Why weight loss can be so emotional

If you’ve been on a fat-loss mission, but are finding yourself down a deadend road with motivation waning and feelings of guilt and annoyance about to engulf you, these words right here, right now, are for you.

Say you’ve been following a sensible nutrition and exercise plan – that’s wonderful. Nourishing and fuelling your body with the right energygiving foods will reap huge rewards in terms of results and richness of life.

You’ve cut down the booze, you’re embracing the veg, fruit, whole protein ‘thing’ and you’ve got yourself a doable workout routine. You got it sussed. Then bang! Along comes life. Real life – the little things which get in the way of your straight and narrow: having a glass of wine (or three), birthdays, officedrinking, let’s-have-a-creamtea day. You feel your clean canvas of holiness is tarnished, so there’s nothing for it but to really screw it up, really ‘break the diet’. So we have sabotage, swiftly followed by guilt, negativity and annoyance.

If that sounds familiar, I’d like you to stop for a minute and read these words: you are gorgeous. We are all gorgeous. At the end of the day, what is our goal in following a fat-loss plan? Isn’t it happiness? Happiness with ourselves? Yes! We’re all trying to (cue terrible cliché) live our best lives. And we can make that work by being much nicer to ourselves.

Imagine you have a punctured car tyre. It’s very inconvenient and it makes you late. You wouldn’t then slash the other three tyres would you?

Lovely friends, focus your mind on these three points:

1 Look at the whole week and what you achieved rather than the hurdles you hit on one day. Punch the air and feel smug.

2 Ask yourself what the rush is. Goals are reached, but then maintained, so the job doesn’t have an end. Health is not a box to tick, it’s to embrace and savour.

3 Eat healthy food punctuated by small treats – that’s your diet, so don’t ever feel you’ve failed if you have a piece of cake!

✱ Annie is a fitness coach and creator of nutrition and fat-loss programme The 21 Day Blast Plan, aimed at motivating women towards health and confidence. Visit theblastplan. com to find out more.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

‘Moderation is the secret to survival’