Does your weight loss journey feel like a never-ending cycle? Health and Wellbeing expert Amie Leckie and Registered Associate Nutritionist Lauren Hewitt explain some factors impacting your weight loss and tips on dietary and lifestyle choices you can make to help you lose weight.
In England, around 70% of men and 60% of women are overweight, with a quarter of adults being obese. These people are at an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Constant exposure to clever marketing and the culture of instant gratification can make it harder to make mindful, healthy choices. In this environment, maintaining a healthy weight requires high levels of effort, discipline, and a commitment to making nutritious choices.
In the modern, fast-paced world, losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight can be particularly challenging. The availability of ultra-processed, convenient foods makes it easy to overeat, as these foods often contain the perfect mix of sugar, salt and unhealthy fats that make them addictive. Busy schedules leave little time for meal prepping or cooking balanced meals from scratch, this pushes many of us to rely on fast food and snacks.
“To maintain a stable body weight and achieve energy balance, the calories you consume should match the energy your body expends,” explains Lauren Hewitt Registered Associate Nutritionist at Heart Research UK. “If you consistently consume more calories than your body needs, the excess energy is stored as fat, leading to weight gain. To lose weight, you must create a calorie deficit by consuming fewer calories than your body uses. This can be accomplished by tracking your food intake and increasing your physical activity levels to burn more calories.
“To make things much more confusing, weight loss isn’t solely about maintaining a calorie deficit. While calories matter, other factors also play a crucial role. Stress hormones, such as cortisol, can promote fat storage, especially around the abdomen, making weight loss more difficult. Blood sugar dysregulation, often caused by poor food choices or stress, can lead to cravings and overeating which can hinder progress.
“Hormones like insulin, leptin and ghrelin that regulate hunger and fat storage, also influence your ability to lose weight. For effective weight loss, it’s important to consider the broader picture of your health and wellbeing, including stress management, blood sugar balance, and hormonal health alongside a calorie deficit.”
Many people believe that a single day of eating more and expending less energy will result in immediate weight gain, but this isn’t the case. For weight gain to occur, this behaviour would need to be consistent, and you’d need to consume an extra 3,500 calories to gain about one pound of fat. The same principle applies to weight loss. To shed pounds, it’s typically recommended to reduce your calorie intake by about 500 calories per day, which can lead to a weight loss of 0.5 to 1 pound per week.
Lauren continues: “Staying in a calorie deficit can be challenging if you’re eating foods that are low in nutrients and high in calories, such as processed foods. Consuming the right foods will fuel your body throughout your weight loss journey. For example, a diet rich in fibre, ideally from lots of plant foods like vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and food high in protein helps you feel fuller for longer, curbing the urge to snack on unhealthy foods while providing the energy needed for regular physical activity.”
Losing and keeping off as little as 3% to 5% of your body weight can improve your health significantly. Weight loss can reduce your risk of high blood pressure and unhealthy cholesterol levels to decrease the risk of coronary heart disease.
Weight loss should be achieved by changing your behaviours and forming new habits. This process often takes months, if not years and is more about making long-lasting lifestyle changes than the short-term weight loss itself. However, forming new habits and breaking old habits is often the most challenging part of the process. Check out last month’s Healthy Heart Tip dedicated to behaviour change. Tracking your meals in a food diary and monitoring your activity levels can act as a powerful motivator to stay on course. Download your personal Food & Movement Journal to help you maintain progress.
The most common way people track progress is by stepping on the scales, but this might not be the most accurate measurement. Your body weight includes fat, muscle, blood, bones, organs, food and water, so weighing yourself reflects changes in all of these, not just fat loss. Since factors like muscle mass, food intake and water retention fluctuate, the scales don’t always give a clear picture of fat loss. That said, weighing yourself isn’t without value and many people find it a useful way to track progress. However, for more accurate results, it’s recommended to combine scale measurements with other methods of assessment.
Lauren explains: “Waist circumference or measuring the distance around your waist, is a reliable way to track both changes in body size and your risk of obesity-related diseases. The distribution of fat in your body, particularly around your waist, plays a significant role in your risk for conditions like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. If your waist circumference exceeds 35 inches for women or 40 inches for men, you may be at a higher risk, especially if the fat is stored around your abdomen. However, fat stored around the hips, thighs, and buttocks is associated with a lower risk. You can also measure other areas, such as thighs and arms, to observe additional changes.
“One of the simplest ways to monitor your progress is by noticing how your clothes fit. As you lose weight, you may find that your clothes begin to fit more loosely. Another effective method is taking progress photos. Start with “before” pictures and commit to taking regular photos monthly, while wearing the same clothes to track your changes.”
“Weight loss journeys are rarely linear, and it can be discouraging when progress slows or stalls. That’s why it’s a good idea to assess your fitness at the beginning and regularly throughout your journey. Even if weight loss is slow, you might be surprised at how much your fitness improves. You may find you’re walking more steps, lifting heavier weights, or feeling less out of breath during exercises that once left you breathless. Even if physical changes aren’t immediately visible, exercise improves blood sugar control, favourably alters your cholesterol levels, strengthens the heart, and lowers blood pressure, making your efforts worthwhile.”
Everyone is different, and weight loss journeys are never ‘one size fits all’, meaning what works for one person, might not work for another. We all have different genetics, muscle fibres, metabolic rates, starting points and motivations, with everybody’s journey being unique.
“It is unrealistic to assume that every single person will lose fat at the same rate or that by achieving a certain weight goal your body will look a certain way, we all have different body shapes,” says Lauren. “Research suggests aiming to lose 5% to 10% of your body weight during the first six months of your weight loss journey. Drastic weight loss isn’t always safe and is rarely sustainable, so we don’t recommend any fad or extreme methods. If you are monitoring weight, aiming to lose one to two pounds of body weight weekly is a reasonable goal.”
Ten tips to get you started on your weight loss journey
Prioritise protein and fibre-rich foods as this combination together helps us feel fuller for longer and minimises snacking and overeating.
Track your progress and reflect on your good and bad days by using a journal, or by using the Heart Research UK Food and Movement Journal.
Increase your physical activity levels to expend extra energy. Try to do something every day, even if it’s only a short walk. Why not sign up to do a challenge for Heart Research UK for some extra motivation?
Take up strength training to increase your muscle mass. Muscles use more calories than fat throughout the day, even while you are resting. By increasing your muscle mass, you will make it easier to both lose weight and maintain a healthy weight.
Reduce alcohol consumption as it can contribute to weight gain. Alcohol is high in calories and often leads to overeating. Consuming alcohol also slows down fat burning, as the body prioritises metabolising alcohol over other nutrients as a result, the body stores fat rather than burning it.
Stay hydrated. Optimal hydration supports your metabolism and helps regulate your appetite. Drinking enough water can prevent overeating by reducing hunger and cravings. It also aids in digestion and can boost energy levels for exercise.
Measure progress over a week or month, rather than a day. All too often, someone has a ‘bad day’ and then quits, but remember, one bad day doesn’t cause weight gain, just like one good day won’t equal hitting your weight loss goals. If you have a bad day, start again the very next day, rather than waiting for a new week or month.
Plan your meals and meal prep for those days you know you won’t have time to cook.
Slow down when eating. For optimal digestion to take place, we need to be relaxed, so try not to eat in a hurry. Also, by slowing down and chewing more, we give our bodies a chance to register what we are eating and signal we are full.
Find a community to help you through the tough times. No weight loss journey is ever easy and research shows having people on a similar journey to you to connect with can help keep you on track.
Above all, remember that the only person you should compare yourself to is you. Too often, we compare ourselves to unrealistic role models and set unrealistic limits on ourselves to look a certain way. Your motivation to lose weight should come from a desire to be healthy and live a vibrant life, but be easy on yourself and take small steps to create maintainable weight loss for years to come.
