What is the key to long term weight loss?

Usually it is the combination of many small changes in food selection, serving size and activity levels which contribute to the build up of excessive body fat. Long term success in weight control also involves making many small changes which add together to make a positive effect. Here we will start to look at some of those changes and how best to implement them.

The most fundamental rule for controlling your weight is this:

• you will lose weight if you burn off more calories than you consume

So the two basic actions you must adopt are increasing the number of calories you burn and controlling the number of calories you consume. We can achieve the former by becoming more active. You don’t have to become an Olympic athlete or train to run marathons. A series of small changes while going about your normal daily activities can have a massive impact in your weight control, your fitness and how you feel about yourself. Read more in our Burning Calories pages.

Controlling the number of calories you consume does NOT mean skipping breakfast or going on a crash diet. Both these actions are likely to lead to weight gain in the longer term. Instead, controlling the number of calories you consume is about making intelligent choices about the food and drink we give ourselves (and our families).

Healthy eating involves enjoying your food. Healthy eating leaves you feeling satisfied not hungry. When you eat healthy your food and drink will be nutritious. And a healthy diet will provide you with plenty of energy.

Form good habits for successful weight loss

To truly succeed in the long term you must make each adjustment in your diet and exercise part of your daily life. Each small change must be maintained until it becomes a habit. If you cannot imagine making a change permanent then question yourself about doing it in the first place. What difference can it contribute? Is that something valuable? Is there another way to achieve that?

For example, let’s say the change is to stop having grated cheddar cheese on top of your pasta, which you have about once a week. But you love seeing that cheese melt and the taste of it really adds something to the meal

What difference would it make? Cutting out the cheddar would reduce you calorie intake by about 130 kcal and reduce your fat intake by 10g (and saturated fat at that).

Is that valuable? 130 calories per week is over 6,500 calories per year which equates to almost two pounds of body fat. That will be significant for some, less so for others. But 10g of saturated fat is definitely worth cutting out of a regular diet as it leads to increased risk of a variety of diseases including life threatening heart problems. Just knowing this might help motivate someone to making the change after all.

Is there another way? Well maybe the same improvement in the diet can be made by swapping from beef mince in a Bolognese sauce to chicken with pasta. Or by changing from chicken in a creamy carbonara sauce to chicken in a tomato based sauce, like an arrabiata. How about ditching the white bread stick cooked in garlic butter in favour of wholemeal bread drizzled with extra virgin olive oil or balsamic vinegar? All of these options would reduce the calorie intake and the saturated fat intake by a similar amount as cutting the cheese.

If there is no room for manoeuvre on the meal selection (because you have already made those smart choices) then how about trying a different flavouring like black pepper? Or even a spoonful of Parmesan cheese instead of a handful of grated cheddar, even if it is only for the first pasta meal each month! A small change becomes even smaller but at least it is still in the right direction and it will help a little. It will just take a lot longer.
For a weight loss plan this is counter-productive and highly undesirable

So it is important to accept at the outset that changes in diet should be long term and that it may take quite some time to permanently reduce your excess body fat and weight. That depends on how determined you are and how much you have to lose.

Fad diets which promise rapid weight loss are often flawed. They typically rely on an unhealthy loss of water from the body’s tissues or deplete the body of lean muscle as well as fat. Both of these leave their victim in a worse condition after their fad has run its course. And, more often than not, the unfortunate “dieter” piles the pounds back on as soon as they resume their normal eating habits, sometimes with interest!

What is a negative calorie balance?

A negative calorie balance, or negative energy balance, is when you burn more calories than you consume. The trick is to create a negative calorie balance which you and your body can stick to until you reach your healthy weight range. If you lose weight too slowly you may become disheartened.

But if you create too large an imbalance then you may cause your body to go into a state which is commonly referred to as “starvation mode”. This is where the body slows down the rate at which it burns calories in the background as it perceives a food shortage. For a weight loss plan this is counter-productive and highly undesirable. Little or no weight is lost and, even worse, when the dieter resumes a higher calories intake the body stores much of the extra as fat until, maybe weeks later, it comes back out of “starvation mode” and resumes the normal (higher) metabolic rate. The result is extra flab, lower self-confidence and a reduced optimism over future success.

How much weight loss is acceptable?

Each pound of fat equates to roughly 3,500 kcals consumed over and above calories expenditure. It is generally considered acceptable for an adult to plan a weight loss of one pound per week. That means creating a calorie deficit of 3,500 kcals per week or 500 kcals per day.

For individuals with a lot of excess body fat it is usually considered acceptable to increase this to two pounds per week. To do that a calorie deficit of 1,000 kcals per day is needed. This is a large deficit – equivalent to a full 3 course meal every day. You can read elsewhere that skipping meals is not recommended when trying to achieve weight loss. In fact it can lead to weight gain.

So when creating the calorie deficit, particularly larger ones, success in the long term is much more likely if the burden is split between consuming fewer calories in food and drink and through burning extra calories every day.