Healthy Weight
What can I do to help my weight?
To Live Life Well and maintain a healthy weight, the energy you consume from food and drinks needs to be the same as the energy you use. If you use more energy than you consume, you will lose weight. And if you eat more than you use, you will gain weight.
The best way to approach losing excess weight is to make small, incremental changes to your lifestyle. Remember that to really make a difference through healthy eating and regular activity, the changes you make need to be something that can become part of your everyday life. If it's too hard you'll be unlikely to stick to it.
Don’t skip meals
It’s not a good idea to skip meals. If you do, you may find you eat more when you do eat and this may lead to a larger stomach capacity. Research has shown that stomach capacity can increase if large individual meals are eaten. This can then increase the amount of food you need at each meal before you feel ‘full’.
Not ‘Crash’ dieting
Many people who are trying to lose weight go on a ‘crash’ diet. This is a short term solution to a long term problem, and can increase your body fat levels in the long term. Continually dieting, losing weight then gaining weight is sometimes referred to as ‘yoyo dieting’, which won’t help you maintain a healthy weight.
A possible negative of yoyo dieting is that your metabolic rate lowers. When you lose weight, you lose fat and muscle. Muscle burns more energy than fat. So, when you then stop dieting and eat normally again, your body will burn even less energy than before because the amount of muscle in your body has decreased and your metabolic rate is slower.
A healthier approach to eating
You can Live Life Well and be on the path to a healthy weight by:
- Not yoyo or crash dieting.
- Eating a wide variety of food. Check that you eat bread and cereals, vegetables, fruit, milk and dairy and meat, fish or legumes everyday.
- Have frequent meals and snacks rather than three large meals a day.
- Reduce your intake of foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt. Only have soft drinks, lollies and snack foods as an occasional ‘extra’. Alcohol also has lots of energy and not many nutrients. Aim to reduce your intake of these 'empty calories'.
- Cut down on saturated dietary fats.
- Try to eat more fresh foods and less processed foods.
- Avoid using food for comfort, such as when you are upset, angry or stressed. Find other ways to cope, such as going for a walk!
Click on Healthy Eating for more information on what to eat.
Being active is important
Being active can prevent muscle loss, so it is important to keep moving while you are losing weight. Being active will help maintain your muscles and increase your metabolic rate.
It’s easy to feel too busy or tired to be active regularly. So try to remember that being active will actually increase your energy levels and help with tiredness.
For more information, click on Physical Activity.