Why 'chaotic' eaters struggle to maintain weight loss -and some top tips from a nutritionist

“I SHED six stone, just look at me now!” scream the headlines and we admire how a champion slimmer conquered a lifetime of overeating to reach their target weight.
But revisit even the most successful dieter’s story later and often some or all of the pounds have piled back on.
Once you have lost weight – whether it’s a little or a lot - it is all too easy to be lulled into a false sense of security. You may believe you can now eat what you want, when you want.
But you can’t. It’s not that easy.
Psychologist Dr Mike Green, from Aston University, says that changing your eating habits to allow for long-term weight loss means a “massive” shift in behaviour over a prolonged period of time.
He says that often people who have had a more ‘chaotic’ rather than ‘routine’ approach to eating can struggle to achieve or maintain weight loss.

“It’s important to regularise eating patterns. This certainly can’t be addressed by a quick fix approach,” says Dr Green.
“You are seeking to address attitudes to food built up through habitual eating habits and to lose weight, you need to suppress hunger or the feeling that you are hungry.
“In actual fact, research has shown that for dieters, the reason they eat often has little to do with biological hunger, so they have to tackle their eating patterns.
“If they fail to do this, as soon as they eat ‘normally’ again, the weight will go back on.”
Nutritionist Lyndel Costain adds: “Some people find it harder. Genetic influences, learned eating and exercise habits, including using of food to cope with comfort, stress or emotions while growing up, all play a part.
“People who have struggled with their weight are more prone to the dangers of 'all or nothing' thinking - if they lapse or eat a 'bad' food, have a blow-out or miss the gym a few times, they slip into into negative self-talk where they tell themselves they have blown it as they always do or they are hopeless and may as well give up.
“Recognising and turning this around is the key to success.
“Following an intense weight loss programme where there is rigid restraint, the risk of “all or nothing thinking” is greatly increased.
“That's why fad diets usually fail – they are too extreme to keep up. When 'broken,' the person feels a failure and gives up, when the fad diet was the failure, not them.”
Lyndel adds that research shows that while people may lose weight using different approaches, there are some common habits for long term weight loss success.
Thoughts, behaviour and mindset are key, she says, as are a healthy diet and active lifestyle.
“Most people who want to lose weight know what to do, adds Lyndel.
“But more often than not something keeps stopping them from keeping up healthier habits. When the next diet comes along with its tempting promises, or there’s the need to lose weight for a specific reason, it’s easy to jump on board.
“But the question to ask is if your chosen approach will really help you to recognise and change the thoughts and behaviour that have stopped you losing, then keeping weight off, in the past.”
Leading slimming organisations advise on keeping the weight off, by adapting their programmes long-term. The days of encouraging people to lose as much weight as possible, as quickly as possible are long gone.
Slimming World spokeswoman Jenny Caven says that members are encouraged to find the motivation, confidence and support they need in order to make healthy and highly effective lifestyle changes for life.
Group support is also seen as a key element of people’s success with Weight Watchers.
Don’t forget that at these groups, the leader has successfully lost and kept off weight with the particular organisation.
Weight Watchers’ Nicola Wraight adds: “We encourage small achievable changes to physical activity levels which can then be built upon to build up to a regular exercise regime – whether that’s walking a bit further each week, taking fitness classes, or going to the gym. So again, it’s much more likely to be followed long-term if it is something you enjoy doing.”
At Rosemary Conley, exercise is incorporated into the weekly meetings.
According to Lyndel, key elements of success are to:
• Believe that you can control your weight and the changes involved are really worth it
• Stay realistic and value what you have achieved rather than dwell on a weight you ‘dream’ of being
• Be more active – plan ways to fit activity into your daily life – aim for an hour of walking daily
• Plan ahead for regular meals and snacks, starting with breakfast
• Choose a balanced, low-fat diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables
• Watch portion size and limit fast food
• Sit down to eat and take time over meals, paying attention to what you are eating
• Have a flexible approach – plan in and enjoy some favourite foods without guilt
• Recognise and address ‘all or nothing’ thinking and other negative ‘self-talk’
• Keep making conscious choices
• Learn to confront problems rather than eat, drink, sleep or wish they would go away
• Enlist ongoing help and support from family, friends, professionals or websites
• Regularly (at least once a week but not more than once daily) check your weight.
• Take action before your weight increases by more than 2kg
She remains optimistic that anyone – whatever their past eating habits - can overcome the barriers to maintaining weight loss.
She says: “The good news is that with the right skills, mindset, and support, a healthier weight can still be achieved.”

An edited version of this article can be found at the NHS Choices website.

Comments

[Andrea Wren]

Excellent article Linda, and I totally agree with Dr green's points about regulating eating patterns. To keep on eating when you want to lose weight often seems like the opposite of what you should be doing, but it is extremely important for your body to know it will have a stable intake of food! If your body doesn't know when its next meal will be, it will do all it can to hang on to the last one!

You make the statement "The days of encouraging people to lose as much weight as possible, as quickly as possible are long gone." I only wish that were true. As you'll have seen from the Lighterlife debate on my site, such diets are making a come-back! At least, in the UK with LighterLife they are.

The hardest thing if you are truly committed to weight loss without dieting though, is that you have to be committed to healing your mind/emotions first - and this can sometimes result in weight gain in the initial stages while you adjust to no longer being in 'all or nothing' land, and your body adjusts to the fact that you are no longer bingeing or starving. Focusing on the long-term is key.

I think some of the advice given by Lyndel is very helpful, though some of it I feel may still, ultimately, keep you in that diet frame of mind. Planning ahead for meals - other than with a commitment that you will eat when hungry and regularly, rather than allowing yourself to starve, I don't think is necessary. You CAN trust yourself to eat when you are hungry, and to stop when you are satisfied - it just might take a bit of re-wiring if it's something you're no longer used to doing.

[Sarah]

As Andrea said - you can trust yourself. It does take time. There are no quick fixes...but lets face it - as they say, there's no shortcut to anyplace worth going. And to be quite honest - the journey into discovering who you are and what you are actually capable of is so much more satisfying than the destination itself. x

[LInda]

Hi Andrea and Sarah,
Thank you so much for commenting so fully and thoughtfully on my piece. I think I am very interested in what we all mean by "diet" - I am cinically obese and to lose weight need to burn more calories than I consume. If I now find a way of eating healthier, in a less "chaotic" fashion - is that a diet? I know that's what I need, and when I say it so simply it sounds really lame, but other stuff gets in the way. I can identify with every word Lyndel says and am feeling really positive.

Thanks again for dropping by, it means a lot.

[Sally]

Hi Linda

Nice to see you're back on the blog and I think as a mother of daughters, it's great to take a thoughtful approach to this stuff.

I've gained over three stones in the last three years - a miscarriage, difficult pregnancy, rapidly followed by an incredibly traumatic divorce has played havoc with my life and I admit I've been comfort eating horribly, and feeling really quite guilty about the lack of self-control I've had over that time.

I heard something on the radio that made me think this week, and I thought I'd share with you. Can't remember who it was, sorry, but it was on R4.

This guy says as humans we're pre-programmed to require a certain level of pleasure in life. Hard-wired, there's no way around it. If you aren't getting sufficient pleasure in other parts of your life, you can seek that pleasure in food.

For this reason, he reckons any diet that is based on the notion of "when I lose 20lb, my life will become better" is doomed to failure. You need to make your life better to lose the 20lb.

It really struck a chord with me, and I realised that if I am able to move on from some of the negative issues I've been dealing with, my life will get better and then I'll lose weight. Trying to lose weight while everyting else is crap just makes life even more crap, I suppose.

Anyway, just wanted to share the theory, and wish you all the very best in your endeavours.

[Ajay]

The biggest factor in losing weight is consistency - what ever method you choose you need to stick with it. Will power and motivation are the hardest parts of the journey and to help with this we have created a forum for women on the same journey who can support each other through the process.

Keep strong and focussed and you can acheive anything

Ajay Rochester
http://www.healthybodyclub.com.au

[Samantha Bassett]

Although i have always moaned if i've even so much as put on an ounce i have realy been one of the lucky ones that has never had to diet yet can still eat a bar of chocolate every day and drink wine every night. That is until NOW... having broken my foot and been in plaster for the best part of the last 7 months i find myself 1 and 1/2 stone heavier... Dont worry everyone said... as soon as you get moving again it will drop back off... Like hell it has !!! for the last 5 weeks i have given up the chocolate, given up the wine which was even harder and even started exercise classes... and not lost a pound....

Ive read with interest your points about commiting your mind and emotions first... and i totally agree with Sally on 'trying to lose weight while life is crap makes life even more crap... I just need to change my way of thinking and hopefully can lose the weight without having to think too hard about it as im sure im not the only one that is constantly hungry just because i think im on a diet...

[Linda]

Hello and thanks again to everyone for commenting - people have shared some great insights, when I surface from under my mountain of work, I'll post again...

[Andrea Wren]

Hi Linda,

I think you are right to ask the question "what does diet mean to everyone?" To me, a diet is an imposed set of rules around how we must eat and manage our intake of food in order to lose weight, which excludes some food, includes others, and makes us unhealthily obsessed with eating and body-image, as well as gives us the idea that food is 'bad' or 'good'.

It is usually something that we have to plan out to some extent, and that doesn't really account for the body's individual needs or hunger levels, and that may also mess up our ability to know for ourselves what and when to eat.

You say "If I now find a way of eating healthier, in a less "chaotic" fashion - is that a diet?" but I would say that it is only a diet if you start to impose rules upon yourself, rather than give yourself choices.

Eating less chaotically and finding out for yourself what is going on there will be the key to working through the other stuff - and that sounds to me like your priority. I know weight loss is a goal, but without sorting out what is going on behind the disordered eating, it may be difficult to attain.

I would question any approach which relies on 'willpower' and choosing a method which you will then 'stick to'. That sounds like a regime, and the fastest way to get short-term results which end up in long-term misery. You need to be in a position where you see the journey as an experiment - some things will work for you, others won't, but you are your own expert and the more you see what you are about to try and change as an exciting new path to travel down, the better you can see the ways forward for you.

I love Sally's comments, and "You need to make your life better to lose the 20lb" just hits the nail on the head. Unfortunately, the stuff we can't 'see' is often the hardest to resolve.

I hope I haven't babbled on too much (again). I'm so passionate about this, as you may tell!

Hello there Sarah, and Sam, btw!

Lots of love to you Linda,

Andrea x

[Linda]

But, but, but...Andrea, you are a real inspiation and yes I need to sort out what is happening behind the chaotic eating - but please don't anyone think for a minute that my life is crap - it can be stressful and it can be chaotic and I know already that I need to relax more - this will be the key, but please don't anyone feel sorry for me - I am loved by a supportive partner ane two daughters, I have a roof over my head and a business to run. I eat too much and I eat the wrong stuff - what do I mean by 'too much' and wrong stuff' - I mean stuff that's unhealthy and clogs my arteries and makes me wobble when I run. I'll post about this when I get chance. Good Day.

[Andrea Wren]

Oh no Linda! Not for a minute, I'm sure no one does think that and I certainly don't!

I think there may be things going on on very subconscious levels as to why we overeat/eat chaotically etc, and we might not be aware of them.

I know I love my life, but I also know that there are things I might have learned when I was younger, such as negative self-perceptions or blocks, that still affect me now when they choose to, without me even realising, even though my life is great!

However, this is only me, and might not be true for you.