Here we discuss four things to consider to help you to lose weight and keep it off without radically changing your diet or specifically focusing on food. These ideas are things that we have autonomy over and we can work on. By taking action we can impact our feelings, thoughts, behaviours towards food, and we can even impact our physiological response to food.
Get enough sleep
In a nutshell, better sleep = better food choices.
Sleep is something we all have to do every day. We have two neurotransmitters ghrelin and leptin that manage our appetite: ghrelin promotes hunger, and leptin helps us to feel full.
Lack of sleep has been shown to affect the body’s regulation of these neurotransmitters. For example, in one study, men who got 4 hours of sleep had increased ghrelin (hunger) and decreased leptin (fullness) compared to those who got 10 hours of sleep. Tiredness led to dysregulation which led to feeling more hungry and less able to feel full or satiated.
Other studies have also shown that sleep deprivation can promote the wanting and consumption of foods that are high in calories and carbohydrates.
Many studies have shown that sleep deprivation of any kind typically leads to metabolic dysregulation and is associated with increased oxidative stress, glucose intolerance (a precursor to diabetes), and insulin resistance.
One study included the largest and most diverse healthy sample of people studied under controlled laboratory conditions. They found that sleep restriction promoted weight gain. They concluded that chronically sleep-restricted adults with late bedtimes may be more susceptible to weight gain due to greater daily caloric intake and the consumption of calories during late-night hours.
So if you are someone with a late bedtime or you are not regularly getting enough sleep, without even directly changing your diet you could make a difference to what you eat and how your body responds to it. Your diet can also affect your sleep so once they both start to improve they can have a positive effect on each other. This makes eating well less about will power and more about giving your body what it needs
How can you put this into practice?
Check out the Sleep Foundations Top 20 tips for how to sleep better
But perhaps you get enough sleep? Or your sleep pattern is out of your control due to work or kids? What else could you look at?
Eat mindfully
A review of mindful eating intervention studies found that 86% of the reviewed studies reported improvements in the targeted obesity-related eating behaviors, specifically: binge eating, emotional eating, and external eating (e.g. eating in response to sight and smell of food regardless of internal signals of hunger and satiety).
There was a variety of mindfulness training implementations, including: combinations of mindfulness and cognitive behavioral practices, mindful eating programs, acceptance-based programs, and programs that used combinations of mindfulness exercises.
Their conclusions were that cultivating mindfulness skills can improve obesity-related eating behaviors by providing individuals with the skills to change their eating behaviors, develop more adaptive responses to emotional distress, and improve their relationships with food.
Another study found that eating more slowly can positively affect changes in obesity, BMI and waist circumference. They suggested that interventions aimed at reducing eating speed could be effective in preventing obesity and therefore lowering the associated health risks such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Many studies have linked eating speed to a higher BMI. One study found that BMI statistically significantly increased by 2.8% for each category increase in self-reported speed of eating.
How can you put this into practice?
Check out the British Dietetic Associations information and tips on Mindful Eating
Have a regular hobby, interest or leisure activity
Having an activity that is a regular part of your life can help improve psychological and physical functioning. This can take the focus away from food, promote a more positive outlook on life, give energy for action, and enable better recovery.
The good news is it doesn't need to be based on physical activity, but it can be!
One study looked review the effects of leisure activities which included:
spending quiet time alone
spending time unwinding
visiting others
eating with others
doing fun things with others
club, fellowship, and religious group participation
having a holiday
communing with nature
sports
hobbies.
They concluded that:
“individuals who engaged in more frequent enjoyable leisure activities had better psychological and physical functioning. They reported greater [vigor, well-being, and calmness], life satisfaction, life engagement, social support as well as lower depression and [negative affect]; they had lower blood pressure, cortisol, [Body Mass Index], [waist circumference], and better perceived physical function”
How can you put this into practice?
Think of an activity you used to do or have always wanted to try. Do you know someone who does it already, can you find a class or club near you, or is there an online course or app?
Focus on health, not weight loss
This is especially true when you are just starting to build better habits. Although there isn’t much research in this area, from my experience of training many clients over the years those who focus on health rather than weight typically enjoy the process more, and those who enjoy the process tend to get better results.
I worked with Grace who did have a goal to lose weight, but the main focus was on taking control of her health. Here is what she had to say:
“I loved that we worked towards goals that were achievable, allowing me to feel motivated to continue and progress even further. I have lost weight, cms, but gained muscle and feel a lot healthier and stronger for it. Also as someone who has never really enjoyed exercising, I've found some new things I enjoy.”
How can you put this into practice?
When you are making decisions about food and exercise, instead of thinking about how choices will affect your weight, take a longer term view and think about how the decisions you make will affect your overall health. Weight can be very emotive and can often bring negative feelings; thinking about overall health can help you make more practical and positive decisions.
If you want some further information or support implementing any of the above please get in touch.
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