How to put yourself and your waistline first

Learn how to say ‘no’

reinforcement, so they put their own needs even further back.”

People-pleasing can result in a whole cauldron of unmet emotional needs bubbling beneath the “oh, it’s no trouble at all” demeanour. Dr Ratcliffe explains, “People can become deskilled in coping with their own emotions and this is frightening.” One way to deal with fear is to comfort eat.

This is all too familiar to social worker Jennifer Davies, who had a gastric procedure for weight loss five years ago. “I was a chubby child, brought up by an elderly grandparent, so I had to be responsible from a young age. Then I got married and had children and put them before myself. Weight has been a problem all my life. I eat when I’m happy and I eat when I’m sad,” she says.

Her weight peaked at 19½st five years ago and, though she is a slim 12st today, she points to social worker colleagues who struggle in a similar way. “We don’t look after ourselves. It’s part of the culture. We get a lunch break, but we don’t take it. We don’t find time to eat properly. Our keyboards are all full of crumbs.”

Teaching assistant Louise also saw her weight increase after joining a London primary school, gaining 2st in eight years. “There is a sort of martyrdom in teaching,” she admits. “I’m so, so busy, I don’t have time to eat a proper meal. So you grab a baguette or some leftover apple pie in the staff room. All my family are teachers and nurses and many are overweight.”

Most of my people-pleasing clients with weight problems are women, but men are affected too. Business coach Ali Gowans, who works with both men and women, says, “When I go into a big organisation, it’s noticeable that those with a caring value set — human resources staff for example — tend to carry more weight.”

“People-pleasers can have a fear that if they don’t put others before themselves they will be rejected,” explains Jesse Tremblay, a counselling psychologist at Nightingale Hospital in London. “So they sublimate their own needs to avoid the fear of abandonment.” Those needs don’t go away — and food is one way they can find of comforting themselves.

So is it possible to lose weight and change the pattern of a lifetime without becoming, well, hard-hearted? “Being kind and helpful to others is a good thing. It only becomes a problem when a preference for helping becomes a rule,” points out Tremblay.

He advises his clients to consider what motivates their behaviour. “Do you choose to do it or do you feel you must?” If it’s the latter, he suggests making a list of things you do for others and grading them in terms of the time and energy required, then abandoning the least important tasks. “This will increase your belief that the world doesn’t end if you don’t do them.”

Similarly, Dr Ratcliffe gets her clients to focus less on their relationships with others and, instead, to think about their “internal relationship” with themselves. “They need to equalise those relationships,” she says. She suggests they ask themselves this question: “Would they allow someone they were caring for to go all day without eating?” The answer is no. So why would you do that to yourself?