How to lose weight — and keep it off forever

It’s no secret that losing weight is a struggle for many of us. Despite being well-informed about nutrition and healthy eating, sticking to our plans long-term remains an uphill battle. A 2021 Ipsos survey found that 43 per cent of Britons were trying to lose weight, yet the knowledge doesn’t always translate into lasting results. Through my work as a behavioural-change scientist specialising in addiction and weight loss, I’ve seen first hand the vast gulf between knowing what to do and actually implementing it consistently over time. Food is meant to be enjoyed — it connects us, allows creativity and love to be expressed, and can be delightfully delicious. Deprivation and rigid rules often backfire. The truth is that sustainable weight management isn’t just about what you eat, but about how you think about food and, most importantly, how you think about yourself.

So, here are my tips on how to manage your weight for life, without a single piece of advice on what to eat. To learn more and get access to further exclusive advice, you can join my Masterclass “How to lose weight for good” on Thursday 13th February, 7.30pm -8.30pm. You can book a ticket and find more details here. Diets, in their traditional sense, can help us achieve our weight goals but they don’t teach us how to stay there. Many people think that once they have rigidly followed a plan and lost weight, they will be able to keep it off. But losing weight on a diet does not teach you how to keep it off. What you need to do instead, is focus on identifying (and intentionally repeating) the new daily choices that you will have to normalise and master in order to maintain your weight loss long-term, whether that is regarding portion control or avoiding snacks, for example.

Factor-in — and accept that — discomfort and cravings will be part of the process until you have adjusted to your new habits and responses. Reframe the pursuit of designing and embedding a new way of eating as an opportunity to learn transferable strategies for more impulse control and self-belief. If changing your eating habits and managing your weight remains the greatest lifelong challenge you face (a reality that causes my highly intelligent, accomplished and impressive clients to question everything from their intelligence to their worthiness) then learning to withstand short-term discomfort will equip you with a proven tool kit of transferable impulse control skills.

Seasoned dieters often develop a “feast or famine, all or nothing” mentality. Their repeated unsuccessful attempts to lose — or keep off — weight leave them trusting themselves less, choosing more punishing plans, and beating themselves up when they don’t manage to keep up their plans perfectly. Not only is their self-talk unrecognisable from the compassionate, encouraging motivating messages they would give a loved one facing the same challenge; it’s also unwise, unhelpful and delays results.

Learning to forgive yourself quickly and treat minor, human blips as a temporary deviation from your wellbeing plan (not a personal failing and catastrophe that sets about a string of sabotaging “I’ve blown it until Monday” food choices) ensures that overall, you make more helpful choices than unhelpful ones in the pursuit of weight loss. Learn to trust in yourself more than your plans. Assume and accept going in that the process of changing habits will be filled with moments when you will find creative, compelling reasons to give up. Instead of colour-coding strict guidelines meticulously on a “fed up” Sunday evening, focus on how you will talk yourself into making choices on the spot that you will be proud of the next day.

It’s common to create our plans when we’ve reached rock-bottom. It can be difficult to imagine in those moments how anything other than a combination of rules and desperation could be required to make any habit changes required to achieve such valued, important and meaningful goals. We should assume that regardless of our long-term desires, habit change will be difficult, and we should do everything in our power to create an environment that makes it easier to take difficult but helpful choices in the short-term. This could mean ensuring the healthy meals that we want to normalise have been planned in advance or that our gym kits are packed and ready to go and we’ve made appointments in our diaries for our workouts. In the same way, we can make it harder for ourselves to make unhelpful choices.

Many of us deprive ourselves of self-care or pleasures until we achieve our weight loss goals, especially if we associate being slimmer with higher self-worth. However, we are deserving of kindness and self-care regardless of our weight, and these acts can actually aid in weight loss. Gestures like lighting a candle, enjoying fun experiences, or putting ourselves out signal to ourselves that we matter and our quality of life matters. Making kinder, healthier choices with food feels more natural when we have been kind to ourselves in other ways all day. Difficult choices for new routines become easier when we feel resilient, calm, and capable, so it serves us in the pursuit of changing our eating habits to engage in as many choices as possible that leave us feeling those ways.