Navigating Profile – Destination: Sustain

Profile’s Chief Healthy Living Expert Stephen Herrmann, PhD, shares his take on how Profile members approaching their goal can prepare to Sustain.

You’ve made progress and you’re getting excited the closer you get to your goal. You’ve been working incredibly hard for every pound you’ve lost and its finally almost here: the goal, the finish, the end. Maybe this is your first time coming this far or maybe you’ve been here before. The next steps in Profile are key difference makers. A lot of people can lose weight, some do it over and over again. But keeping it off – that’s where Profile is designed to be different.

So What’s Next?

It’s important to celebrate wins, and achieving a weight loss goal is an incredible milestone. Unfortunately, too many people reach their desired weight and think the race is over. In reality, this is where the true challenge begins for a lot of us. Thinking about doing it on your own? Even Tom Brady uses a coach! In fact, he has several coaches that help him stay at the top of his game! Elite professional athletes recognize that in order to achieve, they need some outside help. Your Profile coach will support you through the next phases of Profile – you don’t have to face this challenge alone.

Adapt

Think of an airplane coming in for a landing: it steadily loses altitude, slows its airspeed, drops its landing gear and approaches Earth for a gentle landing. Adapt is that final approach before touch down. This phase of Profile allows you to get more creative with grocery foods and continue to apply all the changes you’ve made so far. Adapt can also bring new challenges. At this point in your journey, many things might still be a work in progress. In the same way you trust the pilot’s abilities to safely land a plane, it’s time to trust in the behaviors you’ve changed and positive habits you’ve created while pushing the limits in some new areas of your life.

There’s still work to do! Here are a few things you and your coach might want to talk about heading into and through the Adapt Phase. First, it’s a great time to revisit your goals and reasons for making a healthy lifestyle change. Next, review topics such as portion sizes, label reading, and review your activity plan. Finally, answer important questions like, “How confident are you in your ability to stay on track when you’re stressed or hit a bump in the road?” and “Who’s in your support network that you can check in with when you need to?”

Sustain Transition:

Now the landing…sometimes the landing can be a bit bumpy. The bumps are why transitioning into Sustain doesn’t happen overnight. You and your coach will steadily build up your calories each week while monitoring your weight, energy level, appetite, and confidence in the new plan. If you come across some turbulence, whether it’s work stress, a life event, or just unexpected weight gain, you and your coach can pause and review the situation to reinforce the plan or make some small tweaks.

Sustaining (Yay!)

It’s crucial to have a realistic vision of what life will look like while maintaining your weight. Sometimes, Sustain seems like a perfect dream where everything goes as planned and the weight you’ve worked so hard to lose stays off. Even in Sustain, life always seems to happen and creates plenty of opportunities to derail your progress. Holidays, birthdays, weddings, funerals, vacations, job changes, in-laws, moving, getting sick, family stress – life events always seem to pop up frequently. Have you lived your Sustain lifestyle through these events? As the pilot of the plane, you can work with your co-pilot (your Profile coach) to come up with a plan or adjustment in the event there’s a maintenance problem with the aircraft, congestion in air traffic, or extreme weather. Your Profile coach is also an invaluable resource as you continue setting new goals and reaching new heights in Sustain. We are here to provide support through anything that comes up in any phase of your journey to help you stay in flight.

**Note – Steve is not a pilot, has never flown a plane, but sometimes rides in coach.