No More Diets

After having a hysterectomy my weight is just piling on. How can I stop this from happening?

Unfortunately weight gain after hysterectomy is pretty normal as it is after any kind of surgery where a recovery period is needed. You see after the first few days of not eating much following surgery, patients go back to eating their normal diet but activity levels drop considerably. In fact, on top of their normal diet many patients eat even more than usual due to trying to combat boredom and stress during the recovery period. IT’s too easy when you’re sitting around at home with not much you CAN do to feel like yet another cup of coffee and a cookie.

It does not take many excess calories every day before you start piling on the pounds. Just 500 calories a day too many each day and you will gain a pound a week of pure fat. And levels of activity can be lower for 6 weeks to 3 months or more during the post-operative period as you try and avoid strain.

Yet this period of recovery is essential to get you back to full health so the answer is not to try and do more until you are completely recovered but to eat a bit less and a bit more healthily. This may be easier said than done when you have to rely on others to help with cooking and shopping but if you let your helpers know how important it is to have a healthy diet to help with your recovery they will be willing to help you.

In any case, if you are still recovering then cut yourself some slack. Try and eat a bit less as a form of damage limitation but don’t expect too much of yourself. It is far better that you let yourself recover as quickly as possible and THEN start to do something about your weight if it is all too much for you now. The last thing you want to do is delay your recovery.

Although many people think that the hormones you take after a hysterectomy are to blame, they actually play a very small role - so don’t worry that you are stuck with the extra weight. Hormonal changes and medicines generally make 3 to 4 pounds difference at most and even this can be counteracted by a healthy lifestyle. If additional weight tends to migrate to your tummy area following hysterectomy (as it often does following menopause) then a healthy diet and tummy exercises will help a lot but of course no tummy or other exercises should be done until you are recovered and your doctor has given the OK.

It’s important to just let yourself recover fully and then start eating healthier and building up your activity levels one small step at a time so that healthy eating and plenty of activity becomes just the normal way you live your life in the future.

How do I know if eating too much or too little?

If you leave the table and feel even slightly uncomfortable then you have eaten too much. The aim is to feel satisfied rather than stuffed. The only way to detect this point during a meal is if you eat slowly and focus on the food rather than eating quickly and mindlessly.

If you have been overeating for some time and your body has got used to having too much food you may have to retrain your stomach to get used to less food over a few weeks by gradually reducing quantities. The right amount of food for comfort is about the size of two fistfuls - not a huge amount - but your stomach is about the size of your fist and has to expand to accommodate even that quantity of food.

In order to get a balanced diet it’s best to eat lean protein about the size of a pack of cards, a small portion of whole grain carbohydrate and filling up on fruit and vegetables. But in practise if you keep quantities down you can eat more or less as you like - it just won’t be as healthy.

For most people eating this amount for lunch or dinner, a snack will be required between meals - mid morning and mid afternoon. Choose fruit, vegetables and a little lean protein to quell your hunger.

Apart from this the only thing to be aware of are the hidden calories in drinks. Drinks don’t fill you up but they can easily add as many calories as a meal. Be wary of milky drinks (including coffees) and fruit juices as well as alcohol and sugary soft drinks.

Once you have regulated the quantity of food you can tell whether the food choices you are making are causing you to lose weight, gain weight or stay the same. Generally this plan is enough to lose weight if you don’t waiver from it. If you want to waiver (and let’s face it we all have special occasions when we might want to) then you may have to start and change the type of foods you are choosing as well as the quantity.

How can I possibly diet when I only eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. I only have a half hour break for lunch so it is always very rushed most days only a couple pieces of fruit on the go. My job is very active Home Care in which I would be cleaning four or five houses a day plus personal care is also added into my days work. By the time I come home and cook dinner I am too exhausted to exercise further.

Oh dear. It’s no wonder you are exhausted if you are going all day with only a couple of pieces of fruit between breakfast and dinner. This is really too little food to keep anyone going even for a sedentary worker never mind someone with an active job like yours.

The main problem here seems to be that you are eating too little to keep your metabolism going - your body will be conserving fat and calories because it thinks you are starving.

It’s important to spread your calories throughout the day and not eat everything in one dinner at night. Half an hour is still enough to get some good nutrition including some lean protein and I think it would do you good to have a small snack mid morning and after noon as well. Then balance your eating with a smaller dinner than usual.
It sounds like you are probably getting enough exercise already so that may not the way to go for you. (You know you have to run more than a marathon to lose a pound of fat so even for most people exercise is a bonus and a way to keep healthy rather than the main way to lose weight).

Focus on healthy regular eating for a while to get your metabolism back on an even keel before you think about losing weight.

Also if you are on your feet all day and not eating much between meals make sure that you are drinking enough water and not drinking calories - it’s easy to forget that sugar in tea, coffee and soft drinks can add up to an awful lot of calories not to mention those in fruit juice, milky drinks and alcohol.

How can I get over my plateau (I’ve bumped up my exercise intensity and my weight won’t budge)?

It’s quite normal to get stuck in a weight loss plateau when you are in it for the long haul - and it is a major danger point - so many people give up at that time. You know how it is - you start full of enthusiasm and really tackle weight loss head on and then a few weeks later despite making a great effort the dial on the scales refuses to budge.

There are quite a few potential reasons for a plateau:-

Maybe you don’t think you are making any less effort but actually you are paying a bit less attention to your eating habits in terms of portion sizes and food choices. Maybe you have got a bit more lax about following your plan and some of your old habits have crept in.

OR

Maybe you have lost weight and you haven’t adjusted your eating habits accordingly. Every pound of extra fat means you have to carry an extra pound of fat around all day. A person who loses weight generally needs fewer calories unfortunately.

OR

Maybe you have been TOO strict with yourself and your metabolism has slowed as a result. Your body thinks you are starving and is conserving fat as much as you can. This generally happens if you are eating more than 500 calories fewer than you need each day (and if you are doing a lot of exercise you may need to adjust the standard daily requirements for your activity level). Maybe your body has even reached the level where it will resist weight loss because you at the healthiest weight for you. If you were trying to reach super model proportions this might very well be the case.

OR

Maybe as you have been exercising so much you have been replacing fat with muscle. Muscle makes your body firmer and more compact plus it burns up more calories even while you are resting but it also weighs more than fat - so you can actually become leaner AND heavier at the same time. This may be happening to you.

Whatever the reason, if you definitely still have weight to lose (and you’re not trying to make yourself unnaturally thin) you have two choices when faced with a weight loss plateau.

You can give up and let the plateau defeat you

OR

you can make an extra effort to continue to get in shape by checking that your food consumption and exercise levels are fine for the weight you are currently at - neither too high nor too low. Then you need to be more vigilant.

Giving up serves no purpose. But if you carry on eating more healthily and moving your body the scale will eventually continue to move and you’ll continue to build the shape you deserve ounce by ounce and inch by inch.

Once you have lost weight how do you keep it off?

When you go on a diet there is a major challenge to overcome when you hit your target weight. You see, diets are seen as a temporary thing, a period of abstinence, of denying yourself the good things in life.

And chances are when you reach that happy milestone and you reach the weight you want to be you will go back to what you see as a normal pattern of eating.

The trouble is your normal pattern of eating is what made you overweight in the first place and therefore the day you reach your target weight is the day you start putting weight back on again - in fact, faster than ever because your new lighter body needs fewer calories to just stay alive than your heavier body did.

So my whole approach is different. Don’t bother to diet. Just make gradual healthy changes in your lifestyle - ones which you are happy to live with forever. Take up some fun activities. Find healthier recipes and foods you love. Learn to eat smaller portions and stop when you are satisfied but not stuffed. In short, learn to live like a slim person not one who is constantly thinking about having to lose weight. The weight will come off anyway without the diet and when it does you won’t have to do anything any different to stay the slim person you have gradually learned how to be.

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.