No More Diets

I have read so many diets which all propose different calorie amounts. How many calories should I be eating to lose weight?

The simplest calculation for the number of calories you need to maintain your weight is to take your weight in pounds and multiply by 12. (Remember, there are 2.2lbs in a kilogram if you weight yourself in kilos.)

If you weigh 10 stone (or 140 pounds) that’s 1680 calories daily just to stay the same.

To safely lose weight, subtract no more than about 250 calories from that and then make sure you get active to the tune of 250 calories a day. That doesn’t have to be formal exercise - it can be doing gardening, housework, cycling or walking - anything active.

This will give you a 500 calorie a day deficit, and should result in you losing about a pound a week.

Actually I’m not that fond of calorie counting because it’s too easy to underestimate the amount you are eating or to forget to add something in and too easy to overestimate the number of calories you are burning. And even if you manage to lose weight by being meticulous in your calculations, who wants to keep calorie counting forever? When you stop counting the weight piles back on.

To my mind it’s better to forget about counting calories and to train yourself to eat sensible portions of delicious healthy food and to change how you interact with food so that you have good habits and a slim body for the rest of your life - and so that’s what I teach in my 8 week weight loss coaching program.

Does it make a difference what time of day you eat?

From a pure physical point of view it doesn’t really make much difference when you eat calories - a calorie is a calorie. I have never seen any evidence worth writing home about that says 200 calories eaten at midday are different from 200 calories eaten at midnight.

If you’re talking about a whole day’s food however, it does make sense to spread your calories throughout the day - as this keeps your metabolism firing on all cylinders burning up your food and prevents you getting over-hungry and shovelling down whatever is to hand.

And eating a good breakfast has long been thought to prevent unhealthy snacking mid-morning and is one of the factors that have been shown to help people who have lost weight stay at their target weight.

But it’s really a matter for personal choice. Do you find you eat more or less overall by eating at particular times of the day? Let that be your guide. If you can’t face breakfast, take a healthy snack with you if you have to go out so you’re not tempted by junk mid-morning. If you eat too much at dinner and go to bed uncomfortable if you eat late then eat your dinner earlier and don’t eat anything after 7pm. It’s just a case of seeing what works for your own circumstances and getting into good habits.

I am a female in her late forties battling weight for the first time, how can I lose it?

Many people start to gain weight in their forties. Its a time when your metabolism tends to slow down by a small amount. And because this is generally coupled with a reduction in daily activity and also a reduction in the amount of lean muscle tissue - also a sign of ageing - the change in weight can be startling.

On the other hand if you experiencing a dramatic weight gain without changing your eating or exercise habits, it may be worth a visit to your doctor (a good idea in any case if you are not sure what is causing a weight gain) to see if your thyroid is working well. Problems with this gland often arise in the forties.

If all is well, then it’s no more different losing weight in your forties than at any other time. It’s not inevitable that you have to be overweight just because you’re over 40. (I’m there myself!)

This is a great time to start to exercise if you aren’t already because it really does make the difference between being healthy and unhealthy in later life. Just make sure you take it gently at first if you’re not used to it and find activities which you love rather than something which bores you so that you enjoy it rather than feel it’s a chore.

And the usual guidelines on eating healthily and modestly apply - you’ll find a number of posts here to help you. Maybe you could start with Lose Weight without calorie counting

Just remember that constant yo-yo dieting is a pretty miserable way to live your life - try getting into good habits now that will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life.

How can I stop thinking about food?

It’s just typical isn’t it? Just when you want to reduce the amount you eat and lose weight you start thinking about food more than ever.

And to be fair - it’s hard not to think about food. It is all around us - at home, on every street corner, at every social function. We just can’t ignore it - and if we even try our hunger will bring us right back to reality.

So maybe it’s not possible to stop thinking about food altogether - we can really only try and reduce the times we think about food.

I find the best way to tackle this issue is to…

a) avoid getting bored - if you are doing something you love you will never think about food until you get hungry. Think about whether boredom is a factor and then start working on adding more interest and non-food related pleasure into your life. There is so much available to capture our imagination these days that there is no need to be bored. Whether you are bored at work or at home - tackle this problem at source - do you need a new job or a new hobby rather than a new diet?

b) plan food ahead of time. Take away the need to constantly think about food by planning your meals a week or a few days ahead and preparing them in advance too. If you always have something healthy and delicious to look forward to, you’re less likely to hanker after something else less healthy.

c) keep “unplanned” food (as much as possible) out of sight to keep it out of mind. Don’t buy what you know you don’t want to eat. Don’t wander past the bakery store of you know you’ll be tempted. Turn off the TV or avoid the commercial breaks.
d) never ban food - it only serves to make you want it more. If there is a particular food you love, which is not particularly healthy, plan small amounts with your meals or snacks

e) eat enough so that you are not hungry all the time - if you are trying to lose weight fast with a starvation diet of course you’ll be able to think of nothing else but food

How can I stop choosing food as the solution when my morale feels so low?

You know food will never love you back. It will never make you laugh. And in the end it will never cheer you up. It simply offers comfort for the moment it is on your lips and that comfort swiftly turns to dismay when you realise you have eaten too much for all the wrong reasons again.

But you know that don’t you?

The question is how to stop eating the food at those times when you feel low.

Well, you have reached the first stage of changing this habit by being aware of what you do. After that comes the stage of becoming aware that you are about to eat to cheer yourself up at the very moment when you are about to do that. You can then use another strategy instead of food.

Whenever you are about to reach for food, pause for a moment and think “Am I physically hungry?” and if you are not, remind yourself that food is going to make you feel worse, then employ another strategy to cheer yourself up. This takes practise - you won’t succeed every time at first but the more you do it and see progress, without beating yourself up when you don’t manage to do this, the more you will succeed.

Work out your strategies in advance. These will depend on why you are feeling low - whether you are lonely, stressed, bored or whatever - and on what it will take (other than food) to make a difference in your mood. We all have different reasons for feeling low and different ways to cheer ourselves up. The idea is to find all the things which make you feel low and then all the non-food solutions in each situation to feeling better.

Often our moods are simply a reflection of how we are choosing to think about a situation. Different thoughts lead to different moods. How could you think about your situation which would make you feel better? What could you do differently? Who could you speak to?

If you are often in a low mood then look at tackling the problem at source otherwise you are just masking the problem rather than resolving it with your strategies.

How Fast Can I Lose Weight?

This can vary a great deal. Those who starve themselves and take strenuous exercise like those on shows like the Biggest Loser can drop a huge amount of weight quite quickly but of course they are doing that under very special circumstances and with medical supervision.

A lot depends on how much you have to lose. If you are very overweight you can lose weight faster than someone who only has a few pounds to go but much of the weight loss in the early weeks will be water.

The problem with losing weight too quickly is that

a) you tend to lose muscle along with the fat. Muscle is needed to keep your metabolism running high. Lose muscle and you will start and burn fewer calories each day (muscle burns calories even when you are not doing anything). Muscle is also needed to keep your body and your skin firm and taut. So you want to preserve your muscle tissue as much as possible. This is why the Biggest Loser contestants have to keep up their exercises - not just to burn calories but also to preserve their muscle tissue.

b) you tend to give yourself a weight loss program which you just can’t keep up and live a normal life. If you are trying to lose a pound a week you can do that without affecting your life too much. If you try to lose a lot more than that it’s very difficult to eat at parties and weddings, business trips or weekends away and much of your free time will be given over to exercise. Result - you will probably give up too soon to make any lasting difference to your weight.

c) you tend to put the weight back on much quicker. This is especially true if you have lost muscle (due to burning fewer calories) but it is also because you will probably not have learned a way of eating which you want to keep going for the rest of your life. Strict diets are usually followed only until you get to your target weight (if you keep them up at all). As soon as you go off your strict weight loss program, you will pile on the pounds if you go back to eating the food and the quantities which made you overweight in the first place. In fact over 95% of people do exactly this after reaching their target weight.

In my Diet Exit Program I show you a different approach to losing weight. The best way to lose weight is to make small gradual changes to your lifestyle and habits which you are prepared to live with for ever. These changes accumulate to make a significant difference to your weight without taking over your life. Result - you lose weight steadily pound by pound and stay slim forever.

Why is it so hard to lose weight in the abdomen?

We all have a tendency to put on fat more readily in particular areas of our body. For many women the stomach is the first place to show weight gain and the last place to shed fat. It’s just the way many of us are made and no matter what we do it will always be that way. This is often emphasized by the natural tendency for women’s stomachs to be slightly rounded anyway - concave was just not the way we are meant to be - unless literally starving.

If you tend to lay down fat on your stomach, you have to tackle your stomach area on two fronts if you want to flatten your stomach.

The first way to tackle a fat stomach is by losing weight. You can do this in any way you like - you’ll find lots of ideas on this site or you can use any method that works for you. But you will need to get down to your ideal weight and not leave an extra 10 or 15lbs hanging around. That’s because those last few pounds will always hang around your stubborn areas and if your stubborn area is your stomach that is where it will remain.

While you are losing weight you also need to tackle the underlying muscles in the stomach. While the fat is there you can’t really see that your muscles are not firm and taut but this becomes very obvious once the fat disappears. As muscles can’t be trained overnight start sooner rather than later with a program of stomach firming exercises.

Unfortunately there is no exercise which will target your stomach and remove the fat - only losing overall weight from your body will do that. And there is no diet which will tighten up flabby stomach muscles. Only exercise will do that.

An additional problem affecting your stomach may be bloating - this is often caused by particular foods - and will disappear once the food is properly digested. For example, if you eat a plateful of pasta your stomach will often look bigger than ever. You may like to take note of the foods which affect you in this way and eat less of those foods especially on those days where you want to look your best.

What diet pills, if any, are safe and effective?

This one comes up very frequently in my inbox. I wrote about it on this Weight Loss Pills post too but it’s worth emphasizing.

There are a few pills your doctor might prescribe if you have shown that you have tried to lose weight in other ways, have not been able to and it is affecting your health, but most medical professionals are not too keen except as a last resort. All those pills, if they are going to do anything, have side effects too. In any case, it is only someone who has full knowledge of your medical history who could say that something was safe (or at least reasonably safe) for you.

I will say that most of the diet pill ads that pop through your letter box full of bright shiny promises or which you find on the internet are sheer rubbish. They make the ads sound so believable but they are basically lies. The experts do not exist if you look for them in medical circles. The before and after pictures are fake (either people lost weight by other means (sensible diet and exercise!) or there have even been cases of the “after” pictures being swapped round with the “before”). And you will find multiple ads for pills with various names doing the rounds all coming from the same few PO Boxes around the world. To add insult to injury they often send a diet and exercise sheet with the worthless pills even though they said that wasn’t necessary.

I tell you, I have seen it all in my time weight loss chocolate (!), lip gloss, patches you stick on your thighs and your feet and every kind of pill. I wouldn’t give any of them house room.

It stands to reason that if anything like this worked we would all know about it soon enough. News would spread like wildfire about this safe new drug which is helping people shed pounds. Do you think that would stay a secret for long? No, we’d all know about it.

My advice is that when you see such an ad - completely ignore it and get on with losing weight the safe way - with modest portions of good food and finding a way to get moving that you actually enjoy.

I’ve been introduced to InnerLight and the Miracle PH Diet of Dr Robert Young. Are you familiar with his theory of alkalising for health by only eating alkaline food (mostly greens, beans no meat, wheat or dairy) together with reducing toxicity and stress in lifestyle.

I can’t say I’ve come across this diet but to be honest I’m not in a rush to advise anyone to go and try it out.

In my experience as a weight loss coach, for the most part, people have enough difficulty with diets which force them to give up junk food like cookies, cakes, pastries and pies, soda, candy and fries or in reducing their portion sizes to a moderate amount never mind trying to stick to something that sounds so far removed from their current eating habits.

This is the kind of diet that you try for a week and lose weight (with so many restrictions you almost can’t fail to do that and frankly, who wants to overeat beans and greens anyway?) but do you really want to keep it up for a lifetime? Through holidays and trips abroad? Through good times and bad? Weddings and parties?

It’s my belief that food is a sociable thing and that following a diet which divides you from the rest of the world by what you can and can’t eat is not good for the soul. Learning to make healthy food choices over unhealthy choices in a world where we are constantly bombarded with junk food offerings - now that is something worth pursuing - along with getting used to eating the right amount to keep your body slim.

But you can make healthy choices without restricting food so much - food is meant to be enjoyed not endured.

I’m not saying that this diet is unhealthy (for all I know it’s the healthiest in the world) but I think that a good life and good food is all about balance and moderation. If you can learn to eat and enjoy mainly healthy food and to be satisfied with modest portions you will be doing better than most.

For anyone who wants to try an ultra-health promising regime - make sure you check it out with your doctor - and think about what it really means to eat in that way for the rest of your life. (and if so, you’re probably on the wrong site because I don’t generally talk about restrictive diets here - we are aiming for progress not perfection)

How can you lose weight without having excess skin?

I have had a few questions about this. It is quite an important issue because many people who have a lot of weight to lose fear that they will look worse after they lose weight if there is a lot of excess sagging skin still there - and this is pretty damaging for motivation in losing weight.

Just to make things trickier it’s quite hard to tell up front whether you will have a problem with loose skin - a lot depends on the natural elasticity of your skin, how long you have been overweight, how fast you gained weight and so on.

Having said that skin IS remarkably elastic and it’s quite amazing how fast it snaps back into place sometimes. For example, most pregnant women look at their tummies after just giving birth and worry they’ll never be the same again - and though skin is never quite so firm or smooth afterwards with good exercise and a healthy diet the tummy is soon looking good again.

The best thing you can do is to give yourself the best possible chance to limit any skin damage which might occur by sticking to the following guidelines. If you have a lot of weight to lose and you lose it, it’s my belief that you will not want to go back to where you were whether or not you have a little excess skin.

1. Lose weight slowly

However good your skin tone, skin needs time to snap back into shape - so the longer you give it to adapt to your changing shape the better.

If you lose weight gradually your skin has a chance to shrink with you. Those who try and lose 100lbs in 6 months are likely to have the most problems while your skin is likely to find it much easier to keep up with you losing less than a pound a week.

2. Eat foods rich in nutrients

Eat plenty of foods which are good for your skin and avoid those which are high in sugar, saturated fat and additives. Choose foods which are high in vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids. (Essential fatty acids are found in foods like avocados, olives, oily fish, nuts, seeds and cold pressed oils) Eat plenty of lean protein too. A healthy diet will benefit your skin no end while junk food does not give your skin a fighting chance.

3. Drink plenty of water

Keep skin hydrated by drinking enough good old-fashioned water. Drink it hot, drink it cold, drink it with a slice of lemon but drink it. And avoid drinks which have a diuretic dehydrating effect (tea, coffee, cola) to keep skin healthy. Aim for about 8 glasses of water or cups of pure herbal tea a day to keep skin in tip top condition.

4. Firm up as you Lose

If you lose weight too fast you will lose muscle along with the fat. This does nothing to support the skin which relies on the underlying muscle to keep it looking good. Exercise is not essential for weight loss (just a good idea) but it is absolutely vital to exercise your muscles if you want to preserve your skin.

Remember to include firming exercises for all parts of your body - including your face (an area often forgotten) - in your routine.

5. Moisturize

Use lashings of body lotion on your body and moisturizer on your face and neck to help keep your skin in good condition and hydrated. The lotion can’t penetrate the skin very far but it helps your skin feel good and the massaging action you use when you rub in the cream helps keep skin healthy by encouraging blood and lymph flow.

6. Start Losing Weight as Soon as Possible

If you put off losing weight, you will simply make things worse. The longer you have been overweight and the older you are the less resilient your skin is likely to be. And lose the weight once and be done with it. Going on and off diets all your life is also a bad idea for your skin tone - skin may be forgiving once but when you lose the same 30 lbs over and over it can take its toll on your poor skin as it constantly stretched and loosened.

If you are overweight gradually lose the weight by making a permanent change to your habits one by one. Choose changes that you are happy to live with for the rest of your life and never look back.