3 Surprising Ways to Lose Weight Forever.

How to lose weight and keep it off forever just like my client Aoife (below) did.

Let’s face it, losing weight isn’t easy, and if it was then obesity wouldn’t be the modern day epidemic that it is.

I don’t want to be just another personal trainer telling you to “eat less, move more”.

In theory there’s nothing wrong with that statement, but in practice it falls short and doesn’t work long term.

Yes, if you exercise or increase your steps and you eat less you will inevitably lose weight because you’re creating a calorie deficit.

This is simply where you are taking less calories (energy) in than your body needs, and in doing so your body uses stored energy (body fat) as energy and weight loss occurs. Now I’m glad we’ve cleared that up so there’ll be no more confusion.

If it was as simple as cutting out foods and exercising then why are you still stuck yo-yo dieting and “starting again Monday”?

Because losing weight and keeping it off forever is hard and multifaceted. Weight loss is as much about your mind as it is your body and without focusing on that element you’re missing half of the puzzle.

Why do we gain weight to begin with?

This might seem like a simple question, but if you’re struggling with weight loss I want you to think back to when it first became an issue for you.

I ask many of my clients this question in a non-judgemental way because I believe if you want to fix a problem you need to first find the root cause, here are some of my client’s answers to that question:

“I’ve always struggled with my weight, I can remember being in school and worrying about my belly and being self-conscious because I was bigger than other kids. Food was my coping mechanism for a stressful house, and an escape.”

“I never had a problem with weight until I was diagnosed with depression, I then started to eat my feelings and now it’s an ingrained habit”.

“I used to play sport in college and once that was over, I lose the identity I had as an athlete and couldn’t give exercise and nutrition my 100% anymore. Anytime I tried to eat healthy I’d fail because my previous approach was too strict and now I just need to find a healthy way to go about it”.

This just shows how food can play such a big role in our lives, and that it’s not just as simple as eating less and moving more.

It’s also possible to lose weight without changing your diet, you can read my blog post on it here.

Why you gained weight is important – for some there’s an obvious answer (stressful life period, trauma, escapism, distraction, comfort eating, emotional eating) and for otherwise, habits may have just crept in overtime like becoming less active with age and snacking on food more often.

Food is many things, it’s sustenance, it’s nourishment, enjoyment, connection, comfort, distraction and so much more.

Once you realise why you overeat (if you do) you can begin to move past it.

The second step to losing weight forever is awareness, so taking time to reflect on your current behaviours, habits and actions. What are you doing day to day and week to week that’s leading to weight gain?

1. You might be skipping breakfast.

2. Going long hours without food.

3. Not eating regular meals.

4. Snacking little and often.

5. Not eating much all day and eating everything at night.

6. Eating your emotions.

These are some common trends I see with my weight loss clients too and it tells us a lot.

Breakfast isn’t magic, but if you’re prone to overeating then skipping breakfast isn’t the best idea – you might think it helps you eat less, but across the course of the day you’re likely eating more because you let your hunger levels get too high.
Going long hours with food means feeling ravenous and hangry, once this happens you feel frazzled and make poorer choices but it also zaps your energy making it extremely hard to eat well.
When you eat irregular meals you’re appetite fluctuates a lot instead of a consistent flow over the day it’s constant highs and lows, regular meals means less chaos and more calm, less snacking because you’re eating enough and more enjoyment.
Snacking little and often, it might feel like it’s only a handful here and there but it all adds up across the day and itsn’t increasing your satiety.
Not eating enough food at meal times, specifically protein, fibre and nutrient dense meals often leads to overeating in the evenings because, well, you’re hungry! If you eat enough earlier in the day and leave some room for a snack later on you’ll balance things a lot better.
Eating your emotions. This is one of the most common ones I see with clients, and my response is always the same when they tell me they’ve overeaten “good, you could have done much worse but there’s nothing we can do about it now only reflect and move on.” it might sound simple, but so many of you beat yourselves up for overeating when it’s a normal thing to do. When you overeat all the time, that’s where it becomes an issue.

So that’s 2 really important things covered in detail, what’s left? The hardest but most rewarding part – emotional eating.

Emotional eating is normal from time to time. Had a bad day? Chocolate is your best friend. Going through a break up? Ice cream is a god send. Feeling stressed? A glass of wine might help relax you.

But all of these things can become an issue when they are your only go tos.

In order to regulate your calorie consumption to create a deficit and lose weight – you need to learn to regulate your emotions and stress, in a healthy way.

Eating food will only do so much, but the stress is still there if it isn’t deal with.

Similarly, a tub of ben & jerrys might feel good in the moment, but unless you let yourself feel upset you’ll feel worse afterwards not better and now you suffer twice, not once. You feel sad, then overeat and feel bad, and because you overeat you’re also struggling with weight, it’s a cycle of suffering.

How do you regulate your emotions? You feel them, express them, talk about them, journal, meditate, move, breath and allow yourself to “sit with it” because if you can just create a little bit of space the intensity of the emotion you’re feeling will drop, and now when you do have the food, you enjoy it more and are less likely to overeat. You can read this blog from Cornell University to learn more about emotional regulation.

This could be an entire blog by itself but I really think working with a holistic weight loss coach who takes an approach like I do can really help as it’s extremely hard to manage it all on your own.

If you are an emotional eater, it may be beneficial to do some therapy or counselling to get to the root cause and deal with it properly, and a lot of my clients have done, or end up doing some therapy alongside coaching with me to finally learn how lose weight and keep it off forever.

In any case, if you’d like more help learning how to lose weight and keep it off forever follow me on instagram for daily content.