Weight Loss Plans
Weight loss plans for people who overeat need to be constructed with a view to bringing their weight back within a healthy range. Weight loss plans should not be a quick fix diet or seen as a temporary option. Healthy eating is essential for good health and well being.
If a person seeks support on losing weight, it is important to be realistic with them. We must explain that it is not realistic to expect to lose large amounts of weight every week. A realistic weight loss of 0.5 to 1lbs a week is considered healthy. Some diets will promise greater weight gains, but they may be hard to stick to and the weight does not necessarily stay off when the person starts to eat normally again.
For a weight loss plan to work, we have to consider WHAT the person is eating, HOW they are eating and WHY.
What?
Firstly, we have to consider what they are eating. A person may appear to be eating a healthy diet and still not losing weight. This can occasionally happen with some medical conditions, but a more realistic explanation is that the person is not remembering all that they eat.
The first step is to encourage the person to keep a food diet of everything they EAT and DRINK for a week. Drink is one that is often not considered. Unless a person drinks only water, they may often consume calories in drinks – sugar in coffee or tea, milky coffees, sugary drinks, juice and alcohol all contain calories. Some coffees and hot chocolate drinks can contain 500 or more calories. Have one of those a day and that is a lot of calories.
A person may also not recall everything they eat. They may recall their meals, but forget the chocolate they ate at 11 o'clock because they were bored or the handful of peanuts they ate when they were waiting to be served. Or the handful of crisps they ate with lunch. These forgotten calories can easily mount up. A person may think they are eating 1500 calories a day but actually be eating double that.
So encourage the person to keep a food diary that is honest and faithful. The person may recognise patterns in their behaviour. For example, they eat healthy meals but their snacks are high in calories or they are pushing up their calories with drinks and so on. Or they may realise that actually their diet is not very good at all and they need to change.
Then we consider HOW they are eating?
Some people will stick to rigid meals time eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. Others may work shifts and have irregular food patterns. Others may miss meals. Often dieters will miss meals thinking that this will reduce calories. But if we are hungry, this affects our concentration levels, tiredness levels and so on, so a person may miss lunch but then start snacking on high calorie snacks mid afternoon to keep their energy levels up. If we encourage people to look at HOW they eat, this can help them to also see patterns. Our diet is not just about WHAT we eat but also why and how.
The person may also see that they eat when they are bored or tired or angry, rather than when they are hungry.
Why we eat?
Once the person has looked at what and how they eat, they may start to consider why they eat. If they realise that they start snacking in the afternoon because they miss lunch, they can change that. If they realise they eat when they are bored, again they can try to change this or look at alternatives to eating to relieve negative feelings.
