No More Diets

I am dreading the birthday party this weekend I am to attend. Do you have any tips to help me stick to my diet?

Birthday parties are not meant to be a threat. If you eat too much it’s not the end of the world.

Do the best you can - no doubt you’ll not be perfect. None of us are.

If it helps, see the party as an experiment with control and have fun with that. Make a game of it. Give yourself points every time you negotiate a tricky area (but only if that feels like a fun thing to do) You know the kind of thing (Had a mineral water instead of another buck’s fizz. (1 point) Asked for a small piece of cake. (1 point) Stopped eating when I’d had enough (1 point) Said “No” twice to Auntie Jessie insisting I had seconds (20 points)

Try visualizing how you want to act at the party before you go and make sure you’re not too hungry when you get there. Focus on the conversation rather than on the food - and try a little of the food you love to mark the occasion without going overboard.

Fat does not happen at a party in my experience - after all you have to eat 3500 calories too much to make so much as a pound of fat. Fat (or slim) happens with the food you eat day after day after day.

Enjoy the party and try and show yourself that the presence or absence of food (or the amount you eat of what is available) is not a factor in having a good time.

I follow my diet exactly and I can’t seem to lose any weight. What could be wrong? (Weight watchers core and SBD)

There are a few things which could be wrong here because, normally, if you have the will power (though few of us have) to follow a diet exactly you SHOULD lose weight.

I am a bit concerned that you find it necessary to stick to two plans. Is that even possible? Assuming that SBD is South Beach Diet can these diets even work together? Why not just concentrate on one if you’re going to diet? Because as I say both have been known to work if you stick to them to the letter. (My problem with diets is that even if you stick to them while you lose weight most of us can’t or won’t stick with them forever and you just gain the weight back unless you change your habits).

The other thing I need to ask (because it’s all too easy to avoid being honest with ourselves) - are you really sticking to your diet exactly? to every dish? to every amount/portion size (by measuring not guesswork)? to every exercise session etc? A little slip here and there doesn’t seem like much but it may be the difference between losing weight and not.

But if you are following your diet exactly and not losing weight then it may be that

a) you have not got much weight to lose and so your body is resistant to weight loss - it is much harder to lose weight if you are already around the normal weight range.

b) you have been on a very low calorie diet in the past and your metabolism is sluggish as a result - this is just your body’s way of protecting itself when you try to starve it

c) you have a slow metabolism due to a medical problem such as an underactive thyroid. Best to check this out with your doctor.

Only you can really know what applies in your circumstances - once you do you can take it from there.

Can I Lose Weight Permanently?

Losing weight permanently is one of the hardest things - that’s because it’s easier to lose weight than it is to keep it off.

Now if you’ve ever struggled to lose weight you might think that strange - and that once you lose weight your problems will be over but over 95 people out of 100 who diet and reach their target weight gain all the weight back quite quickly (and usually end up heavier than ever).

The thing is it’s one thing to make an effort to meet a specific weight loss goal - you can see an end to your “suffering” and you have a great slim body to look forward to. But once you achieve that there’s seems to be no need to stick to your diet - and so you go back to eating just like you were before - the very eating habits that got you overweight in the first place.

So the answer to losing weight permanently is to change your eating habits (and to a lesser extent your activity habits) permanently.

Does it mean you have to be on a diet for the rest of your life?

No - in fact I would suggest giving the whole diet idea a miss even while you are losing weight.

Just examine your habits and decide which of them are contributing to your weight problems and then change these gradually one by one. Every habit you change is another step towards enjoying great health and a slim body permanently. The aim is to never have to think about dieting again because you are simply living your life just like the slim people you see around you everywhere.

There is nothing special about them - they just have different habits from you. That’s all.

I want to lose two stones (28lbs) in two months - how can I make that happen?

The short answer is that to lose 28lbs of fat you need to eat 98,000 fewer calories than you use in activity during that time - which is pretty nigh on impossible if you want to lead a normal life. That’s 1750 fewer calories than you need every day for 8 weeks! Given that average calorie needs are around the 2000 mark - you can see that it is not going to happen.

Not only that but by dieting to that extent, you would not be taking in vital nutrients and you would be putting your body and metabolism into starvation (fat conservation) mode which might affect you for some time to come - meaning that when you return to normal eating you will pile weight back on faster than ever.

The maximum you should set out to lose is 2lbs a week so you might realistically (and healthily) get half-way there and even then only if you make a huge effort to change your eating and activity habits.

You may see TV shows like The Biggest Loser where people lose more than 2lbs, but the contestants generally

a) have a huge amount to lose in the first place and the more you weigh the easier it is to lose a number of pounds in a week(a lot of that weight loss is water rather than fat). If you are less than 30lbs overweight it is more difficult to lose that much consistently.

b) undertake very low-calorie diets which are miserable as hell and not sustainable in the long term or even in the short term by anyone with a social life or even a normal life

c) exercise hard for long periods each day

If you want to lose weight AND KEEP IT OFF - I have to say that slow and steady wins the race. Change your habits one at a time into habits that you can live with for the rest of your life. Build success one step at a time and you’ll make permanent changes in your shape which will be with you for the rest of your life.

I don’t say this to discourage you - just to be realistic - I have seen time and time again when friends have lost weight on some “fantastic” new diet only to see the weight return with a vengeance because eating and activity habits weren’t changed to match their new slim body - they just went back to their usual pattern of eating once the diet was over.