There’s no sugar-coating it: Losing weight is difficult. A lot of times, diets fail. And, even among people who “successfully” lose the weight, two-thirds of them gain it all back—and then some—within a handful of years, according to research from the University of California at Los Angeles.
That might, at least in part, explain why fewer people are actually trying to lose weight. In the past few decades, the number of people who are overweight or obese has increased. But the percentage of those people who are trying to lose weight has dropped from 56 to 49 percent, according to a 2017 Journal of the American Medical Association.
Is that a bad thing that they don’t have their sights set on the scale? Not necessarily. Weight loss isn’t a healthy body goal for everyone, explains Susan Albers, Psy.D., a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic specializing in body image and eating issues. “I work in a medical facility,” she says. “I have access to people’s blood work. You can be healthy or unhealthy at every size.”
In fact, 2016 research published in the International Journal of Obesity found that nearly half of people who are overweight and 29 percent of people with obesity have good cardiometabolic health. It also found that more than 30 percent of people at so-called “healthy weights” have poor cardiometabolic health—which can include hypertension, high cholesterol, inflammation, and insulin resistance.
Still, there’s a massive difference between deciding not to lose weight because you’re healthy and happy with the life your body allows you to live—and deciding not to lose weight because it’s hard and you think you’ll fail anyway.
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Which raises the point: just because a past weight-loss attempt hasn’t panned out doesn’t mean that you have failed. “Women so often feel bad about themselves and think their past inability to lose weight is their fault,” says Abby Langer, R.D. “They think this because the weight-loss industry has said, time and time again, that to lose weight, you just need to ‘eat less and move more.’ That’s so insulting. And it’s just not true.”
Healthy Weight Loss Is Possible
So, when it comes to losing weight, what is true? And how can you make it happen? Here, I teamed up with leading experts, dug into the research, and ID’d the top ways to get started on healthy weight loss in an effective and sustainable way.
Consider the Deep-Down Reasons Your Weight Is Greater Than You Want It to Be
In reality, a never-ending list of factors—including (yes) food and exercise, but also sleep, stress management, hormone health, self-esteem, past weights, and those pesky genetics—influence the weight your body naturally gravitates toward today, Langer says. And while it’s important to address all of them, the big one that everyone just loves to miss is the mental aspect: exactly why we overeat junk food, skip meals, or have a sneaking suspicion of an exercise allergy.
“If you’re not addressing the deep-down reasons that you’re overweight in the first place,” all of the calorie and macro guidelines in the world won’t matter, Langer explains. For that reason, she often refers clients to work with psychologists who specialize in food issues. And, get this: Sometimes, she won’t even work with those clients on the nutrition side of things until they’ve started to unpack these fundamental mental factors.
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“Most people aren’t overweight simply because they are hungry, Langer says. “And people often don’t realize the root of why they do what they do, and how dramatically past experiences influence our relationships with ourselves and bodies. She notes that having to clean your plate as a child, getting sweet treats to “cheer up” after a bad day at school, growing up in a house where your mother was always on a diet, being called “fat” when you were 8 years old—they all have an impact. Unless you deal with these issues, “many people spin their wheels and don’t know why they feel so stuck,” Albers adds.
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Figure Out Your Healthy-Weight-Loss Why
Ah, the über-popular “know your why” strategy. After all, one Psychology & Health study shows that when people start workout programs with “weight loss” or looking a certain way as their main motivator, they automatically are less likely to stick with their healthy habits. After all, these motivators aren’t going to get you going when you’re feeling down, have had a bad day, or are frustrated with a plateau, says Zach Moore, C.S.C.S., a fitness and lifestyle coach at Precision Nutrition.
For that reason, when starting with weight-loss clients, Moore always probes for a deeper “why.” “Why do you want to lose weight?” he asks. “To be fitter.” “Well, why do you want to be fitter?” “To have more energy.” “Why do you want to have more energy?” Maybe you want to enjoy your days without feeling so sluggish. Maybe you want to be present for your kids. Maybe you want to rock your first marathon. Maybe your mom’s health hasn’t been so great and you’re worried because, genetics.
Identifying deep-down reasons will help you stay dedicated, even when you aren’t feeling super motivated, he says.
Reevaluate Your Expectations
“People often have an unrealistic picture of what they should weigh,” Albers says. That could be due to everything from magazines and social media to the comparison trap that is having smaller-structured friends or family members.
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So how can you figure out what’s actually ideal for you? Alberts explains that keeping an eye on health markers like blood pressure, cholesterol, and fasting blood sugar levels can all help clue you into your healthy weight, but the biggest part is simply considering how you feel, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The ultimate goal is to have energy, be able to lead the life you want, and feel that your healthy habits add rather than take away from the quality of your life, she says. After all, even if a weight or body fat percentage is achievable, at a certain point, the investment required to make it happen just isn’t worth it, Moore says.
Erase “On” and “Off” from Your Healthy-Weight-Loss Vocabulary
The very notion of going “on” or “off” a diet is self-sabotaging. The key to sustainable, healthy weight loss is creating habits that you can (happily) live with forever, registered dietitian Georgie Fear, R.D., C.S.S.C., my Give Yourself MORE co-author. And in a previous review from the University of Toronto, after examining 59 scientific healthy weight-loss articles, including 48 randomized control trials, researchers concluded that how easy a diet is for you to stick with may actually be a much better predictor of your weight-loss success than the actual diet you choose.
“Do what works for you,” Langer says. “And if something doesn’t, change it. There’s a million other ways to go about it. There are no absolutes in nutrition.” Case in point: In a 2018 JAMA study, when more than 600 adults who were overweight followed a low-fat or low-carb eating plan over the course of 12 months, everyone lost about the same amount of weight.
Restrict Restrictions
It’s true that a caloric deficit—burning more calories per day than you take in—is a requisite of weight loss. But creating a deficit doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t) involve deprivation. That goes for calories, carbs, sugar, fat, or any other commonly demonized nutrient. “No one food is responsible for your weight,” Langer says, explaining that a good vs. bad mentality sets people up for disordered eating and exercise habits. In fact, caloric deprivation increases how the brain responds to food, setting you up for binge-eating down the line, according to research from the Oregon Research Institute.
“The best way to stick with a diet, the fewest restrictions on themselves as possible,” Langer says. “There shouldn’t be anything in the world that they shouldn’t ever eat again.” Similarly, Albers recommends ditching the “don’t” list entirely. “Instead of trying to stop an old negative habit, focus on building a positive new one,” she says. “New habits crowd out the old without the struggle of trying to stop a behavior.”
For that reason, in Give Yourself MORE, Georgie and I encourage women to ditch LESS as a goal and instead focus on MORE. By forgoing subtraction and prioritizing body-led eating, they can better fuel their bodies, satiate their hunger, and get the nutrients they need. Plus, by focusing on reveling in more real-life treats and everyday pleasures, food becomes just one of many things to enjoy each day—rather than the only thing they have to look forward to.
Forget How Many Calories Your Workout is Burning
The benefits of exercise, at least as far as healthy weight loss is concerned, have a lot more to do with building (think: energy, confidence, muscle) than burning calories or fat. After all, Albers notes that exercise is linked to improved moods, stress reduction, and the “wow, my body’s pretty cool!” attitude that you need to crush your different body goals.
Plus, on the physiological side of things, it’s important to note that muscle is the single greatest modifiable factor in determining your basal metabolic rate (BMR), or the number of calories you burn per day simply to stay alive. Meanwhile, it can take hours of sweating it out in the gym to burn off the calories you put back during any given binge, Moore says.
And that raises the most important point: Thinking about exercise as a way to work off food or simply allow you to eat sets up a host of unhealthy thought patterns and disordered habits around food and exercise, For instance, one research review found that, not only did people generally overestimate how many calories exercise burned—when they did work out, they ramped up their food intake big time. Sure, the body can slightly increase hunger in order to keep the body fueled during exercise, but the bulk of this is due to the mental “donuts and deadlifts” dichotomy, Langer explains.
Let’s say it all together, “food is not a reward and exercise is not a punishment.” Got it? Good.
Give Yourself a Break
In sustainable, healthy weight loss, being hard on yourself does not pay off. For example, research from the University of New South Wales shows that people with strong body dissatisfaction—having internalized anti-fat messages about how their body affects their worth—automatically exercise less.
Meanwhile, Langer notes that the people who do make healthy weight loss work are the ones who can indulge in that piece of cake and then, in their next meal, eat just like they had pre-cake. There’s no languishing over a supposed misdeed, no desire to compensate by restricting subsequent meals. “Languishing and overcompensating are deathly for weight loss,” she says. “They are unnecessary and sabotaging.”
Similarly, Fear recommends flexibility in all things as a goal. “Do what you can instead of quitting when you can’t be ‘perfect,’” she says. As if there’s such a thing as “perfect.”
Give Yourself MORE
Claim the positive: Embrace your strength, satisfy your appetite, prioritize joy, get more rest, and fall in love with your body. Be more authentically, unapologetically you. Weight loss is just one (of many) life-changing effects. It starts now.