TV therapists NIK and EVA SPEAKMAN reveal their top tips to get your diet back on track
Given up on all your weight loss resolutions already? TV therapists NIK and EVA SPEAKMAN reveal their top tips to get your diet back on track and beat those January blues
There is every chance you started the New Year on a fad diet or healthy eating regime but now the January blues have set in and resolutions are being broken.
Whether it’s sneaking to the kitchen in search of cake, running to the shop to satisfy a chocolate craving, or tucking into family-size bags of crisps, you may find it impossible to stop sabotaging all of your best weight-loss intentions. It can be so hard to understand why you’re rummaging through the fridge when you want nothing more than to be slim and healthy.
But don’t panic because we know exactly what’s happening – and we can help. As a married couple, we’ve been working together as therapists for 22 years. We’ve trained in numerous psychology and psychotherapy practices and we have worked with thousands of clients in person, at our workshops, and on live television, helping them to meet their weight-loss goals, to feel great and to transform their lives.
As a married couple, we’ve been working together as therapists for 22 years (pictured Nik and Eva Speakman)
Now we have written a book, Winning At Weight Loss, which reveals our tried and trusted methods for putting you back in control of what you eat. We can help you understand why you overeat and help you break the destructive habits you might have been carrying around for decades. You’ll develop new ways of thinking and sever any obsessions with food to enable you to transform your weight and establish a healthier, happier life.
Trust us, this advice will make a significant difference to your relationship with healthy eating and exercise. We understand how frustrating it is to find yourself overeating. You might look at us and assume we are naturally slim, but we have been on a journey of self-analysis for more than 20 years and we are proof our methods work.
When we met 29 years ago, Eva had a terrible relationship with food. She was a self-confessed chocaholic and would sneak to the kitchen in the middle of the night for her ‘fix’. Nik was a classic fussy eater who’d do anything to avoid fruit and veg.
But we’ve applied our principles to ourselves and we are living proof that they work. And the following pages are filled with tips and tricks to show you how.
Banish chocolate cravings forever! Lose weight faster than ever with our simple techniques to break bad habits
When so many of us are on a diet or trying to eat healthily, it is infuriating to find yourself overeating and preventing yourself from achieving your weight-loss goals. The problem is, food is so-often a ‘go-to’ crutch when we’re sad, mad, lonely, bored, disappointed or stressed.
If you are sleep-deprived, your body will crave energy and search for a quick source (like cakes), and irrespective of how focused and motivated you are to lose weight, a lack of sleep can cause you to overeat.
You might find yourself eating forbidden foods because you are bored, because you like the ‘crunch’, or just because they are forbidden.
Diets inevitably mean restriction and there’s nothing like telling yourself that you CAN’T have something to make you want it more. We also hear stories of perpetual yo-yo dieters who endure a never-ending battle with weight loss, and often face the additional anxiety of wanting to avoid eating in front of others and being photographed. This stress can exacerbate cravings and make self-sabotage more likely.
When so many of us are on a diet or trying to eat healthily, it is infuriating to find yourself overeating and preventing yourself from achieving your weight-loss goals (pictured, Eva Speakman)
Drop those unrealistic expectations and accept that it is OK to overindulge from time to time, and don’t punish yourself if your diet has ‘failed’. When you were learning to walk, you will have fallen over repeatedly. An occasional bar of chocolate doesn’t mean you’ve failed at weight loss – you are merely working towards the perfect act of healthy eating.
If you get frustrated with yourself for lingering too long at the buffet table, ordering crisps with your glass of wine or mindlessly moving your hand repeatedly from a plate of biscuits into your mouth when everyone else in the meeting seems perfectly able to resist, it is worth thinking about whether you are a creature of habits formed in childhood, or whether you are just following patterns established by friends or colleagues.
SHOP YOUR WAY TO GOOD HEALTH
1. Keep a detailed food diary for two weeks.
2. Highlight all the foods you know sabotage your slimming success.
3. Beside each, make a list of possible alternatives or substitutions for these foods.
4. Use a different-coloured highlighter pen to mark all the healthy choices that appear in your food diary.
5. Create a new shopping list based on your healthy food choices and all the healthy alternatives to your trigger foods.
The key to breaking bad habits is replacing them with good ones: think of a buffet table as a great opportunity to pile your plate with salad, change your drink of choice to snap the snack connection, and chew sugar-free gum whenever biscuits appear.
When you’re trying to work out your triggers, keeping a detailed food diary – of exactly what you eat and drink, when and with whom – will help make you consciously aware of what you are consuming, and also accountable.
You owe it to yourself, to be in control of how and what you eat, and writing your food diary is a big step towards that.
ARE YOU AN EMOTIONAL EATER?
If you find yourself craving unhealthy foods even though you are not hungry, don’t blame poor willpower. In many cases, a craving is your body crying out for the feelgood effects that junk food often provides. That’s because the food we enjoy helps to release hormones that boost our mood.
As endorphins (chemicals produced by the body to relieve stress and pain) are released, your pulse speeds up and you experience positive feelings – it’s like falling in love! These hormones offer comfort when we’re feeling sad, lonely or in need of a little love.
Research suggests that we actually get two hits: when we first ingest the food, and again when it reaches the stomach. But this elation is short-lived as the hormone disperses, and you will inevitably be left feeling discomfort and bloating, and perhaps embarrassment, guilt and shame.
As a brief distraction, fatty, sugary food can temporarily silence uncomfortable or unpleasant emotions such as loneliness, fear, sadness, anxiety, heartbreak and resentment – it can be a plaster you use to try to cover any wound.
We often find people are, without realising it, using junk food to rekindle the comfort of childhood when chocolate and sweets are so often given as a reward or treat. That’s why you might hear a voice inside your head saying: ‘Go on, you deserve this, you’ve been good today.’ There’s no doubt that an occasional treat can do you good, but unhelpful patterns can swiftly start to form if unresolved issues from your past are still causing emotional pain and making you regularly turn to food for solace.
Ice cream can sometimes seem like your new best friend if you’re feeling unloved or undervalued. But the buzz of reward will usually be short-lived, and if you’re on a diet, that tub of cookies and cream could be enough to make you throw in the towel, which will only dent your self-esteem more.
NIK and EVA SPEAKMAN: We often find people are, without realising it, using junk food to rekindle the comfort of childhood when chocolate and sweets are so often given as a reward or treat
We have found in some cases an old problem (even back as far as childhood) could still be haunting you and triggering food cravings decades later. If the discomfort you feel now when you think about a particular event feels like more than six out of ten, it could be significant. In many cases, merely making that connection could be enough to put you straight, or talking through these memories with someone you trust might help to reduce the chances of you searching for comfort in food.
Eva was made to feel inadequate in the past and ended up subconsciously using food as a way of punishing herself. (‘I’m fat and no one cares, so I might as well eat this anyway.’)
The most common cause of self-sabotage, low self-esteem and self-medicating is bullying, which ultimately leads people to give up on diets or exercise plans because they don’t believe they deserve to look and feel good.
If you have been made to feel useless and a failure, it is very common to sabotage your own slimming success in the belief that your efforts are futile. It is a form of self-punishment.
Once you have identified the events and the beliefs that lie behind your unhelpful eating patterns – and are preventing you from losing weight – you can take action to address them. Our mirror technique is a great way to flip self-destructive thinking and we have seen it can be powerfully effective in putting you back in control of your eating behaviour.
10-MINUTE TRICK TO CUT OUT JUNK FOOD
This simple technique is based on linking the foods you love to foods you would never eat – preferably those that make you retch at the thought of them.
We use this technique on ourselves and our relatives, and we are delighted to tell you that we haven’t eaten crisps or chocolate for more than 12 years now. Whenever Eva thinks of chocolate, images of tripe spring into her mind, and our daughter uses images of liver to curb her chocolate cravings.
One of our clients told us whenever she thinks of biscuits, all she can see is squid. The best thing about the method is that, if carried out correctly, the desire to eat these foods is extinguished indefinitely.
1. Pick the ‘vice food’ which sabotages your weight-loss attempts – perhaps it is chocolate, cake or crisps.
2. Close your eyes and imagine the face of somebody you love unconditionally in front of you. Put out your hand to where you see them – it is likely to be right in front of you, very close to your face.
3. Now try the same exercise with someone you haven’t seen for a long time (perhaps an old teacher). You should notice their image feels further away and is less clear. We tend to code important people – and foods – as being close to us, but we code the less important things further away. Any food you adore will be visualised close to your face, and foods you detest will seem much further away.
4. Close your eyes and imagine your favourite food. It should feel close, clear and brightly coloured. Put your hand where you can see it and open your eyes. Remember that position.
5. Next, think about a food that makes you feel nauseous or previously made you vomit (try tripe, raw liver, raw fish, squid, sour milk or offal). Close your eyes and imagine this food. The image is likely to seem unclear or blurred, and further away and very low down, perhaps on the floor. Put out your hand to this place, then open your eyes and be aware of where you see this food.
6. Now make the big switch: move the food you enjoy to the position of the food that you would never eat. Imagine that the food you like is on a tight bungee cord attached to you. Cut that cord and release that food, watching it fly to and land in the food you detest.
7. Repeat the process four or five times, seeing yourself releasing your favourite food and allowing it to drop on to the hated food, becoming tangled in a stomach-churning goo. Take time to imagine your favourite food mixing with the hated food. Start to diminish the colour and clarity of this image as your favourite food becomes tainted with the food you hate.
8. You should now notice that when you think of your favourite food, it will be somewhere it the distance alongside the foods you hate. Before long, merely thinking about it will make you feel queasy and you will lose all urge to eat it. Avoid the temptation to test the theory as tasting the food could erase all your efforts and you’ll need to start the process again.
Decide to be a victor, not a victim. If things from your past continue to affect you, then you are still a victim of that person or event. Make a decision today that you will be the victor of your past: you survived it and you are prepared to alter your perspective to set yourself free.
HOW TO INCREASE YOUR SELF-ESTEEM
One of the most powerful ways to reset your behaviour around food is to raise your self-esteem. It might sound like a monumental task, but in hundreds of cases we have been able to show this perceptual shift really does work because the better you feel about yourself, the more likely you are to want to invest in your health and your future and treat yourself to good food and regular exercise, instead of trying to stamp down on any bad feelings with chocolate.
NOW TRY THE MIRROR TECHNIQUE
This is so powerful that it can transform your behaviour overnight. One client told us she lost 2st after trying it. You will need a notepad and pen, and a voice recorder on your phone.
1. Stand in front of a full-length mirror. While looking in the mirror, write down or record everything that you see and say about yourself. What kind of person do you see in front of you? Are you strong? What do you look like? Do you see any weaknesses? If so, what are they? Write everything you perceive about yourself. Describe the person in front of you, both visually and emotionally. How do you feel about that person? Look at all your body parts and write down what you see.
2. Now count how many of the things you have said about yourself are negative and how many are positive.
3. Focus on the negative comments and ask: ‘Would I ever say those negative things to a stranger?’ If not, why not? Would you ever say them to a friend, child, partner, parents or loved ones? If not, why not? Is it because these words are mean and unkind? If they are not acceptable to say to anybody else, they are not acceptable to say to yourself.
4. Look at your list of negative comments and ask if someone else has said these things to you or somehow made you feel this way. Write a new list of the people who might have contributed to these unkind comments.
5. Ask yourself why you would want to listen to that person – what qualifications do they have to judge you? Are they even a part of your life? If not, that is because they are not important to you. If they are still a part of your life, consider why they may have said those things to you. Could they be envious or jealous of you? Are they scared of losing you? (Perhaps by knocking your self-esteem, you might be less likely to leave them and more likely to appreciate them more.) Is it because that person felt bad about themselves and in an effort to make themselves feel better they had to knock you down? Is it because they feared you would supersede them in life?
6. Once you realise the words you use to describe yourself aren’t yours but based on somebody else’s or how somebody else has made you feel, it’s time to view yourself through the eyes of love.
7. Stand in front of the mirror and close your eyes and think of someone who loves or loved you unconditionally, either now or in the past (a partner, a parent, a best friend, a colleague, a teacher, a pet or even someone who has died). Imagine that person standing beside you and see yourself floating out of your body and into that person’s body, and looking through their eyes at your reflection in the mirror.
8. Say out loud (you can dictate it into your phone) everything that person sees or saw in you. Looking in the mirror, what do they see? How do they describe you? Why do they love you? Do they think you are beautiful, kind, intelligent, fun to be around, that you are loyal, perfect, a good cook, good at making them feel special or loved? Do they compliment you about your hair, eyes, figure, stature or smile? Say it as they said it, with love, sincerity and meaning.
9. Now, in the knowledge that the person who loves or loved you is not a liar and that their feelings towards you were honest and true, press play on your voice memo, and with your eyes closed again, imagine seeing yourself in the mirror through the eyes of your loved one and listen to all the words that person said about you, everything they love about you. Listen to the words four or five times.
10. Very slowly open your eyes and see yourself in that mirror through the eyes of love. See yourself in the knowledge that the person who said all those lovely things about you did so because they were true, because people do not give compliments without reason. Nor do people give love without reason. Love is earned, and if anyone has ever loved you unconditionally, that is because you have earned it and because you are lovable.
11. Now write down all those compliments and positive things that your loved one said about you and keep them somewhere prominent. This could be at the side of your bed, on your desk at work, or in your wallet.
12. Whenever you need to remind yourself of how amazing you are, how loved you are and that you deserve to be happy, healthy and to have a positive relationship with food, reread this list and hear your loved one’s voice as you do so.
Learn to LOVE exercise in just seven easy-peasy steps
Exercise might be a fast-track solution to increased health and weight loss, but for many people the prospect of physical activity will seem about as exciting as watching a radiator cool down.
Yes, exercise releases feelgood brain chemicals, but so does eating delicious food.
And given the choice, most of us will opt for food, as it requires less effort and can be combined with other pleasurable activities, such as watching TV or socialising with friends.
NIK and EVA SPEAKMAN: Exercise might be a fast-track solution to increased health and weight loss, but for many people the prospect of physical activity will seem about as exciting as watching a radiator cool down
Many people find the whole concept of exercise a struggle. But as long as there is any trace of a negative association with exercise, there will be a barrier which will inevitably lead you to look for excuses as to why you CAN’T exercise, as opposed to focusing on reasons why you CAN.
But when 20 million Britons are inactive to the detriment of their health, we need to take action NOW.
Try our tried and trusted motivational techniques to help you overcome the barriers that may stand in your way, helping you to become healthier, fitter and lighter.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO LEAVE HOME
You don’t need to join a gym to boost your activity levels. You can get fit at home with vacuuming, gardening, walking up and down your stairs – even choreographing your own dance routine to your favourite music in the comfort and privacy of your own home.
You can also use everyday household items to help build strength, such as cans of food, water bottles or even your baby (carefully!).
Eva would hold our children when they were babies while doing squats, chest presses and sit-ups, and would also power-walk while pushing them in their buggies.
Finally, if you are one of those people who has an exercise bike hidden under an enormous pile of clothes in your bedroom or else it is sitting in your shed, then how about dusting it down, creating a motivating soundtrack, and taking two bottles of water to use for some bicep curls and shoulder presses while cycling?
CREATE YOUR OWN VISION BOARD
Either find a photograph of yourself when you were at a weight you would like to return to or a ‘realistic’ picture of how you would like to look, and pin it to your board. Write your weight goal on your vision board and use Post-it notes or a chart to document the reduction in your size in centimetres, inches, pounds or kilograms. Keep your vision board in a visible place, so that you can look at it and appreciate it daily.
SET YOURSELF CLEAR GOALS
Create clear and realistic goals of what you would ultimately like to achieve: a dress size you’re aiming for, a target weight or the number of centimeters or inches you would like to lose from your waist or your thighs.
Note down small targets on your journey to give yourself a sense of achievement, and also reward yourself with treats along the way.
Sign up for organised charity walks, runs or bicycle rides as part of your health journey.
BUDDY UP FOR EXTRA MOTIVATION
We are often prepared to do more for others than we will do for ourselves, which is why exercising with a friend is a great way to keep you both on track and motivated.
Some people also respond better to healthy competition, so sharing your journey and competing with each other can help give you both a boost.
BOOK CLASSES... AND KEEP A NOTE
If you have a hair or dental appointment, you’ll note it in your diary so that you won’t miss it. If something else clashes with these appointments, you are likely to decline and offer an alternative date and time instead.
We would recommend the same process with your exercise routine.
Make it a diary appointment or book yourself a place in an organised class, and then put a lovely big tick at the side of it when you have completed your exercise.
GROUP EXERCISE IF MUCH MORE FUN
You'll find people of all different ages, shapes and sizes in an exercise class. It is also a great opportunity to meet new friends, and is often more fun and motivating than exercising alone. Local gyms, swimming baths, churches and social clubs will offer a variety of options for a variety of fitness levels.
REMEMBER THOSE HAPPY TIMES
Cast your mind back to any happy occasions in your life when you laughed uncontrollably, when you fell in love (either with a person, place or pet), when you were given a compliment or achieved something, or a special place or memorable experience.
Use this as a prompt to remember how incredible you are and what fabulous things you have seen, experienced, tried and been part of.
This will provide an instant boost to your self-esteem, which will make you more likely to get to the gym or get out on your bike.
LIFT WEIGHTS TO BURN MORE FAT
Weight-lifting is a significant component to weight loss, health and strength, and should not be underestimated. Using weights promotes weight loss because muscle helps you burn more calories. The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolic rate. Research shows that your body continues to burn calories after a lifting workout: the lean muscle mass you build from weight-lifting will speed up your resting metabolism. You’re more likely to burn body fat, instead of muscle, when you lift weights.
Adapted by Louise Atkinson © Mental Health Media Limited, 2019
Winning At Weight Loss, by Nik and Eva Speakman, is published by Orion Spring, priced £14.99. Offer price £11.99 (20 per cent discount) until February 18. To order, call 01603 648 155 or go to mailshop.co.uk. Free delivery on all orders – no minimum spend. Winning At Weight Loss is also available as an audiobook.
AdvertisementWant to lose weight and keep it off? Three things to add to your daily routine now
IF you're trying to shed the pounds, the decisions you make throughout the day are key.
But there are a few things you can add to your daily routine that can really set you up for success - and maximise your weight loss - according to a new study.
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There are key three things you should incorporate in your daily routine that can speed up weight lossCredit: Getty Images - Getty
Experts analysed almost 5,000 members of WW, formerly known as Weight Watchers, who lost an average of three and a half stone and kept it off for more than three years.
They compared them to a control group of more than 500 people with obesity and who reported not gaining or losing more than half a stone for a period of greater than five years.
And the researchers, from California Polytechnic State University, found three things were key in maximising weight loss in the WW members.
These included making healthy choices, recording what was eaten each day and remaining positive.
Here, we take you through what the researchers found and how to incorporate their tips into your diet...
1. Make healthy choices
Eating a healthy, balanced diet and making sure you're not going overboard on calorie intake is integral to losing weight.
In particular, the new research showed that people who made healthy choices and gave up processed foods and sugar were able to stay on track with their weight loss journey.
Suzanne Phelan, a public health professor who led the study, said: "People who maintained their successful weight loss the longest reported greater frequency and repetition in healthy eating choices.
"Healthier choices also became more automatic the longer people continued to make those choices.
"These findings are encouraging for those working at weight loss maintenance. Over time, weight loss maintenance may become easier, requiring less intentional effort."
2. Track what you eat
The experts found that recording the food you eat is key when it comes to blitzing body fat.
In particular, the WW members who tracked their food daily lose more weight compared to those who didn't.
There are plenty of free apps you can download including MyFitnessPal, which calculates your daily calorie intake and allows you to log what you eat throughout the day from a nutrition database of over six million different foods.
The best weight loss apps to help you shed pounds fast
1. MyFitnessPal - calculates your daily calorie intake and allows you to log what you eat throughout the day from a nutrition database of over six million different foods - including many restaurant dishes that are not always easy to track.
2. LoseIt! - generates your daily calorie needs and a personalised weight loss plan through an analysis of your weight, age and health goals.
3. Edo - helps you better navigate all the different groceries while you're out food shopping.
4. Yummly - analyses your dietary preferences, cooking abilities and favourite food to give you a list of recipes that would fit your taste and lifestyle.
5. Beachbody UK - provides dozens of easy-to-follow meal plans and recipes that you can customise to reach your fitness goals.
6. FitYou - allows you to challenge your mates or family to join in and help your weight-loss journey.
7. Happy Scale - helps you understand why that figure can fluctuate, including hormonal fluctuations and poop habits.
8. Couch to 5K - gets people who have never run before off the sofa and burning calories.
It will also help you understand how the portions of food you eat each day stack up in comparison to one another.
One of MyFitnessPal’s useful features is its barcode scanner, which is a hassle-free way to enter the nutrition information of some packaged foods.
It also has a message board where you can connect with other users to share tips and success stories.
3. Use positive self-talk
Positive thinking and remembering past successes can play a significant role in weight loss efforts, researchers found.
Positive thoughts are particularly motivating while a negative attitude can make losing weight difficult - if not impossible.
Beating yourself up every time you eat the wrong foods, obsessing about what you can’t eat and approaching your exercise routine with a sense of dread are all ways that negative thought patterns can sabotage your weight loss journey.
However, acknowledging those feelings and those thoughts into something more positive can actually help you reach your goals.
Successful weight loss is associated with a variety of health benefits
Suzanne Phelan, California Polytechnic State University professor
WW members are encouraged to keep goals, inspiring images, affirmations and quote cards where you can see them.
They're also told to celebrate every "win" - no matter how small they seem.
So if you said no to a second slice of pizza, or skipped that slice of cake during your lunch break - you need to give yourself the credit you deserve.
There you have it - if you incorporate these three things into your daily routine you're bound to stay on track with your weight loss journey.
As Dr Phelan, lead author of the study, published in the journal Obesity, said: "Successful weight loss is associated with a variety of health benefits.
"The improved quality of life observed among the successful weight losers in this study may serve as an important motivator for people working at long-term weight management."
Vicky Pattison is new face of Weight Watchers after fears bad diet was harming her fertility10 reasons you’re not losing weight, even though you're on a diet
10 reasons you’re not losing weight, even though you're on a diet
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You’ve been working out and trying to eat healthy, but the pounds still aren’t coming off. And it’s frustrating.
First off, know that you're not alone. Plenty of people struggle with losing weight, often at various points throughout their weight loss transformation. Just because you're not losing the weight you want, doesn't mean that you can't.
Often, all you need to do is make a few minor adjustments to your current approach to weight loss. Thankfully, there are a lot of little changes you can make to get on the right track.
Here are 10 of the most surprising things that might be holding back your weight loss.
Fix them and watch the numbers on the scale fall.
1. You’re following a diet and exercise plan that isn’t tailored for you.
Everybody is different: that’s the message Bruce Y. Lee, the executive director of the Global Obesity Prevention Center at Johns Hopkins University, wants to send when it comes to weight loss.
“There’s been a lot of fad dieting and fad exercise programs,” Lee says. The reason that a single diet plan and the same exercise routine don’t work for everybody is that we all live different lives in unique bodies that have their own needs.
“You have to tailor what you do to yourself,” he says. Instead of following a specific diet or exercise plan, don’t be afraid to try lots of different things to find what works for you.
2. Eating healthy foods and healthy portions needs to take a front seat.
Weight loss isn’t just about working out: It’s also about what you eat. But many people still don’t pay enough attention to food and portion size, Lee says.
You won’t have much success sustainably losing weight without getting your diet under control, for two reasons.
First, without the proper fuel, even getting into the gym or out on the road is hard. You’ll drag.
Second, diet and exercise are both factors shaping weight loss, Lee says, and trying to figure out which one is more important is “sort of like asking ‘which is more important, your arm or your leg?’” That means you should pay as much attention to what you’re eating as you do to how you’re working out, which may mean investing more time in meal planning.
Intimidated? To start, he suggests keeping a food diary and writing down everything you eat for a couple of weeks. Then figure out where you can trim unnecessary calories from your regular diet, as well as unnecessary dollars from the credit card bill. “Eating healthy has gotten expensive,” Lee says. This method will help you figure out how to make your money count.
3. You’re only exercising at the gym.
Sure, your time at the gym is helpful in losing weight, and we’ve got tips to help you make the most of it. But the exercise outside the gym—and the mindset that goes with it—that will help you make long term changes to lose weight and keep it off. When it comes to exercise, Lee says, “if you can’t keep doing it, it’s not going to work.”
That doesn’t mean stop going to the gym—it just means you may need to change your mindset a bit. Your day-to-day life has plenty of opportunities for meaningful exercise, like taking the stairs, walking instead of driving or adding half an hour of vigorous playtime with your kids to your daily schedule.
Taken all together, these activities help ensure that even if you don’t make it to the gym quite as often as you mean to, you can still do things that make a long-term difference in your fitness and weight.
4. The number on the scale is moving—but slowly.
Many people who lose weight don’t keep it off: Take the often-cited example of ‘Biggest Loser’ contestants. When you lose weight, your body’s resting metabolic rate (the amount of calories you burn just by living) slows down. When contestants on the show lost large amounts of weight—an average of 100 pounds—over seven months, their RMRs decreased significantly.
That means they had to work harder than they previously would have had to just to keep the weight off. Researchers who followed up with 14 of those contestants six years after they left the show found that their resting metabolic weights had remained low, which contributed to them gaining back some of the weight they had lost. The key to sustainable weight loss is time, not giant scales and reality television. “What you have to do is retrain your body slowly,” Lee says.
Unfortunately, there’s no single thing that will make you lose weight. The good thing is that your weight loss goal might help you make your whole life better. “It’s more about lifestyle and long term changes,” says Aaron Roseberry, a biologist at Georgia State University who studies obesity and eating.
5. You’ve hit a weight loss plateau.
Plateaus happen: it’s all in how you handle them.
Be patient, and don’t give up on your goals, because slow and steady is the key to sustainable weight loss. “What you have to do is retrain your body slowly,” Lee says.
If you see your weight on the scale not going down for a while, that may mean it’s time to reassess how you’re approaching diet and exercise and see if there’s something you need to tweak. Check out our list of the most common reasons people plateau for some ideas.
Still bummed? There are other indicators that you’re getting healthier you can look to for motivation, like waist size. Abdominal fat, also known as visceral fat, surrounds your internal organs and is the most unhealthy kind of weight to carry, Roseberry says.
Keep track of your waist measurement and how your belly looks: even if you’re not losing overall weight quickly, you’ll be able to measure a loss in belly fat as you get healthier.
6. You need more sleep.
Sleep is essential, both for mental acuity and to help your body recover from working out, but it can be hard to get enough good sleep. Besides making time for that 7 to 8 hours of shuteye, ensure you’re getting quality sleep by evaluating your sleep environment and looking at your habits for things that could be decreasing sleep quality. If you need a little extra, try folding in a nap. Oh, and don’t hit snooze. It won’t help.
7. You need to think about mental health.
“Mental health can affect in a multitude of ways,” Lee says. From stress, which can change your hormones, to depression, which can cause someone to withdraw from others and not take care of themselves, these unseen factors can have huge effect.
If you’re having trouble losing weight, maybe it’s time to look at the things in your life that may be impacting your mental health and evaluate how you can address them. For some people, that might mean seeing your doctor or seeking out a therapist.
Know that you’re not alone, and that you are doing what’s best for you by considering your mental health.
8. You need to see your doctor.
In some cases, underlying conditions that your doctor can treat or help you manage may be the reason why you’re not losing weight. Head to your doctor (with that food diary in hand, preferably) and see if they can help you figure it out.
Medications you’re on may also be affecting your weight loss, such as antibiotics, says Lee. You can stop in at your local pharmacy and ask if they can help you evaluate what you’re taking and if it might be holding you back.
9. Where you live and work is making it hard.
If the only place near your work to grab lunch is the Wendy’s, chances are you’ll eat lunch at the Wendy’s—at least more than you would if you had other choices. If the nearest grocery store to your house doesn’t have a lot of healthy options, you’ll probably buy and eat fewer healthy foods.
A common mistake people make in thinking about weight is to believe it’s all on you, Lee says. He suggests taking a systems approach to weight loss: In order to figure out why you’re not losing weight, look at the systems around you that make you keep it on.
Once you’ve assessed your environment, you can figure out how to optimize the things in it that you can control. Whether that means folding in a lunchtime walk at work because your neighborhood isn’t easy to walk in during the evening, packing your lunch rather than eating out or starting to eat breakfast, small changes can make a huge difference.
Unsure what to look at? Three factors affect weight, Lee says: diet, physical activity and metabolism. Chances are you can make some changes in your life to affect all three. But don’t be too hard on yourself: “We’re so outcomes-focused,” Lee says. “And there’s only so much you can control.”
10. You need a little help from your friends.
The good news is, you don’t have to do it alone. When it comes to habit changes, Lee says the people who participate in those habits with you can also help you change them. If you and your friends meet regularly for wing night, try mixing it up with a healthier option, or better yet, hit the courts for a game of pick-up basketball. Enlisting your friends to help you lose weight might also help them get started on a healthier path.
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