Why you are not a calorie machine

For many people who come to me for help, calories weigh heavily on their mind. They are relentlessly worrying over what they should or shouldn't eat, often influenced by misguided beliefs about calorie counts and the inaccurate metrics found on food packaging labels.

For decades we have been conditioned to view ourselves as a calorie machine -lead to believe that achieving a calorie deficit, will grant us control over our body size, weight and shape. This notion is not only false but perpetuates the idea that we are to blame for not meeting society’s unrealistic body standards. It leads to feelings of guilt and shame, causing low self-worth and unnecessarily harm.

Contrary to the diet culture narrative that calories in equals calories out, our bodies are far more complex and dynamic, with numerous factors influencing weight control beyond simple calorie intake and expenditure.

The fact is we all require significantly different amounts of energy. For each individual, this will vary from day to day and from person to person will depend on their age, height, weight, gender, lifestyle and many other factors. Even two people of the same height and age may have vastly different calorie needs.

To understand this further let’s looks at how your body spends its calories:

• The energy you need to stay alive uses approximately 60% of your daily calories and depends on the amount of muscle and fat you have, your age, gender and genetics. Your thirty-seven trillion cells are hard at work, allowing your heart to beat, your body to breath, producing hormones and growing and repairing cells, for example. This takes a huge amount of work and energy!

• You burn around 10% of your daily calories to process your food (yes, that much to digest and absorb nutrients!) and this depends on the amount you eat, the type of food and your genes.

• Your daily activity uses in the region of 15-30% of your daily calories. This will depend on the type, duration and intensity of activity and your body weight. There are many advantages to exercising but going to the gym to compensate for eating a ‘forbidden’ food is not a helpful strategy. It is always better to eat a balanced diet without depriving yourself of essential nutrients and exercise moderately.

• And although your liver and brain make up only a small part of your body weight; they each account for one fifth of the calories you need to stay alive.

Notably, calories from different foods have different effects on your body – impacting your satiety levels, insulin response, fat storage and overall energy expenditure. Hence fixating on counting calories proves futile, as it overlooks these many significant factors.

The solution lies in cultivating a healthy relationship with food, adding variety in to your diet and allowing eating to become a positive and nourishing experience.

I support women who are exhausted by the relentless cycle of calorie counting, food anxiety, and weight fluctuations, and who are eager to foster a positive relationship with food and their body. If you're ready to bid farewell to yo-yo dieting, binge eating, disordered or emotional eating once and for all, and embark on a journey of lasting transformation, I warmly invite you to book in a complimentary consultation with me HERE. Together, we can explore if a personalised one-on-one programme is the right fit for you and how I can help.

If the idea of tackling your eating patterns feels overwhelming and you're unsure of where to begin, take a look at my FREE guide Breaking the Cycle - Your First Steps to Healing Your Relationship with Food to kickstart your journey today

This invaluable resource will help you:

✔️Know when you’re really hungry and when you’re not

✔️Learn when to eat that’s best for you

✔️Know the best snacks to help you stop craving and feeling out of control

Is Losing Weight the Key to your Happiness?

Are you constantly striving to attain a smaller body? For many people, this preoccupation consumes their thoughts and impacts many aspects of their life. If this is something you have been battling with, have you ever considered if shrinking your body will genuinely make you happy?

 For many of my clients who struggle with their relationship with food and their body, this question resonates deeply. They begin to peel away layers of societal conditioning, personal insecurities, and the relentless pressure to conform to unrealistic standards of beauty.

What is fuelling your deep desire to shrink your body?

The desire to be thin often stems from the belief that thinness equates to happiness, acceptance, and love. But if you delve deeper into this belief, you may uncover something far more enlightening.

• Take a moment to reflect on times when you might have been thinner. Were you genuinely happier then? Or was it a fleeting sense of satisfaction? Perhaps, like many of my clients, you found that it was never enough, and you were still striving to lose more weight.

• It might be that you were happy then. If so, was it attributed to your weight, or were there other aspects of your life contributing to your happiness, such as being in a positive relationship or having a great job?

• Perhaps you didn’t truly find happiness at all then. If this is the case, it's valuable to reflect on this when thoughts about losing weight dominate your thinking.

What else might be driving preoccupation with your weight

Weight Stigma and Diet Culture: In a society that glorifies thinness and demonises larger bodies, it's no wonder that many of us internalise these harmful messages. From media representations to interpersonal interactions, the pressure to conform to a certain body size is widespread.

Seeking Control: For some, the pursuit of thinness becomes a way to exert a feeling of control in a chaotic world. By focusing on your body you might feel in control of something where stress and overwhelm has taken over many aspects of your life. Consider what you might be trying to block out with this focus on your weight.

Thinness as a Moral Virtue: Thinness is often equated with morality and being virtuous, perpetuating the harmful notion that your worth is tied to your body size. But being thin does not make us inherently better people. Our value lies in our character, our actions, and the impact we have on the world around us.

External Validation: The validation you might receive for losing weight may provide a temporary high, but it’s important to recognise that your worth is not dependant on the approval of others, it has to come from within. Bear in mind also that the validation you seek is often from others who are struggling with their own issues around food and body image.

So how can you break free from the shackles of diet culture and cultivate true happiness? It starts with embracing body acceptance and shifting your focus away from thinness as the ultimate goal.

Here are some steps to get you started:

1. Practice Self-Compassion: Recognise that your struggles with food and body image are valid and worthy of compassion. Instead of berating yourself for not meeting unrealistic body standards, offer yourself kindness and understanding.

2. Challenge Internalised Beliefs: Question your beliefs about thinness and worthiness. Challenge the notion that your value is tied to your body size, and embrace your worthiness, irrespective of your appearance.

3. Foster Authentic Connections: Shift your focus to the qualities that truly matter in relationships. Surround yourself with people who uplift and support you, not based on your appearance, but because of who you are as a person.

4. Pursue Meaningful Experiences: Engage in activities that bring you joy and fulfilment, regardless of how of your body size. Whether it's socialising, holidays or dancing, prioritise experiences that nourish your soul.

Try to remind yourself every day that true happiness lies in embracing yourself as you are, freeing yourself from the constraints of societal expectations, and embracing a life rich in meaning and connection.

If the idea of tackling your eating patterns feels overwhelming and you're unsure of where to begin, take a look at my FREE guide Breaking the Cycle - Your First Steps to Healing Your Relationship with Food to kickstart your journey today

This invaluable resource will help you:

✔️Know when you’re really hungry and when you’re not

✔️Learn when to eat that’s best for you

✔️Know the best snacks to help you stop craving and feeling out of control

Emotional eater? Here’s why dieting is not the answer

As someone who works with women who consider themselves to be emotional eaters, I’m asked this question ALL the time. But what defines an emotional eater? And will dieting stop it in it’s tracks?

To some extent we all emotionally eat. During celebrations we might eat some delicious cake when we’re not hungry. Perhaps because it’s a happy event, to be social, connect with people, take joy from the whole experience. It might not have been a conscious decision to eat the cake.

Often, emotional eating isn’t a problem that needs solving. Sometimes we do eat for comfort when we are feeling sad, angry stressed or alone. It is a coping mechanism we can turn to for a sense of solace. Comfort is after all defined as ‘a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint’.

However, emotional eating can be complex. When it becomes our ONLY mechanism for soothing ourselves, and leads to anxiety, obsession, and overwhelm, emotional eating is no longer our friend.

The difficulties occur when it becomes a never-ending cycle, channelling feelings of guilt and shame. Often ‘all or nothing’ thinking is at the heart of this cycle - ever said to yourself “I’ve blown it today so I may as well just carry on”?

Many women battle with this for years of their life and repeatedly turn to dieting to put a stop to it. If this resonates – let me ask you this, is dieting the solution to your emotional eating or the solution to the feelings of contempt you have for your own body?

The problem is that dieting (AKA food restriction) often plays a role in emotional eating or bingeing. The scientific literature explains that there are several complex mechanisms and research is still ongoing. Put simply we know that dieting often leads to food obsession, hunger and intense cravings. Perhaps you are burdened with those relentless thoughts 24/7, that hijack your headspace on a daily basis? Dieting is not the solution but the fuel to the fire.

SO WHAT IS THE ANSWER?

• Learning to be able to clear your head of diet thinking and cultivate a new mindset; giving yourself the permission to eat what you love without feeling out of control.

• Learning to eat in a way that helps you to feel satisfied so that you no longer have cravings

• Learning to reconnect with your body and know when to start and stop eating

• Learning to acknowledge your emotions, not push them away and find other, more helpful coping mechanisms.

AND WHERE CAN YOU START? 

If perpetual dieting has left you in a muddle about food and eating, and you feel overwhelmed anxious and confused about what, how much and when to eat then have a read of my free resource ‘What the Diet Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know’

You can download this HERE to support you on your journey to dismantle your diet mindset and begin the process of breaking free from dieting, binge eating or emotional eating.

Body image and dieting – why changing your mindset is more effective than changing your body

If you are unhappy with your appearance, weight or body shape the likelihood is that you’ve spent years trying to work out how to change it.

Perhaps you have been jumping from diet to diet, over exercising or have even considered surgery.

Every year millions of women diet in order to change their body. In fact at least 50% of adult women are on some kind of weight loss regime at any given time, in order to help themselves feel better about it.

For many people I work with, this has literally hijacked their life – 24 /7 thoughts about food, their weight or shape– so there’s no room for anything else.

Is this the same for you?

If this is impacting your life, I wonder if you would consider the possibility that changing the way you think about your body is the solution as opposed to the relentless focus on physically shrinking it?

Yo-yo dieting – where weight is lost and regained in a never-ending cycle, has a significant negative impact on body image. A study was conducted with 88 larger bodied women who lost an average of 23 kilos following a weight loss diet. Their body image initially improved. However, when they had regained only an average of 2 kilos a few months later, their body image deteriorated significantly. And we know that weight regain is expected in up to 95% of participants following any weight loss diet.

Yo-yo dieting of course impacts health in many ways – check out my past blog – The hidden costs of yo-yo dieting for more info on this.

If you are a compulsive dieter, it’s first important to reflect on what your motivation is for dieting. Is it for physical health and wellbeing? Or to appear more ‘attractive’ – a fat phobic fear that you will be judged for not achieving the thin body ideal. Perhaps you don’t feel like you fit in or are worthy of love and respect?

Of course, looking after your body is important for your physical and mental health but it is extremely difficult to do so consistently if you despise it.

It is a myth that losing weight is the only way to feel good about your body. By learning to respect it you will be far more likely to look after it in a sustainable way.

This is why when clients who have been dieting for years, want to improve their health, we need to move the focus away from weight loss.

Yes- this can feel scary at first.

But with the right support it is possible to move forward.

Once you begin to see and feel the true benefits – your motivation and confidence will grow. This is when I see many clients loosing excess weight as a side effect of the changes they make – it is no longer their focus but becomes possible as they begin to think differently about their body and themselves.

I’d love to guide you on that journey

If you are struggling with disordered eating and your body image, you are constantly on and off diets, or find yourself craving sugar, emotional eating or bingeing, please reach out for support.

Book in a complimentary call to see how I can help you begin your journey to food freedom and transform your life 

Why calories on menus are harmful + won’t solve your weight worries

A few weeks ago, it became compulsory for large chain restaurants, cafes and takeaways to print calorie labels on menus.  In order to help us make ‘healthier’ choices and solve the ‘obesity crisis’.

However, there is little evidence that the government will achieve its goals. Large chains in the US have been required to print calories on menus since 2018, and this is proving to do little for their ‘obesity crisis’. The problem is that this directive is not only flawed, but it  creates many more problems.

For many of my clients, who battle with eating disorders/ disordered eating, the idea of enjoying a meal out with friends creates a great deal of anxiety. They know their calorie intake when preparing their own food but, in a restaurant, feel a lack of control. Much of the work we do is helping them to rewire their thinking around calories and food. Seeing calories on menus is extremely triggering- a reminder that they must chose the lowest calorie option, creating added stress and fuelling their eating disorder behaviour.

The reality is that for most people weight loss is not just about knowing what choices to make….

The government may claim that this new strategy will be a game changer, for people struggling with their weight. But the reality is that for most people weight loss is not just about knowing what choices to make. Weight science is complex – it is far more than creating a deficit between calories in and calories out.

This policy ignores many of the underlying problems when it comes to the nation’s health. Instead of solving the country’s health inequalities, it places the ‘blame firmly with the individual – i.e ‘it’s up to you to make the right choice’

When we rely on the calories in calories out theory, we are ignoring the fact that each of us is unique with complicated regulatory systems, our own health history and genetics. This involves a complex interaction between hormones, brain chemicals, the gut ecosystem, energy requirements, fuel source availability, genes and hundreds of other variables, all interconnecting.

Food is so much more than calories…

We are also neglecting the fact that every calorie behaves differently within the body as food is so much more than calories. Food is information for the body that changes our genetic expression. It consists of macro nutrients (carbohydrates, protein and fats), micronutrients (minerals and vitamins), phytonutrients and enzymes which all interplay with our biology in so many ways.

And of course, for many people food is used as a coping mechanism. Providing people with the misconception that low calorie equates to healthy food is an unhelpful falsehood. If emotional eating or bingeing is involved, guilting folks to feel bad about what they’re eating is just going to add fuel to the fire.

If you think calories on menus are going to negatively impact your eating behaviour, there are a few things to consider:

• Choose to eat in smaller independent outlets as they are not required to follow the new legislation.

• Request a menu without calories (Outlets are not legally required to provide them, but some will have them available.)

• Remember, you do not need to compensate for what you’ve eaten when out, before or after the meal.

• Set yourself a time limit for how long you spend looking at the menu.

• If you can’t decide what to eat, you could order what your friends or family are having.

A focus on calories, takes away the enjoyment from food and eating, when eating out should be a pleasurable experience. What will you do to keep it that way?

If you are stuck in a diet mindset, have realised that dieting and restriction doesn’t work for you and want to understand why, then take a look at my free download - ‘What the diet Industry doesn’t want you to know’. Using evidenced based weight science research, it exposes the biggest weight loss myths and why you have been trapped in the relentless dieting cycle.

Are you ready to Un-diet your mind?

I understand that taking the decision to move away from a life of dieting is hard. There is a great deal of fear that if you step away from dieting - you will gain weight, loose control or perhaps be judged by others.

So I wanted to create a course with a clear roadmap to take you on this journey. You won’t need to commit to anything that feels overwhelming but you will get results, gain clarity and feel more balanced around food.

FIND OUT ABOUT IT HERE

Un-diet your Mind is my new coaching course where you will unlearn your old food patterns & make new confident choices in 21 days. I will be with you every step of the way, so you feel supported and motivated to begin the process of long lasting change.

The course is just £89 and only £69 to the first 15 people who enrol

****It's starting on Monday 1st November - so mark your calendar!

Un-diet your Mind is the perfect place to start if you.....

~ feel overwhelmed when making food choices, you have no idea what to eat anymore

~ feel confused and frustrated thinking-‘Why have I lost weight on diets I did before and they don’t work now?’

~ turn to food when you’re not hungry

~ can be overcome by sugar cravings which lead to emotional eating or bingeing

~ You feel obsessed with 24/7 thoughts about food, diets and your weight

~ You don’t know how to stop dieting- it feels like too big a step for you

The first 15 people who join the course will receive a special founding participant's discount – Join my VIP wait list to be one of the first to be notified when the course goes live!

Is dieting really the answer to emotional eating?

As someone who works with women who consider themselves to be emotional eaters, I’m asked this question ALL the time. But what defines an emotional eater? And will dieting stop it in it’s tracks?

To some extent we all emotionally eat. During celebrations we might eat some delicious cake when we’re not hungry. Perhaps because it’s a happy event, to be social, connect with people, take joy from the whole experience. It might not have been a conscious decision to eat the cake.

Often, emotional eating isn’t a problem that needs solving. Sometimes we do eat for comfort when we are feeling sad, angry stressed or alone. It is a coping mechanism we can turn to for a sense of solace. Comfort is after all defined as ‘a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint’.

However, emotional eating can be complex. When it becomes our ONLY mechanism for soothing ourselves, and leads to anxiety, obsession, and overwhelm, emotional eating is no longer our friend.

The difficulties occur when it becomes a never-ending cycle, channelling feelings of guilt and shame. Often ‘all or nothing’ thinking is at the heart of this cycle - ever said to yourself “I’ve blown it today so I may as well just carry on”?

Many women battle with this for years of their life and repeatedly turn to dieting to put a stop to it. If this resonates – let me ask you this, is dieting the solution to your emotional eating or the solution to the feelings of contempt you have for your own body?

The problem is that dieting (AKA food restriction) often plays a role in emotional eating or bingeing. The scientific literature explains that there are several complex mechanisms and research is still ongoing. Put simply we know that dieting often leads to food obsession, hunger and intense cravings. Perhaps you are burdened with those relentless thoughts 24/7, that hijack your headspace on a daily basis? Dieting is not the solution but the fuel to the fire.

SO WHAT IS THE ANSWER?

• Learning to be able to clear your head of diet thinking and cultivate a new mindset; giving yourself the permission to eat what you love without feeling out of control.

• Learning to eat in a way that helps you to feel satisfied so that you no longer have cravings

• Learning to reconnect with your body and know when to start and stop eating

• Learning to acknowledge your emotions, not push them away and find other, more helpful coping mechanisms.

AND WHERE CAN YOU START? 

If perpetual dieting has left you in a muddle about food and eating, and you feel overwhelmed anxious and confused about what, how much and when to eat? I would love to hear from you.

What are your main challenges? What would you love to know and learn? Where do you need support? How would you like to feel?

Your input will help me tailor my content and support for you – just hit reply and let me know :)

I have worked with hundreds of clients who have found themselves fighting this daily battle and I’m working on an exciting new short foundation programme to help you transition to a calm, balanced and joyous approach to eating

***KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR MORE NEWS ON THIS COMING SOON

P.S. Would you love to make peace with your body and build a happy relationship with food?

Come and join us in the FOOD FREEDOM COLLECTIVE, Facebook community- a safe place where you can question, share, learn + feel supported without judgement, comparison and shame. I will be sharing tips, simple recipe, meal, and snack ideas along with strategies, motivation and supportive practices and its free to join!

It’s time to release yourself from the shackles of diet culture + empower yourself to create positive change in your life.

Could this be your missing weight-loss puzzle piece?

I wonder how long you have spent over the course of your life searching for the magic pill when it comes to weight loss? And how much money you have spent on miracle products that promised to make the weight drop off over night – or at least not make the business of losing weight seem so tricky?  

If you are someone who has spent a significant amount of times in slimming clubs, what you should know is that almost certainly you have been taught to eat the wrong things. And the community mindset seems to be about finding ways to cheat the diet. It’s no wonder people lose weight and put it straight back on again. Of course, actually eating the right things will help you lose the weight naturally, without calorie counting. And eating the way I show my clients, has them naturally wanting to eat the foods that will love their body rather than deciding to seek solace in a bag of chocolate buttons!

What the slimming clubs miss is the vital mindset element of losing weight. Part of that is taking care of your self-care. If you are an emotional eater, no ‘diet’ in the world is going to help you deal with what the REAL issue is – your wonky relationship with food. You need to rewire your food brain, because emotional eating or binge eating are major causes of diet failure but, unless you get to the root of the problem, you’re destined to yo-yo diet … forever.

Self care is the recognition that only YOU can make yourself happy and that, if you make sure that you dedicate some time EVERY DAY purely for your own enjoyment, you will have more fun, you will be more fun and you will have far greater reserves to deal with the stresses of everyday life.

The miracle of self care doesn’t end there. When you dedicate a small amount of time each day to your own happiness, there is less need to reach for the chocolate biscuits. I’m guessing you’re like many of my clients – you are usually so time poor, that rewarding yourself with treat foods like cake and biscuits is the easiest way to show yourself some self love. However, during these unprecedented times (unless of course you are a key worker) you can give yourself the gift of time to really focus on your self care and health.

My experience in running a nutrition clinic is that so little of why you eat what you eat has to do with nourishing your body. The greater part is to do with how you feel about yourself and about life in general. Eating half a packet of chocolate biscuits is much easier than working out or getting – what you really need, which might be a way to de-stress, feel loved, get attention, relax and even sleep. 

I am sure that you get what I am saying, but this is not enough for the magic to work. Just understanding won’t get you the benefits. You have to be in action. Are you doing AT LEAST three things EVERY DAY just because they make you happy? 

Self care is a skill and it is a discipline. It is something that can be very easy to do (which is why it is something you often don’t bother to do). So, this week’s challenge: make a list of at least 20 things (even really frivolous things) that you LOVE to do just because they bring you pleasure.  Some take hardly any time; some take a little longer. You don’t have to spend long for this to be effective. You have to write them down, too. Just thinking about them is not enough.

I know from working with my clients that coming up with a list can feel difficult to start with. That’s why I’m offering you this little bit of inspiration: a printable self care planner packed with ideas to get you started. You will also need to keep your list somewhere handy so it is easy to turn to for inspiration.

I promise you that if you make a commitment to yourself, other challenges in your life will start to feel that bit easier. Maybe you need some support with deep rooted struggles; a slave to food, your weight or appearance or  worry about every calorie that enters your mouth. Perhaps  you’re unable to break free from the endless cycle of yo- yo dieting, binge eating or constantly overeating, I want you to know, you are not alone.

I work with people just like you who need a new approach to gaining balance and moderation in their life. I will help you to take back control without feeling deprived or hungry. My signature one to one programme (which I am currently running via video call sessions) is designed to help you shed the layers of shame and guilt and be able to accept yourself. You will discover how to make sense of what your brain and body are going through, feel supported and empowered.

Please book in a complimentary call HERE to see how I can help.

Click here to download your free planner