I am a maintenance sponsor and I have been asked to be a maintenance sponsor to someone who is within 10 pounds of goal weight. Although the requirements for being a maintenance sponsor are clearly spelled out in the guidelines, I am confused about what a sponsee needs to accomplish before moving on to maintenance. Could you clarify that for me? Should s/he have reached goal weight? Should s/he have worked the 12 steps, etc.?
A member transitions to the maintenance food plan with the help of a maintenance sponsor. Maintenance goal weight is determined with the help of a maintenance sponsor and/or health care professional. When a member has reached the agreed-upon goal weight, s/he may transition to the maintenance food plan regardless of where s/he is in the CEA-HOW questions. If the member has not already stepped up as a food, inventory, and step sponsor, he/she transitions to the maintenance food plan with the help of a maintenance sponsor and continues to work on the appropriate questions until these first three sponsorship levels are completed. The member can then begin the CEA-HOW Maintenance Questions and complete the Maintenance Sponsoring Stepping Up Ceremony. Once he/she has reached goal weight, completed the Maintenance questions and the Maintenance Sponsoring Stepping Up Ceremony, and been stepped up as a Maintenance sponsor at a meeting, the member is ready to be a maintenance sponsor.