Why Does Weight Maintenance Feel So Boring After Fat Loss?

Nikkiey: Maintenance doesn't give you that same rush that fat loss gave you. Fat loss is so exciting. Every week the scale drops, your clothes fit better, people are complimenting you when you walk into the gym, or your friends are like, holy cow, you look different from the last time that I saw you. You feel like a total badass. But in maintenance, the scale stays the same, your progress photos probably barely change, and you're doing the same things without that dopamine payoff on a daily or weekly basis.

What's up, you guys? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome, my friends, to episode number 285. Today, what we're going to talk about is not sexy. It's not flashy. It doesn't go viral on social media.

I want to talk to you guys about the phase after fat loss. I want to talk to you guys about maintenance. And before we even dive into this topic, I want to give you guys a story, because maybe some of you will resonate with this. Back in the days of me bodybuilding, this is one phase that I could never... actually, I shouldn't say never, because I finally have. I couldn't seem to grasp how to conquer it. I couldn't seem to grasp how to get through it successfully.

When I came out of my first bodybuilding show, I gained back 25 pounds in one month because I went back to old habits. And then all I knew how to do was to go back into losing the weight and getting ready for another show. After that show, I did better than the last, but I didn't quite conquer how to reverse and how to stay in maintenance. And then I went back into dieting for my third show. And then I finally... that's why I shouldn't have said never. I finally have been able to conquer this phase, and I feel like I totally understand and get where you guys may have been dieting and then gaining the weight back, and then dieting and gaining the weight back.

It's essentially what I did three times. And truly, maintenance is where the real flex is. If you guys can master this phase, it is truly such a flex in your fitness journey. That's why I want to talk about it with you guys today, really diving into what nobody tells you about maintaining weight loss. It's really boring. It's really boring. I'm going to be the first one to be real, real with you. It's boring AF, because there's no dramatic transformation.

There's no dopamine rush from the scale dropping. There's no look-how-far-I've-come photos every single week, where you're looking at the before and after and you see a change either week after week or every two weeks. It's just you. It's just your body. And honestly, you keep questioning, now what? Now what? Now what? But like I said, mastering maintenance is the real flex. It's the phase where you truly lock in your results. I can say now, for the past eight years, not seven, eight years, I've truly locked in.

I put it on my social media story the other day: I just took a week off last week. I just wanted to take a week off. And I went back to the gym on Tuesday and I didn't lose any progress. And I also didn't stress over the fact that I just took a week off. It's a totally different mindset. You truly do lock in your results in maintenance. And it's honestly the one phase most women never make it through successfully. And I want you guys to be able to make it through maintenance successfully, because I've seen it so many times working hand in hand with my clients over the past couple of years.

The mindset, the now what? Like I said, the spiraling back to old habits and not truly being able to just be okay with the boring aspect of maintenance. So today that's what I want to dive into, you guys. First, I want to talk about what maintenance actually is and isn't. I want to talk about why it feels boring and why that's the point. I want to dive into the mental challenges that come up when you're no longer chasing fat loss. And then how to turn maintenance into one of the most powerful and empowering phases of your journey.

Because truly, maintenance is probably going to be the phase that you stay in the majority of the time. You're going to dabble in fat loss. Maybe you'll go into a building phase and a surplus. But the majority of the time, maintenance should be where you hang out. So let's get something really clear first and foremost. In maintenance, you're not doing nothing, quote unquote. It's not you hitting pause. It's not you coasting. It's not you losing your drive or settling.

Maintenance is specifically a strategic phase where, once you've come out of a fat loss phase, you're stabilizing your new weight. You're also giving your body a break from the stress of being in a caloric deficit. And you're reinforcing the habits that got you to this point. This is where I believe a lot of people stumble. They go into losing the weight. They jump into a new quick-fix fad diet.

They get results. But at the end, they don't step into this phase. They don't reinforce whatever habits got them there. And this is where it all falls apart. In maintenance, you start to normalize the identity of the woman that you've become. Think of it like this: you are pouring concrete over a foundation that you just built. You've spent months, maybe even years, losing body fat, building consistency, changing your habits.

But if you go from that to zero direction, or back to your old habits, the progress that you made is fragile at this point. And that's why so many women regain the weight. They go on this fad diet, this quick fix. They lose the weight. They finish the plan, whatever they were following. There's nowhere else for them to go. They leave the plan. They have zero direction. And it's so normal for humans to go back to what's familiar. That's why they go back to the old habits.

That's why, when you finish a plan or come out of fat loss, you are so fragile at that point, especially if you've never experienced maintenance the right way. The majority of people have never learned how to live in this in-between. Okay? So I want to straight up address the elephant in the room. Maintenance doesn't give you that same rush that fat loss gave you. Fat loss is so exciting.

Every week the scale drops. Your clothes fit better. People are complimenting you when you walk into the gym, or your friends are like, holy cow, you look different from the last time that I saw you. You feel like a total badass. But in maintenance, the scale stays the same. Your progress photos probably barely change. Your workouts feel very repetitive. And you're doing the same things without that dopamine payoff on a daily or weekly basis.

This is where it gets entirely mental. Because you've been conditioned to believe we always need to be doing more. We need to be losing more weight. We need to be shrinking more. We need to be achieving more. We need to be chasing something. So when that chase ends, your brain starts thinking, am I losing progress? Should I cut again? I need to go into fat loss again.

I need that dopamine spike. Why am I even doing all of this? And that's exactly where people slip. They get restless. They stop tracking. They skip workouts. They start treating themselves more often, on a daily basis, to ice cream or the treats they weren't having when they were following the plan. And slowly but surely, this is where the weight creeps back on. Not because you weren't capable, or they weren't capable,

but because y'all got bored. Maintenance is boring. I will be the first one to tell you that. I will address that elephant in the room. It doesn't give you the same type of rush that fat loss gives you. But this in-between period, where you're going from having all of this dopamine rush to not having it, and we're going to address what happens in between here, this is where it gets mental.

Because you're like, I need to be chasing something. How about you just slow down and start to really stabilize this weight? You give your body a break. You reinforce these new habits. And most importantly, you take a second to look at the woman that you've become and you start to normalize that identity. How is she continuing to show up? What got her here? She's planning her workouts. She's planning her meals. The same repetitive stuff over and over and over again.

So let's get a little bit deeper into this. Maintenance is where you start to face the comparison of seeing others still losing weight. The self-doubt of wondering if you're even doing enough. The fear of losing all of your results or gaining that weight back. Think about it, because we've all been there. You guys have all been there. Think about the last time you finished a quick fix or a trendy diet and it was cut off. There's no direction.

And then think about that in-between. You're like, oh my gosh, well, Susan's still doing this plan. So you're comparing yourself there. Or you're in the in-between where you're not chasing anything, so, am I even doing enough? I need to be doing more. Or that fear of, oh my God, I'm in the in-between, I had ice cream last night, I'm on the seesaw of gaining that weight back again. You have the fear of losing the results. And then you have an identity conflict where you're no longer chasing this fat loss.

You're no longer chasing this weight loss. So who are you? It's kind of like what I talked about two or three episodes ago, breaking up with that dieter version of you. Who are you if you're not chasing weight loss? So it's an identity conflict. And then you also lose a huge source of external validation. There's no more consistent, wow, you look amazing. No more dramatic check-ins. No more, oh my God, the scale is going down again and again and again.

There are no more huge milestones. It becomes internal validation that you need to be giving yourself, which is so much harder. So much harder. Can you still show up? Can you still go to the gym and train hard? Can you still eat like it matters when no one is clapping for you, when you're not getting that external validation?

That's the question. And that's why I say maintenance is where the magic happens, and maintenance is where champions are made. Because it's not just about physical results anymore, my friends. It's about your identity. It's about integrity. And it's about your ownership, you taking responsibility for where you are in this part of your journey. This is why maintenance is so important. And I want you to start changing the narrative that maintenance is boring and

nothing happens in maintenance. This is what I've talked about so many times before on the podcast or in WarriorBabe, if you've heard me on a community call saying this is the bottom of the iceberg that nobody sees that needs to be worked on. This is the integrity aspect of your journey. This is you taking responsibility for where you're at in your journey. This is the willpower, the discipline, the ownership. When times get tough, are you still showing up for the stuff nobody is going to see?

The reason champions are made is because they're giving themselves the internal validation that keeps them showing up on a daily basis. It's the behind-the-scenes aspect of working quietly in a room. Ain't nobody going to see that until the success shows it. You guys see on social media how I can show up on my Instagram story and say, yeah, I took a week off, but I didn't lose any progress.

You're seeing the success aspect of it. But you're not seeing the rest. That's why I opened this podcast by letting you in on my story, as a reminder if you forgot or maybe you haven't heard it before. I struggled with this phase hard, gaining 25 pounds back and then going back to chasing fat loss again. Because I was like, who am I if I'm not chasing it? It was a part of my identity at that point. And then it's really becoming self-aware: okay, I didn't do that right this time.

There's so much more that I need to learn and figure out, and then taking the actions to actually implement what you figured out in your day-to-day journey. So, off on a little rant there. But I hope that you guys get that, and that it sinks in deep, because maintenance is a part of your journey where, again, people aren't going to see the outward successes of you accomplishing maintenance until you've

successfully accomplished it by being in it for a long period of time. And your actions are now just a reflection of who you are, if that makes sense.

Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, WarriorBabe is here for you. At WarriorBabe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle, and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results, and results that last. Don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com/apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com/apply. All right, let's get back to the show.

This is the trap I was trying to explain to you guys, with how I was stuck in fat loss and then gaining it back, fat loss and then gaining it back, and how I've seen so many women over the years go into these quick-fix fad diets, things that aren't sustainable. They lose the weight. And when they finish, this is where the trap is. They finish that type of phase, and then they either try to keep dieting, like I did too. Or, what I also did, they stop tracking and go back to old habits. Or they think they're in maintenance, but really they're just

floating with no structure whatsoever. I've personally seen one of my clients back in the day really struggle with that aspect of thinking she was in maintenance, but she was just floating. There was no structure. Going on trips every weekend, but, hey, I'm not working out as much this week because we traveled, but we're good. We're good. We're maintaining. Yeah, you're maintaining, but there's no structure to your maintenance. And I'm not saying there needs to be 100% structure,

like you'd have in a fat loss phase. You can have some leniency here. But more importantly, what needs to be integrated and solidly established here is the habits that got you to this point, to be in maintenance after the fat loss phase you were in. So these three things I just said: you try to keep dieting, you stop tracking and go back to old habits, or you think you're in maintenance but you're really just floating.

There's no structure whatsoever. These three paths will lead you to rebound weight gain, to frustration, to shame, and then to starting all over again. Because you never learned how to stabilize calories at a healthy level. You never learned how to eat to perform and fuel, not just for fat loss. And you never trusted the process without immediate results. I'll let that one hit you, hit you hard, in a way that I hope sets

off some light bulbs. You didn't learn to trust the process without immediate results. Again, going back to not getting the external validation you were getting. Now you need to learn how to have the internal validation of trusting the process without the scale dropping, or the drastic before and afters, or clothes fitting differently. Maintenance, you guys, hear me loud and clear: maintenance is a skill.

And it's one of the hardest to master, because it requires doing everything right that got you to this point, but without obvious payoff. But when you do master it, when you do lock it in...

Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, WarriorBabe is here for you. At WarriorBabe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle, and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results, and results that last. Don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com/apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com/apply. All right, let's get back to the show.

You are going to feel, and I'm speaking from experience, so grounded. You're going to feel so confident. You're going to feel so in tune with your body. It's unbelievable. And you're going to feel so capable.

And you're going to feel so free from the cycle of starting over, starting again. So free from that. So, as always, some tangible takeaways for you guys from the podcast. What should you actually be doing in the maintenance phase? This is how I would approach it if you were inside WarriorBabe, working with one of our coaches. I'm probably going to sound like a broken record, but what I've learned in the coaching space is that us coaches repeat things over and over and over again.

We say the same things over and over again. Sometimes it's the same concept, just with a different explanation. And eventually it's going to land. Because maybe I said this six months ago in an episode, or maybe even three weeks ago, but you were in a different space then. And that's okay. Maybe now it's going to resonate differently for you. Because maybe you're six months into your journey and you're having aha moments and things are feeling different.

That's typically what happens. So, first, you're going to focus on non-scale goals. How many times have I said that before? If the dopamine came from the scale, we need to shift you to getting dopamine from somewhere else. Maintenance is a really good phase to focus on, how much muscle am I building? It's a really good time, now that you're eating more food,

because you're going to feel the strength hit different in the gym. So can you focus on some PRs? Are you doing more push-ups than you did before? Are you doing more pull-ups than you did before? Can you focus on fixing your sleep or digestion? Because when you're in a calorie deficit, sleep and digestion can be some of the first things to get hit, altered and not for the better. Can you focus on this: in fat loss, I was really nailing my macros and focusing on hitting my macros. Can you focus on nailing your macros maybe 80% of the time, where you actually pull back and allow more flexibility?

Those are some non-scale goals to focus on. The second thing I would say is, can you fuel your body? And I say this lightly, because some of you don't want to be a performance athlete, but it's just to optimize your body. You're no longer trying to restrict. I look at it as performing for longevity. It's all about optimizing now. So how much better can you feel when you're truly fueled? Because in calorie restriction or a calorie deficit, you may feel good, but you're not going to feel optimized, is what I'm trying to say.

Another thing is tracking your biofeedback. How is your energy? How's your mood? How's your strength? How's your sleep? How's your recovery? How's your cycle health? How are your relationships? Because they all tell you how your body is adapting to this phase. Another thing: in this phase, you're starting to stabilize the identity that got you here. You're starting to reinforce the habits that got you here. So let's practice long-term living. How can you go on vacation but still stay consistent?

Obviously with flexibility, don't get me wrong there. How can you live your life while still honoring your habits? Because that's real freedom. And this is where you start to truly normalize this identity. You start saying things like, I'm a woman who takes care of her body year-round. I'm not just someone who focuses on, oh my gosh, I need to get ready for something, I need to get my body ready, I need to feel good in a two-piece bikini. I love that. But how can you take care of your body year-round?

And then you start saying things like, I'm capable. I'm strong. I'm stable. I'm able to do this. Because that's who you are now. So those are the things I would want you to start focusing on, and what we would focus on if you were working with us inside of WarriorBabe. Non-scale goals. Learning to optimize your body and feel how it feels to be truly fed in maintenance. Tracking biofeedback. And this is really important: you're practicing long-term living.

You're practicing the true freedom of reinforcing what you learned in fat loss. You're stabilizing this new identity. You're truly practicing how to live your life while honoring what got you to this place and honoring your habits. Green flags. When you are absolutely crushing maintenance, you've kept your weight within three to five pounds, and you've kept that for three or four months. You're eating more than you did in your cut and you feel so much better.

Your strength is increasing. You don't panic over food or social events. You feel new. These are all green flags that you're crushing the maintenance phase. And let me pull you back to my story. It took me three times to finally nail down maintenance. The first time, I completely stumbled. And you guys probably will too, the first time you ever go into it truly aware that you're trying to tackle maintenance. The second time you're going to do better.

And they always say the third time's a charm. And I believe that, if you're willing to learn from your past mistakes. So again, green flags: you don't panic over the scale. You feel neutral around the scale. You don't panic over food. Your habits feel like a lifestyle now, not like an effort. And you're not obsessed with the results. You're anchored into, this is just the process. This is just the journey. And these are the things, my friends, where I feel like we could do so much better in the fitness industry. Because the things I just said don't make headlines on social media.

They don't make headlines on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. But they're literally the backbone of lifelong success on your fitness journey. So let me end with this. If you are in maintenance right now and it feels boring, good. That's okay. It's supposed to be boring. Because boring equals sustainable. And sustainable equals you being powerful,

and you being confident and capable. You've already done the hard work of losing weight, whichever way you lost it. Now, the real flex is keeping it off without obsession. Without punishment. Without swinging between all or nothing. It's truly your chance to build stability, to master your mindset, and to live a life where results don't rule you. They support you. So let this be a reminder that maintenance isn't the end.

It's the beginning of the life that you've been working toward for so long. Like I said earlier, maintenance is where you live the majority of the time if you're doing it the right way. So I want that to be a rewritten narrative in your mindset. It's not, I need to live in fat loss all the time. It's, how can I learn to be in maintenance in a healthy way? Okay? So guys, if this hit home for you, if this episode resonated with you, please take a screenshot. Post it on IG.

Tag me at Nikkiey Stott. Tag The WarriorBabe Show. Let me know what resonated with you the most in this episode. I would love to see it and read it and maybe hit you back in a DM. And if you're unsure whether you're doing this right, we are here at WarriorBabe to help you lock it in for good, and to help you get off the 5-year, 10-year, 15-year, 20-year hamster wheel of losing the weight, gaining it back, losing the weight, gaining it back. We're here to hold your hand in maintenance and help you solidify what this phase can actually do for you.

All right? I love you guys, and I will see you in the next episode. Hey, really quick before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button. Your rating and review make all the difference, helping more women discover the tools they need to transform their fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I appreciate you so much.