladies, you need approximately 1,500 calories to maintain. This number can go up to between 1,700 to 2,000 calories after six months as your body stabilizes.
The number of calories goes up or down according to how much you exercise on a daily and weekly basis, and your new physique or fitness goals.
Following the Extreme Cycle during maintenance will keep you eating five meals every day, each made up of good-quality food, and drinking plenty of water. However, there is more flexibility for introducing new foods into your lifestyle. During maintenance (and weight loss) we strongly recommend downloading a calorie tracker on your phone to monitor your daily food intake. New trackers are insanely easy to use and take literally seconds to log your food. This is what we have all of our participants do, and they swear by it!
And don’t worry: Reset days and meals will still exist. Your body and mind will get the foods they need and crave to avoid that feeling of deprivation, even during maintenance.
Select Your Reset Meals with Lifestyle Layers
The reset meal structure of the 21-Day Extreme Cycle may have worked perfectly for you. If rewarding yourself once a week after six days of clean eating felt good emotionally, physically, and mentally, then do not change how you reward yourself. However, if you felt deprived or restricted at all during the actual weight loss portion of the Extreme Cycle, and you feel hesitant about your ability to succeed and continue with this structure in maintenance, then it may be time to change things up a little for this next phase. Do not worry.
In this new phase of life, it is acceptable to customize your reward days, following the guidelines below, so that you feel completely physically satiated, fulfilled, and satisfied. Otherwise, maintenance will be difficult to sustain.
We call these regular rewards that are laced throughout our days “Lifestyle Layers.” The layering concept relates to the idea that you will simply “lay down” more and more rewards throughout your day and week until you feel totally satisfied throughout your days, giving you the confidence to make it a long-term lifestyle.
Choose Your Layers
Decide how many layers work for you. Here are your options:
- Once a Week—If you felt totally satisfied while Extreme Cycling and can maintain that pattern indefinitely, then feel free to indulge in a big reward day once a week… for life!
- Twice a Week—Pick two days to reward yourself. Try splitting them up, like Wednesday and Sunday.
- Every Other Day—If you can’t have it today, you can always have it tomorrow!
- One to Three “Daily Hugs” a Day—First thing in the morning or later in the day, a small daily reward or two always gives us something to look forward to. Think a sugar-free candy, or low-cal specialty coffee.
Heidi Tip 
If at any time during maintenance you find the number on the scale creeping back up, simply remove one or two of your Lifestyle Layers and Extreme Cycle yourself right back down. You did it once, you can do it again!
Plan Your Rewards
When it’s time to indulge during maintenance, don’t blindly wander through the days succumbing to drive-thrus and donuts that Bob from accounting brought into the office. You’ll quickly find yourself pushing the parameters of maintenance.
When you plan your Lifestyle Layers, put some thought into it and treat yourself to some quality eats—because you deserve it. Maybe it’s some dark chocolate, or a caramel latte from a fancy coffee shop. Think about your five favorite reward foods and list them with the portion you feel comfortable eating. Next, using the new calorie tracking app that we requested you to download, write the calorie impact of that food on the right hand side.
Not that you have to eat from this list all of the time, but whatever you choose to indulge in, know the calorie impact and how it fits into your daily maintenance range.
Keep Moving
For exercise, you should continue to do at least 30 minutes of moderate to intense activity daily. However, if 30 minutes is not attainable every day, then reduce your commitment to something you know you can do.
Maybe just start by Accelerating for 5 to 15 minutes a day again. Maybe just do one Metabolic Mission a day instead of Accelerators. As long as you keep your promises and keep moving, you will win in the long run!
Weigh In Daily
During maintenance, weigh-ins change. It is extremely important that you weigh in at the beginning of every day. Start your day creating an awareness for the maintenance task at hand. While this advice may be controversial for some who worry about fixating on the scale, research has recently found that those who weigh in daily keep the weight off longer—or for life. You choose!
INTEGRITY IS ALWAYS THE SECRET
Building your integrity is the true secret path to dignity and ultimately losing the weight—and it is the exact same for maintenance. In this new chapter of your life, we set new goals, make new commitments and promises, and keep them every day. Just as keeping these promises will propel you to an extraordinary way of life and well-being, breaking these promises will do the exact opposite—they will completely derail you. Whether losing weight or keeping it off forever, your ultimate well-being will always boil down to this:
Integrity: Do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it.
One Broken Promise Can Lead to Backslide
A lot of people lose weight. Many of them gain it back. We’ve all seen it—maybe it was a friend, a family member, a co-worker, or possibly even you.
We are going to teach you something very important here: Every single weight regain can be traced back to a single broken promise—a time when you didn’t do what you said you were going to do, which was then followed by an internal dialogue of excuses and lies to continue to rationalize the destructive behavior. The following is a typical story of weight regain. We have dissected it so that you can see the moment integrity was broken, and how quickly the internal dialogue enabled a destructive behavior. Pay close attention; it may seem eerily familiar!
Shari’s Story
Shari lost 62 pounds over six months following the Extreme Cycle and Metabolic Missions.
Her promise: “In maintenance, I will continue to follow the Extreme Cycle and Metabolic Missions with my new added daily Lifestyle Layers to keep me satisfied and fulfilled.”
Her reality: “A few weeks after hitting my goal, I felt good and on top of the world. I felt like I had weight loss and maintenance all figured out and nothing could take me down. One night, I was at a work cocktail party and kept making trips back to the bar and buffet, even though it was way off my maintenance plan and far beyond my Lifestyle Layers.”
Her internal excuse: “I am in better shape than most of these people. I deserve to indulge here and there.”
Her downslide: “A couple of days later, I was starving and stopped at a fast-food drive-thru for lunch.”
Her internal excuse: “I’ve got this. C’mon, I’ve lost 62 pounds. I know what I’m doing. Plus, I worked out today.”
Her further downslide: “Fast food once a day became a daily routine for me beyond my Daily Hugs and then led to more splurges in the evening. My clothes started to get tight and I was too terrified to step on the scale.”
Her internal lie: “It isn’t about the number on the scale anymore for me, it’s about how I look and feel.”
A further downslide: “Just a couple of months later I mustered up the courage to step on the scale after my clothes weren’t fitting anymore, and I had gained 43 pounds back.”
Reading the story, you can see numerous lessons of transformation popping out: Shari lost sight of the hidden path, she’s not keeping her promises, she’s not being vulnerable and authentic, she’s not falling without failing to stop the downslide… the list goes on!
Whether it’s eating a whole bucket of popcorn at the movies or finishing half of a pizza at your kid’s party—the rules of maintenance are the same as the rules of weight loss: To get back on track and prevent sliding further downward, you must confess, reassess, and recommit. You must be aware of the dangerous internal conversations that follow the broken promise, full of excuses and lies. Because it always leads back to the bingeing, back to the loss of control, and back to the old you.
Nobody wants to be that cautionary tale of weight regain. We hope we’ve got your attention because this is the unfortunate and all-too-common reality of life after weight loss. The good news is that with your awareness, it doesn’t have to happen!
BEWARE YOUR INNER VOICE
Sometimes the first slip-up (broken promise) in maintenance is a mistake and not intentional. Sometimes it happens and we don’t even realize it until later. Sometimes it seems so minuscule that you’d only be wasting someone’s time to tell them about it. Doesn’t matter. Once you identify the broken promise, it has to be healed. Heck, a quick phone call or three-line text to a superfriend can upright the ship in a heartbeat.
Messed up. Ate way too much and feel horrible about it. Recommitting now and will keep my promise to eat on plan.
However, if the confession doesn’t happen and you begin to find yourself slipping more and more… let “internal dialogue warnings” help identify when you are in a downslide situation. Here are some more dangerous internal excuses and lies that you should be aware of, and their inevitable reality. They can, and probably will, come up any day in maintenance:
Internal Dialogue: “It’s finally over and I can go back to ‘normal.’”
Reality: Don’t forget where your old normal got you in the first place. You’ll gain most, if not all, of the weight back. This way of living should be your new normal!
Internal Dialogue: “I’m going to do a muscle-bulking phase.”
Reality: Addicts usually can’t bulk under control. You’ll be up 50 pounds before you know it. (See Lesson 20, Triggers and Tactics.)
Internal Dialogue: “I’ll adjust my maintenance window 10 pounds higher because I like the way I am now.”
Reality: You’re only saying this because you’ve gained weight and don’t want to put in the work to get back to your true 10-pound window. You’re in a dangerous mind-set here. You’re protecting your addiction, and will raise the window again as you keep gaining weight back.
Internal Dialogue: “It’ll be nice to have some curves back.”
Reality: Those aren’t curves, it’s body fat. If you want curves, lift some weight and make them real curves.
Internal Dialogue: “I messed up, but I’m an inspiration. I can’t let them down by admitting my mistakes. They’ll think less of me.”
Reality: Don’t get so stuck in an identity that prevents you from being great—true heroes confess, reassess, and recommit. (See Lesson 9, Be Open, Honest, and Vulnerable.) Trust us. You might be surprised at the support others give when you are authentic and share your mistakes—even coming from someone whom they consider an inspiration.
Internal Dialogue: “I saw Becky eating that junk food and she looks amazing! If she can eat that way, then I can, too, and get away with it.”
Reality: You don’t know exactly how much Becky eats or exercises during the day, so you cannot assume she’s “getting away” with anything. Plus, if Becky is early in maintenance, she may be starting a slippery downward spiral. Addicts feed off other addicts to rationalize and fuel destructive behavior. Be careful.
Internal Dialogue: “I can eat this because at least I’m still smaller than Terry.”
Reality: You are comparing yourself to others’ weaknesses to rationalize and protect your own destructive behavior. That’s not okay. You are better than that and you know it. (See Lesson 8: Believe in Yourself.)
Internal Dialogue: “I worked out extra hard today, so I’ve earned additional calories.”
Reality: If it isn’t one of your Daily Hugs, you haven’t earned it. Be careful. Justification after a hard workout is a trap we can get caught in all too often. See Lesson 20: Triggers and Tactics.
What’s our point here? Your inner dialogue will be around forever. Stay in touch with it and be on the lookout for negative self-talk, excuses, and other ways to rationalize breaking promises to yourself. If you’re human like us, temptation will spark the voice every day. The moral of the story is that your promises always come first. If you end up breaking a promise, the downward spiral begins. Remember: The downward spiral doesn’t have to continue. Simply confess, reassess, recommit, and get back on track to the rest of your life.
As you embark upon a whole new journey of maintenance, take to heart the powerful and universal lessons you learned during your weight loss journey. We strongly advise you to re-learn, re-love, and re-live the 21 powerful lessons you learned during your weight loss, because they apply to your maintenance success as well! We reflect on at least one lesson every day. As Dr. Holly likes to remind our Extreme Weight Loss peeps, “Maintenance is a process even greater than weight loss.” As her research indicates, people who not only lose weight but keep it off are those who “master” the lessons in maintenance.
Keep in mind that nobody does maintenance perfectly. However, as long as you stay connected with your support team, declare your goals, keep your promises, and stay true and vulnerable with yourself and your lifelong transformation journey, then you will always succeed. The journey of maintenance is nearly identical to the journey of weight loss. The only difference is a new goal and a few more calories. That’s it.
A heartfelt welcome to the rest of your life. A 
Chris & Heidi