Why did you get fat?

When it comes to diets, we talk a lot about what to do to lose weight.

We talk less about how we got to the point where we needed to lose weight. Yet the understanding of how we got to a point where we were unhappy with our weight is actually pretty essential.

Of course we know the basic of ‘I was eating more than I was burning’ that’s why I put on weight, I don’t mean that.

 I mean honest self reflection, as in what specifically was causing you to eat more calories than you burnt?

• Was it nights out at the weekend and the hangover food the next day?
• Was it a nightly chocolate and wine binge?
• Was it emotional eating? If so what specific situations were causing it?
• Was it lack of knowledge surrounding food?
• Was it eating ’good’ ‘super’ foods like avocado on toast every day, which certainly have nutritional benefits but are way higher in calories than you small bowl of cereal?
• Was it never counting the coffee shop coffees and sauces you added to meals each day?

There are loads of reasons we put on weight, some can be hidden calories and from a lack of knowledge, some are linked to lifestyle, some are linked to our mental health. When we identify specifically the reasons we put on weight, down to the specifics of certain situations causing us to over eat, we can look at how to combat it.

Because it’s no good saying on Monday I’ll eat less this week if weekends are your issue and you don’t have a plan, as come Saturday you’ll over consume on calories and be back at square one. Whereas if you know weekends are your sticking point you can look at a strategy. Maybe that’s eating less Monday to Friday so you can eat more over the weekend. Maybe it’s having a plan to reduce your weekend intake (lower calorie drinks, less alcohol so you crave hangover food less the next day, trying different types of nights out some weeks etc.).

If your trigger is a bad day at work causing you to binge on chocolate and wine mid week then saying I’ll be good this week isn’t going to cut it. You need to look at what’s causing the bad days at work or how else you can make yourself feel better after a rubbish day (phoning a friend for a rant instead of opening the wine or having a long bath for instance).

Once you know why you put on weight it becomes much easier to look at how you can cut back on the calories. That doesn’t mean never doing those things again, but if we really want change we do need to make changes to wat we currently do.