It’s that time of year again where everyone jumps on the weight loss bandwagon. There’s so much guilt about the food over Christmas which is a shame since eating food should be enjoyable and is not really such a bad thing to be doing. For some reason, the start of a new year seems like it might make it easier to find that motivation that you feel you didn’t have last year.
Lots of people will start some kind of diet and some kind of intense exercise regime. Some will swear it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change. They will tell you this in the same breath as telling you they are hungry but can’t eat any more today because of their calorie count. That my friends, is pretty much the definition of a diet (in the modern sense of the word). This is what society tells us we should be doing at this time of year and throughout our lives.
For many people, they will have made this resolution more than once. Some won’t have kept up any changes for very long. Some won’t have lost any weight. Some will have lost weight. The majority of those who did will have gained at least some of it back over time (approx 95% of people within 1-5 years in research). Some will have gained more than they lost. When they did, they will have blamed themselves. Telling themselves they weren’t disciplined enough even if they never had or reverted to an unhealthy eating or exercise pattern. Some (the other 5%) will have kept the weight off for more than 5 years. I personally fall into this category so technically, even though I regained weight, people like me fall within the 5% of ‘long term success’ stories. If you look at the national weight registry, there are other people that managed the same and the majority did the same thing I did to keep that weight off. They stayed super restrictive and got more restrictive if any weight started to creep back on. They ate far less than what is recommended for healthy adults. They exercised far more. They weighed themselves very frequently and actively tracked what they were eating. Does this sound like a fun way to spend the rest of your life? (Spoiler - it’s really, really not). For someone in a larger body, we prescribe this (including those who have lost weight and are now in a smaller body). For someone starting in a smaller body, we diagnose it as an eating disorder. Ultimately though, these things are useful for controlling weight but none of these things have much to do with health.
The difficulty with using restriction to induce weight loss is that while ‘calories in vs calories out’ is true to an extent, aside from biological differences from person to person it is also affected by adaptation of bodies. The more you restrict your eating, the hungrier you will feel which sets you up for binge eating patterns. Your body will also make efforts to reduce the total amount of energy it is using as it becomes worried that it won’t have enough food to survive. The more you overexercise, the more efficient your body will become at processing energy so you’ll burn fewer calories during the exercise. So basically, if you do eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight but the more you do this, the harder it will be to maintain both the restriction and the weight loss - you’ll need to restrict more as time goes on.
Now, I’m not saying that losing weight is necessarily a bad thing. I just think having goals that are based on losing weight sets people up for poor physical health behaviours and poor mental health, particularly with regard to anxiety around food and exercise, poor body image and self blaming and shaming. I also think that society promises a lot of positive side effects of weight loss - you’ll feel better, you’ll love your body, people will like you more, you’ll be more outgoing, you’ll find the love of your life. The truth is, all of these things are possible no matter what size you are (and often a fixation on weight makes them harder). If you spend time putting off your life until you’ve reached your perfect weight, you might end up finding that you missed out on a lot of precious time that could have been spent embracing life in the body you have. Ironically, you will also likely have been less active (because you are avoiding going out) and have more habitual/boredom/binge eating because of the lack of other activities and guilt associated with any lapses in restriction.
Instead of setting a weight loss goal, I would recommend setting goals based around physical or mental health. Here are a few ideas:
1. Make peace with your body. This is a long term goal really. It’s very unlikely that you will just be able to decide you like your body and that’s that. It’s likely you will need to actively work on changing the way you think about your body. You can read about body positivity or follow related pages on social media. I like ‘Embrace’ the documentary and their Facebook page (body image movement). I like bodiposipanda on Instagram. I like the ‘Don’t salt my game’ podcast. You have to find bits that you find useful - I definitely find some pages claiming to be body positive are not at all. The point is to find things that make you feel good about yourself. The good news is that once you start to change your mindset, you start to feel better in yourself, even if your body doesn’t change. You are also more likely to want to treat your body well with healthy eating and normal amounts of exercise if you like your body.
2. Set goals around behaviour. Weight is not a behaviour and unfortunately we can be undertaking some really great behaviours for our health but give them up when we don’t see a change in weight. This is such a shame as research shows that healthier behaviours are really important regardless of weight. Sometimes weight loss will come naturally through doing this, especially over the longer term but having the goal of weight loss often means we either don’t get there because we give up too quickly if not seeing ‘results’ or we are too strict and either have too much adaptation or too much trouble sustaining changes we’ve made.
3. Try to make goals positive rather than negative ie. something you can do rather than something you shouldn’t do. For example, you might aim to cook at home more often or to try a new vegetable each week or to incorporate one vegetarian meal per week or to increase by one portion of fruit and vegetables per day. All of these goals will likely change some other aspects of your eating but they are tracked positively and having a cookie (as an example) doesn’t detract from having met the other goal.
4. Learn to listen to your body. When you spend years counting things, this can be easier said than done. One of the things I realised only after I stopped counting calories was that my body has a massive variation in what I need day to day. Sometimes I’m really hungry and eat a lot, sometimes I eat much less. Your body kind of works it all out for you. Ironically when counting, some days I would have used up ‘extra calories’ on a day I was under because they were there and some days I’d have been left starving because I wasn’t allowed something else.
5. Be active. I nearly wrote be more active but the truth is, some people are active enough already and more is not always a good thing. Choose activities you enjoy. Try to start fairly small and build up if you are aiming for more. Starting out with crazy HIIT routines or heavy weights when you are unfit is just going to make you feel bad, sore and prone to injury and will make it much more likely that you will quit than if you pace yourself. If you are in for the long game, it really doesn’t matter if you skip workouts here and there or do lighter things while you build fitness to be able to enjoy heavier activity.
6. Consider mixing up the types of activity you do. Different activities have different benefits. Maybe add some strength training or extra stretching or incorporate some new outdoor activities or active classes like dancing or skiiing.
7. Learn to forgive yourself. One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to undertake healthier behaviour is feeling guilty if not every day is a ‘good’ day. The truth is, it isn’t bad to not work out for a day or to eat any type of food. What sometimes makes these things bad is when we feel so much guilt that we end up letting go of all of our healthy behaviours for a longer period because we feel like we’ve ruined everything. Once you accept that sometimes you’ll eat so called ‘junk food’ and sometimes you won’t work out, it gets a lot easier to be more consistent (plus you get to enjoy the food and exercise/non exercise days more!)
8. Consider self care activities. I don’t mean taking a bath (though that’s nice too). Often we might benefit from more guided self care like meditation or counselling. It might be making time to meet up with a friend or having quiet time to read a book. I guess my point is that mental health is also part of health - remember to take care of this too.
9. Don’t forget rest! Rest and sleep are such important parts of health. They affect how much we eat and how much we exercise as well as our general health. Sometimes the best goal might be allowing more time for rest.
10. Don’t feel bad if you have been or still are on the weight loss merry go round. Sometimes we have to do these things at our own pace and our entire culture (and a multi million dollar industry) tells us we should be doing this. It’s so hard to leave that behind.
If you’re still with me, thank you for reading. I hope you will consider making some positive goals for 2019 and end up feeling better in yourself and about yourself.
Setting resolutions not based around weight loss
It’s that time of year again where everyone jumps on the weight loss bandwagon. There’s so much guilt about the food over Christmas which is a shame since eating food should be enjoyable and is not really such a bad thing to be doing. For some reason, the start of a new year seems like it might make it easier to find that motivation that you feel you didn’t have last year.
Lots of people will start some kind of diet and some kind of intense exercise regime. Some will swear it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change. They will tell you this in the same breath as telling you they are hungry but can’t eat any more today because of their calorie count. That my friends, is pretty much the definition of a diet (in the modern sense of the word). This is what society tells us we should be doing at this time of year and throughout our lives.
For many people, they will have made this resolution more than once. Some won’t have kept up any changes for very long. Some won’t have lost any weight. Some will have lost weight. The majority of those who did will have gained at least some of it back over time (approx 95% of people within 1-5 years in research). Some will have gained more than they lost. When they did, they will have blamed themselves. Telling themselves they weren’t disciplined enough even if they never had or reverted to an unhealthy eating or exercise pattern. Some (the other 5%) will have kept the weight off for more than 5 years. I personally fall into this category so technically, even though I regained weight, people like me fall within the 5% of ‘long term success’ stories. If you look at the national weight registry, there are other people that managed the same and the majority did the same thing I did to keep that weight off. They stayed super restrictive and got more restrictive if any weight started to creep back on. They ate far less than what is recommended for healthy adults. They exercised far more. They weighed themselves very frequently and actively tracked what they were eating. Does this sound like a fun way to spend the rest of your life? (Spoiler - it’s really, really not). For someone in a larger body, we prescribe this (including those who have lost weight and are now in a smaller body). For someone starting in a smaller body, we diagnose it as an eating disorder. Ultimately though, these things are useful for controlling weight but none of these things have much to do with health.
The difficulty with using restriction to induce weight loss is that while ‘calories in vs calories out’ is true to an extent, aside from biological differences from person to person it is also affected by adaptation of bodies. The more you restrict your eating, the hungrier you will feel which sets you up for binge eating patterns. Your body will also make efforts to reduce the total amount of energy it is using as it becomes worried that it won’t have enough food to survive. The more you overexercise, the more efficient your body will become at processing energy so you’ll burn fewer calories during the exercise. So basically, if you do eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight but the more you do this, the harder it will be to maintain both the restriction and the weight loss - you’ll need to restrict more as time goes on.
Now, I’m not saying that losing weight is necessarily a bad thing. I just think having goals that are based on losing weight sets people up for poor physical health behaviours and poor mental health, particularly with regard to anxiety around food and exercise, poor body image and self blaming and shaming. I also think that society promises a lot of positive side effects of weight loss - you’ll feel better, you’ll love your body, people will like you more, you’ll be more outgoing, you’ll find the love of your life. The truth is, all of these things are possible no matter what size you are (and often a fixation on weight makes them harder). If you spend time putting off your life until you’ve reached your perfect weight, you might end up finding that you missed out on a lot of precious time that could have been spent embracing life in the body you have. Ironically, you will also likely have been less active (because you are avoiding going out) and have more habitual/boredom/binge eating because of the lack of other activities and guilt associated with any lapses in restriction.
Instead of setting a weight loss goal, I would recommend setting goals based around physical or mental health. Here are a few ideas:
1. Make peace with your body. This is a long term goal really. It’s very unlikely that you will just be able to decide you like your body and that’s that. It’s likely you will need to actively work on changing the way you think about your body. You can read about body positivity or follow related pages on social media. I like ‘Embrace’ the documentary and their Facebook page (body image movement). I like bodiposipanda on Instagram. I like the ‘Don’t salt my game’ podcast. You have to find bits that you find useful - I definitely find some pages claiming to be body positive are not at all. The point is to find things that make you feel good about yourself. The good news is that once you start to change your mindset, you start to feel better in yourself, even if your body doesn’t change. You are also more likely to want to treat your body well with healthy eating and normal amounts of exercise if you like your body.
2. Set goals around behaviour. Weight is not a behaviour and unfortunately we can be undertaking some really great behaviours for our health but give them up when we don’t see a change in weight. This is such a shame as research shows that healthier behaviours are really important regardless of weight. Sometimes weight loss will come naturally through doing this, especially over the longer term but having the goal of weight loss often means we either don’t get there because we give up too quickly if not seeing ‘results’ or we are too strict and either have too much adaptation or too much trouble sustaining changes we’ve made.
3. Try to make goals positive rather than negative ie. something you can do rather than something you shouldn’t do. For example, you might aim to cook at home more often or to try a new vegetable each week or to incorporate one vegetarian meal per week or to increase by one portion of fruit and vegetables per day. All of these goals will likely change some other aspects of your eating but they are tracked positively and having a cookie (as an example) doesn’t detract from having met the other goal.
4. Learn to listen to your body. When you spend years counting things, this can be easier said than done. One of the things I realised only after I stopped counting calories was that my body has a massive variation in what I need day to day. Sometimes I’m really hungry and eat a lot, sometimes I eat much less. Your body kind of works it all out for you. Ironically when counting, some days I would have used up ‘extra calories’ on a day I was under because they were there and some days I’d have been left starving because I wasn’t allowed something else.
5. Be active. I nearly wrote be more active but the truth is, some people are active enough already and more is not always a good thing. Choose activities you enjoy. Try to start fairly small and build up if you are aiming for more. Starting out with crazy HIIT routines or heavy weights when you are unfit is just going to make you feel bad, sore and prone to injury and will make it much more likely that you will quit than if you pace yourself. If you are in for the long game, it really doesn’t matter if you skip workouts here and there or do lighter things while you build fitness to be able to enjoy heavier activity.
6. Consider mixing up the types of activity you do. Different activities have different benefits. Maybe add some strength training or extra stretching or incorporate some new outdoor activities or active classes like dancing or skiiing.
7. Learn to forgive yourself. One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to undertake healthier behaviour is feeling guilty if not every day is a ‘good’ day. The truth is, it isn’t bad to not work out for a day or to eat any type of food. What sometimes makes these things bad is when we feel so much guilt that we end up letting go of all of our healthy behaviours for a longer period because we feel like we’ve ruined everything. Once you accept that sometimes you’ll eat so called ‘junk food’ and sometimes you won’t work out, it gets a lot easier to be more consistent (plus you get to enjoy the food and exercise/non exercise days more!)
8. Consider self care activities. I don’t mean taking a bath (though that’s nice too). Often we might benefit from more guided self care like meditation or counselling. It might be making time to meet up with a friend or having quiet time to read a book. I guess my point is that mental health is also part of health - remember to take care of this too.
9. Don’t forget rest! Rest and sleep are such important parts of health. They affect how much we eat and how much we exercise as well as our general health. Sometimes the best goal might be allowing more time for rest.
10. Don’t feel bad if you have been or still are on the weight loss merry go round. Sometimes we have to do these things at our own pace and our entire culture (and a multi million dollar industry) tells us we should be doing this. It’s so hard to leave that behind.
If you’re still with me, thank you for reading. I hope you will consider making some positive goals for 2019 and end up feeling better in yourself and about yourself.
Happy New Year! 🎉