Lose weight and keep it off without using a food tracker app.

Food tracking apps are great tools for helping us lose weight but they are not part of a sustainable pattern for behaviour beyond short periods of time. Do you see yourself in twenty years continously logging food into myfitnesspal ? I use them myself and recommend their use for clients but it does not form the baseline of a balanced pattern of eating going forward.

There are theories out there in relation to why we seem to hold steady at certain weights or even after a weightloss gradually return to that weight or beyond if a dysfunctional approach has been previously employed, however this article is not meant to tackle the scientific reasoning or explain it, it is just a pathway or series of suggestions that have worked for my clients in losing weight and keeping it off long term.

#1 Routine

"Discipline is the currency with which you purchase freedom" - Jocko Willink

Some people struggle to stick to any routine they try to impose on themselves, take for example #newyearnewme, where people say they will wake up at 6am and go for a run everyday of the year. This might be the complete polar opposite of what they are normally doing and may not be successfully managed at all. As a result of this fact I am not even asking to change your daily habits but just to observe them. Ideally we would wake and go to sleep at the same time each day but some people work odd or split shifts resulting in a broken cycle and as such requires a flexible approach.

Observe what patterns exist naturally (work at 9am? Waking at 7.30am, eat a meal at 8.30am), create and implement a strategy that lines up with your goals and suits your individual preferences. This means that you know on working days you will eat at 8.30am, and you like a light breakfast with your coffee, so to make it as healthy as possible we have a small yoghurt with a sprinkling of granola with a piece of fruit. Observe what is currently there, create a plan or potential improved option and implement it, if it is unsuccessful attempt with another idea and you needn’t make it complicated like a 12 ingredient smoothie, a piece of fruit with a slice of toast is completely fine if thats what you enjoy and if thats eaten at 6am or 1pm as your first meal thats what suits you and your routine.

Regular meals throughout the day allow you to anticipate when you will get hungry and you can plan in advance for meals and as a second step in the process aim to create a better alternative than your contingency plan which may be takeaways or fast food.

#2 Fruit & Vegetable intake

5 a day should be our minimum intake. Yes, minimum… Aim to include 3 or 4 vegetables in your main meal, fruit throughout the day as snacks and as part of your lighter meals maybe your breakfast, lunch or evening tea. Fruit and Veg are densely packed with nutrients that are typically very bioavailable in comparison to micronutrients in supplements and as a result my preference for recommendation is to ideally aim to consume your nutrients through whole foods ideally. This is NOT a requirement though so however you get the good stuff in, is grand !

Regular meals throughout the day, and consistent fruit & veg intake are the backbone of a healthy and sustainable diet. Variety in fruit and vegetables would be optimal but we are also creatures of routine and patterns so even if its an apple a day at lunch or a fruit bowl for an evening snack however you manage to include more and consistently eat fruit is brilliant in comparison to barely one or none.

#3 Protein & Fibre

These two macronutrients* are very helpful in improving saity and fullness after a meal. They take longer to digest beyond they benefits in health and recovery from training, that is an incredibly useful characteristic for those dieting or aiming to maintain their weightloss.

Its important that each meal contains at least in part a significant or sizeable portion of protein and fibre, many people rely on protein shakes to hit their targets regularly throughout the week without learning the value of integrating protein sources (fish, meat, eggs, dairy etc) into their daily diet.

You could definitely time meals around training as well to make sure you are optimally fuelling your body with the essential nutrients to maintain muscle mass or gradually build during a maintenance or deficit phase. It just requires a bit more in detail planning and is less advisable to be concerned about for beginners.

*Fibre isnt really considered an out and out macronutrient but it is a dietary component required daily, in larger proportions than micronutrients (vitamins/minerals)

#4 Understanding Feast vs Famine

Neither should be our daily routine, as both are problematic long term, additionally neither should they be relied upon as a means of weight control. Feasting and stuffing yourself to the point where you literally can not consume another bite is not a healthy marker or association with appetite, and continously doing so can muddy the waters of the relationship between appetite satisfaction and the corresponding hormones which can lead to a greater and greater tolerance level until appetite satisfaction is achieved.

Restricting food intake completely or in a timed fashion such as intermittent fasting isn't neccessarily a poor relationship to have with food but it does depend on the attitude or relationship with food that occurs when one eats after the fast. As such it isn't my first preference as means of building a relationship with food up again, but it does remain a valid tool in a strategy to manage intakes without tracking so long as food intake when unrestricted is balanced and encourages a healthy diet.

It is important to ask yourself why, not in a judgemental manner either but just from a place of understanding - which is difficult to do, you might want to binge eat or starve yourself. If the answer is something akin to emotional distress, it is important we understand that binge eating will neither solve the problem or truly soothe the pain of the issue. The best response to this emotional distress is to seek help or comfort either in a professional or a trusted friend.

If you find that you are punishing yourself, through starving yourself and restricting your eating as a means to achieving quick goals because you want to look different - and only then will you feel happy this is also a detrimental mindset to have. It is important that if you identify with either of these patterns that you seek appropriate help.

Summary

The factors we manipulate for weightloss or weightgain should be present in our daily routines as a baseline for behaviour as it stands without any desire to change weight. An emphasis on regular meals, fruit and veg, whole sources of protein and fibre in most if not all meals and finally understanding the feast vs famine mindset being the source of many peoples yo-yo pattern of weightloss and what we can do to limit the onset of such a pattern of eating.

There are other considerations such as slow vs fast digesting carbohydrates and timing meals around training sessions, however the purpose of this articile is just to keep things simple and give you a starting point.

If you are going to use a tracking app don't feel like youre doing things "wrong" its completely valid and probably a bit more consistent in delivering weightloss targets but it is typically not a tool for long term use hence my motivation for writing up some pillars for managing your diet without them.

My hope is that we develop an understanding that we are human and sometimes we will we eat too much and sometimes we havent prepared appropriately and as a result we eat too little but so long as neither of these become routine, relying on the fundamentals here listed you will be better enabled to achieve some kind of sustained maintenance of weightloss or adjust your eating habits to become more healthy and balanced and as a result help you lose weight that may have been caused by poorer eating habits.