If your body mass index is in the overweight category or above, and you’re not pregnant, you may wish to try the NHS Inform online 12 week weight management programme.
If you have type 2 diabetes, you’ll find lots of helpful advice and information about healthy lifestyles and food psychology on the following websites:
Whilst there’s often a focus on weight, it’s also important to think about your overall health and to try to make small, realistic lifestyle changes you can keep up in the long term. For example, focusing on gradually increasing your physical activity, eating regularly, or increasing how many vegetables you eat can be good for your health, even if your weight doesn’t change. Unless there’s a clear medical reason not to eat certain foods, such as a diagnosed allergy, try not to label foods as being either good or bad, and instead aim for a balanced diet that includes a wide range of foods. More information on how to lose weight safely can be found here.
If you’ve grown up with a “waste not, want not” message, you may feel that you need to finish what’s on your plate. This can lead you to eat more than you need. It’s a common habit that won’t change overnight, but you can learn to be more aware of these habits and slowly shift them over time, learning to eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re satisfied. One of the key strategies for this is called mindful eating, which you might have heard of. It involves slowing down to notice the smell, taste and texture of your food whilst you eat. Some people find that they get more enjoyment from food when they eat mindfully, and this can make it easier to stop eating when they’ve had enough. You can find more on mindful eating on NHS Grampian’s website.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many people’s eating habits, especially as routines have had to change and our usual enjoyable activities may no longer be available. If this applies to you, it’s not your fault. This is a challenging situation that continues to affect each of us in different ways. It might be a good time to return to old hobbies or to try one or two new activities at home, to manage boredom or to relax, even if it isn’t quite the same as what you like doing best. Going for short walks for even 5 minutes can be a great way of getting some fresh air and looking after your mental health as well as your physical health. Try to set realistic goals, rather than aiming for a particular amount of activity or a certain number on the scales. And if you’ve a bad day, be gentle with yourself and choose one small step that you could take to get yourself back on track.
You may have heard of many types of diets, all claiming to be better than the other ones. We do not recommend following extreme diets that involving cutting out whole food groups or anything that is not realistic to follow for the long term. Many of these fad diets might work in the short term but will inevitably stop working for almost everyone due to being impossible to sustain. They can also lead to rapid weight regain and make us feel as though we have failed, when it is actually the diet that has failed us. As tempting as these diets are, it is much healthier to focus on one small change at a time that you can build into your daily routine before adding in a new habit.
Many of us have a complicated relationship with food. If you have been struggling with emotional eating, boredom eating, stress eating or binge eating, it is not your fault! These are common difficulties that can often lead to feelings of guilt and shame but usually make sense in the context of our lives, diet culture, the food rules we have grown up with and the unhelpful messages we get about our bodies that we can internalise, especially as a result of weight stigma. If you have a difficult relationship with food, working on that first and putting weight loss efforts on hold can be more helpful for your health and wellbeing in the long-term.
As a starting point, two key foundations that we recommend include:
- regular eating (try not to go for more than four waking hours without anything to eat)
- practise gradually increasing the amount of intentional relaxation or other soothing activities you do each day.
Whilst the above recommendations might sound simple, we know that is often not the case for many people. We only have so much time and energy in the day, so in order to improve our health, it can help to consider where our time and energy is currently going and to ask ourselves what we are willing to change. We have to work around our current circumstances and to find ways to prioritise our needs for regular meals, relaxation and movement, which might require doing a little less for other people at times. It also means starting with small changes, even if these do not seem ideal; e.g. if we cannot afford to spend time, energy or money on something healthy for breakfast, it is usually better to have something rather than nothing to give us some energy and to reduce the chances of overeating later. For suggested resources on working through these difficulties, please return to the main page and select the “support” tab.
