Healthy Weight Loss. Hutton Health

Healthy Weight Loss

18th February 2023

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Table of Contents:

  1. Body Image and weight loss
  2. Building a healthy relationship with food and exercise
  3. Emotional eating and weight loss
  4. Why might the scale show you are not losing weight?
  5. How you approach fat loss and weight loss matters
  6. The Weight Loss Mindset

 

When we are too focused on the way that our body looks it can drive us into an unhealthy cycle of binge eating, feelings of guilt, then restrictive eating or over-exercising.

I have clients who feel like they have ‘failed’ because they haven’t ‘been good’ with their eating or because they haven’t lost weight over a week.

A healthy weight loss journey allows you to feel positive and improve your health in a sustainable way. The changes that you implement should be able to be sustained in 1 month, 1 year and 10 years’ time to avoid the cycle of losing and gaining weight over time.

A healthy weight loss journey often avoids fad diets, excessive exercise, restrictive eating and extreme changes in your diet and exercise routine.

 

Body Image and weight loss

Many people suffer with poor body image because they think they don’t ‘look good’, but who determines what kind of body ‘looks good’? Diet culture can be attributed to a society of comparison, by striving for what we perceive as a ‘perfect body’.

It is common to think that we would be happy if we:

  • Weighed a specific number on a scale.
  • Fit in a certain clothing size.
  • Looked like slim, fit and toned social media influencers.

Attaching your happiness to your appearance or your weight often results in unhealthy and unsustainable weight loss attempts.

 

What is the first thing you see when you look at a picture of yourself? Do you think critically, immediately focusing on the aspects of yourself where you think you need to lose weight?

‘I have a double chin’.

‘My belly is hanging over my trousers’.

‘Look at my thighs’.

Or are you able to focus on your smile, the great place you were or the incredible people you were sharing the moment with?

Body Image and weight loss

Building a healthy relationship with food and exercise

Signs of a healthy relationship with food:

  • Noticing your hunger signals and eating when you are truly hungry.
  • Eating the food that you like and that make you feel good.
  • Eating until you are satisfied, not overly stuffed.

Signs of a healthy relationship with exercise:

  • You exercise because it makes you feel good!
  • You view exercise as a positive activity rather than a punishment for what you ate

Taking the focus off the way that your body looks can help you build a healthy relationship with food and more confidence in yourself and your body.

Eating a balanced diet is important for you to feel strong and healthy, even when you are trying to lose weight. A balanced diet consists of a variety of foods, with foods from all food groups, including protein, grains, dairy, and fruits and vegetables.

The body and brain will not function optimally if they do not get enough of a certain macronutrient group, such as carbohydrates or fats.

Download Hutton Health's FREE Meal Planner to help set yourself up for long term success.

Building a healthy relationship with food and exercise

Emotional Eating and Weight Loss

Emotional eating often results in waves of binge and diet cycles that result in feelings of regret and self-punishment.

Recognising habits of emotional eating can help you understand your relationship with food and your body.

Signs that you may be emotionally eating:

  • When intense emotions result in hunger
  • Eating when you are feeling stressed
  • Feeling out of control around food
  • Finding comfort and happiness in food
  • Feelings of guilt after eating
  • You feel like eating as a way to make you in control of a situation/feeling
  • You feel like eating even if you are full

 

Consider focusing on the entire experience of eating rather than just WHAT you choose to eat:

  • Where you eat – find a place to eat that makes you feel relaxed and happy
  • When you eat
  • Why you eat
  • How you eat
Emotional Eating and Weight Loss

Why might the scale show that you are not losing weight?

The numbers on a scale can literally be soul destroying on a weight loss journey. Attaching your motivation and mindset to this number continuously decreasing can sabotage your weight loss efforts in the long run.

A weight loss journey takes time and is never linear. Find out more about Non-Scale Ways to Track Weight Loss Progress.

 

Here are some reasons why you may not be losing weight:

  • Consumed excessive carbohydrates

 

Consuming a meal high in carbohydrates can lead to temporary weight gain. This is because your body stores 2-3 grams of water with every gram of carbohydrates stored as glycogen. Carbohydrates are an essential part of a healthy diet even for those on a weight loss journey.

 

  • Salt intake

 

Have you consumed an excessive amount of salt over a period or an increased amount of processed food? Salt contains sodium which causes cells to hold extra fluid. Drinking water helps to flush out the extra sodium.

 

  • More food in your digestive system

 

Food can take anywhere from 2-5 days to travel through your digestive system and leave the body. If you have more food in your digestive system, the numbers on a scale may not decrease.

 

  • Hormonal Changes

 

During our menstrual cycle a female’s weight can fluctuate between 1-3Kg. Try to resist weighing yourself daily during this phase of your cycle.

 

  • Gaining muscle

 

The number on the scale may not be moving, but you may be building muscle which can make your body have great changes to the way you look and the way you feel. Strength training can be an important part of a weight loss journey.

 

Find out more about strength training in this blog.

 

Decathlon has a range of workout equipment to help you do strength workouts from the comfort of your home.

Why might the scale show that you not be losing weight?

How you approach fat loss and weight loss matters!

If you want to achieve permanent weight loss results, then you must ensure that your fat loss approach is sustainable. If you cannot picture yourself sustaining your weight loss lifestyle in 1 month, 1 year and 10 years, then it will be a challenge to stay at your reduced weight in a healthy way.

These weight loss strategies are challenging to maintain and don’t encourage a positive weight loss mindset:

  • Using super restrictive dieting methods
  • Following fad diets
  • Cutting out your favourite foods
  • Using weight loss or fat loss supplements or pills
  • Killing yourself with high-intensity workouts most days of the week
How you approach fat loss and weight loss matters!

I love listening to podcasts while I run or walk. It is a great time to experience time in nature moving my body while enjoying a great episode from one of my favourite hosts. My Aftershokz bone conducting headphones allow me to safely listen while still being aware of my surroundings.

The Weight Loss Mindset

Consider shifting your weight loss goals to changing your mindset around your body and health.

Rather than focusing on the numbers on a scale, success can be:

  • No longer feeling the need to binge eat

 

Instead, you have learned that food will always be there, and you can have a healthy approach to consuming a balanced diet.

 

  • Food is not always on your mind

 

Rather than thinking about food as a coping mechanism, as a comfort blanket, and emotionally driven. Your decisions to eat are based on hunger and fuelling your body well rather than related to stress, anxiety, loneliness or sadness.

 

  • You look forward to workouts because they make you feel good

 

You no longer view workouts as a punishment for overeating or as a method to melt away your fat or a ticket to transforming your body.

 

  • Looking at yourself in a mirror and accepting what you see

 

Rather than avoiding looking at yourself in the mirror, being able to look at your reflection with acceptance and a positive attitude toward your body. Celebrate what your body allows you to do, the places it takes you, the people it enables you to see.

 

Find out more about the weight loss mindset and essential shifts in your thinking to have a successful and sustainable weight loss journey.

Download Hutton Health’s free goal setting workbook for a guide on successful goal setting.

Hutton Health strives to bring fitness, nutrition and mindset together to get optimal results for people’s health and wellness from the comfort of their own home. Our mission is to remove barriers to starting a health and fitness journey through flexible online coaching that fits in to each person’s schedule. 

 

Commit to YOU and your journey to be the best version of YOU for life!

The Weight Loss Mindset

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