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Often, people go on strict diets to get their weight under control quickly. In fact, this deprives the body of the nutrients it needs. However, this can lead to fatigue, concentration problems and irritability. Unfortunately, in 75-90% of cases, crash diets are followed by weight gain. Nutritional therapist Maarja Lember of the Health Clinic Weight Loss Clinic gives advice on how to get your weight under control step by step so that the results are permanent. The most important thing to keep in mind is that sustainable changes support permanent weight loss.
Do not create excessive restrictions
You should avoid following an overly restrictive diet plan that excludes several foods or even entire food groups because they are considered unhealthy. It is very difficult in the long term to stick to diets that require you to exclude food in an unrealistic way. A healthy diet does not mean that you have to completely give up some of your favourite foods. On the contrary, if you deny yourself something you like, it will probably cause you to give up your efforts at some point and overeating will follow. Rather, you should think that 80-90% of your food choices are those that support your health and 10-20% are your favourite foods. This approach will help you commit to and support a healthy lifestyle in the long term.
Learn to recognise the switches that trigger you to eat.
In order to lose weight, it is important to understand the reasons behind the eating. One way is to start to distinguish between hunger and appetite. The physical feeling of hunger should not be ignored as it indicates that your body needs food. There are different reasons for appetite and they come from both the surrounding environment and your own ingrained thought patterns. This is often the case with a craving for a specific food, which is often a sugary or fatty snack.
- Physical hunger, or homeostatic hunger, is orchestrated by the body to motivate a person to seek food, as food energy and nutrients are needed for the functioning of various body systems.
- Hedonic appetite is more of a psychological phenomenon and responds to the question of what we want to eat rather than when to eat.
- In addition, our eating is also shaped by social cues and the surrounding environment – for example, 12 o’clock is lunch time; learned behaviours – for example, after salty food there should be dessert; environmental cues – for example, the surrounding food, advertising and sleep rhythm.
- Negative emotions and stress are also strong triggers for eating.
Move regularly!
Although nutrition plays a greater role in weight loss, we should not forget about exercise. Exercise helps increase muscle mass and resting energy expenditure, which is beneficial for weight loss. Exercise also has a positive effect on overall health, mood and quality of life. Regular exercise also helps to maintain weight loss afterwards. In the case of emotional eating, exercise is a good way to manage your emotions and helps reduce the use of food to regulate emotions.
Set one goal at a time
Often, the journey of weight loss includes moments of giving up. For example, the demands of daily life become greater, the workday is longer, a child is sick… in these cases, it is more difficult to follow your eating and exercise habits.
If you make one change at a time, you have an 80% chance of success. If you make two changes at once, the probability drops to 35%. If you have three or more changes, the probability of success is only 5%.
So set yourself one goal and stick to it!
Lembit, who has undergone nutrition coaching, has said that he has never talked about his diet with anyone so openly and at such length. “It is very positive to hear yourself talk about your food and eating habits,” he said. “During the process, I got much closer to understanding why this is happening to me and why I eat so much. Maarja kind of opened windows for me in certain areas, showing where the problem might be.”
