Ask anybody this question, including health care professionals, and a confident response will be back at you in a flash … “2 litres a day” … “8 glasses a day” ... "only water counts as water”, some may add. 
 
We’ve all read it and heard it so many times before, so it must be true, right? Too many people say it for it to be wrong, right? If it isn’t true, then somebody would be saying it isn't true, wouldn't they?​

Eat well. Add lots of salad veg or cooked veg to your meals. Eat fresh fruit a few times a day, carry on enjoying your tea, coffee and the rest, and you won’t need to drink anywhere near 8 glasses of water to meet your daily fluid requirement. 

Before looking at what to consider when choosing an oil for cooking, let’s understand a bit about oils in general. Plant and animal fats that are liquid at room temperature are usually referred to as oils. The technical term for fats and oils is lipid. There are many different types of lipid, and we need them for our health and wellbeing just as much as we do other nutrients.  
​

​There are two families of essential fats: omega-3 and omega-6 types.  Omega-3 fats are plentiful in flaxseed, and there are small amounts in hemp, walnut and soybean – green leafy vegetables are also a source.  
​

​What makes an oil a good choice for a dressing or cooking?
The type of fat that makes up the oil and its smoke point are two things to consider when making a choice from the array of oils available.

Fats can also be classified as either saturated or unsaturated (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) and this is what primarily determines whether a fat is considered to be ‘healthy’ or ‘less healthy’.

Saturated fat raises LDL blood cholesterol (the less-healthy type), whereas unsaturated fat (such as omega-6 and omega-3 fat) help lower LDL cholesterol and increase HDL cholesterol (the healthy type). The aim therefore is to eat fewer sources of saturated fat and more sources of unsaturated fat.​

Oil becomes unstable when cooked above a certain temperature and this is referred to as the smoke point.  Each oil has its own smoke point – the temperature at which the oil breaks down and creates free radicals, which are potentially harmful to our body.  Heating oil above its smoke point creates acrolein, which creates a burnt flavour and can be harmful to lungs when breathed in.
​

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in coconut oil and whether it helps protect heart health or harms it.  A review in 2020 found that coconut oil when compared with other plant oils and animal oils significantly raised HDL cholesterol (the healthy type). It also raised LDL cholesterol (the less-healthy type) more than did other plant oils, but less than animal oils.

Coconut oil is high in saturated fat, but it has a high smoke point. Each of us must weigh up the pros and cons of using a particular fat, either as a dressing or for cooking at high temperatures. The taste of the meal and the occasion is also a consideration – eating should be enjoyable and sometimes the health value of a particular meal on that special occasion is not an important consideration!

Download information on fat profile and smoke point of various oils.

Tony Hirving
Dietitian

Losing weight is hard. Really hard.  And keeping it off can be just as hard. You have to be committed to making changes to eating (and drinking) habits and getting more physically active. And you must be committed to doing this for life. In short, you must eat less and move more. And do it forever.

​All very simple in theory (the physics) but doing it (the reality) is hard.  Emotions, mindset and the realities of daily life make it challenging to stick to healthier habits.

​This may sound too good to be true, but it is true. There is, however, another ‘but’ – there always is!  We’ll get back to that.  First, though, let’s take a closer look at this drug (semaglutide) which is administered as a once-weekly injection – some refer to it as the “fat jab”.

​Those receptors are usually activated by the gut hormone, known as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), that our body naturally produces. ​​The effect of GLP-1 receptors in the brain being activated is increased production of insulin, which why it is prescribed in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Another effect of semaglutide is appetite suppression, which is why it has been repurposed as a weight loss drug.

​Net weight loss over two years and four months in participants who had used semaglutide was 5.6%. This is clinically meaningful, but likely to have been very disappointing for those ‘bouncing’ up from having lost 15% of their starting weight.

​
Change your mindset …

Semaglutide works for as long as it is being taken. It can be prescribed for a maximum of two years. Appetite returns when treatment is stopped. Hunger signals return and you will again be faced with the daily challenge of controlling how much you eat. Sound familiar?

And on your way down in weight you could meet someone going up in weight, following cessation of semaglutide.  Yes, losing weight, and keeping it off, can be hard to do, but it's not impossible. ​ Aplos Health & Wellbeing Programme gives you support around making small and sustainable change to what you eat, drink and do.​

Change your mindset, change your habits and your weight will change.

Tony Hirving
Dietitian

​The past few weeks has been the time for some good old R & R. I don’t know what you were thinking, but I’m referring to activity of reflecting, reassessing, and renewing of health, work and personal hopes and aspirations.

Days are short and cold ...

We want to get back into our health and wellbeing journey. We really do. But these cold, short days make it quite a struggle. And we’ve just seen out this year’s so-called ‘blue Monday’, which is the third Monday in January, and it’s supposedly the most depressing day of the year, according to Dr Cliff Arnall. We can forget about this nonsense – it’s just a unscientific number that Cliff Arnall was asked by a travel company to come up with - to lighten our wallets rather than to enlighten us.

'Tis no longer the season to be jolly ...

Christmas has come and gone, and this can leave some of us feeling a little lost. The build-up to those seasonal celebrations, spending time with friends and family, buying gifts and having licence to eat and drink whatever we fancy, and as many times as we fancy it, is exciting.  And then it’s over. The twinkly lights are switched off, the tree comes down, and we trudge off to work. Back to life and reality. How do we get back into doing the lifestyle healthy habits we started last year?

Why do healthy habits?

There needs to be a reason for committing to new habits that take us away from doing the old ones that, well let’s be honest, taste good (calorific snacks) or are easy to do (binge-watch on Netflix … whilst eating calorific snacks!). We do like taking the path of least resistance and you could say this is a design spec or an evolutionary behaviour.

Just look at the natural world. Animals move around for a purpose, such as searching for food or looking for a mate. Why waste precious energy on moving around when the belly is full and it’s not the mating season? There has to be personal benefit to eating less and moving more.

Commit your motivation to paper ...

As said, there needs to be a reason to do healthier habits. It’s a good idea to commit the motivation to paper – the My Health & Wellbeing Journey journal (digital and paper versions) has a space for that. Take a minute each morning to remind yourself why you’re going to make certain food and drink choices in the day ahead.

Hmmm ... what are you really eating and drinking?

Get back to reality by first knowing what you really put in your mouth, rather than kidding yourself that you eat and drink very healthily. Keeping a food diary for seven days straight is great way to check the reality, when we do it honestly! As soon as you eat or drink, record it and make a note of what you changed your mind about eating – keeping a food diary (in the back of My Health & Wellbeing Journal) and can make us have second thoughts about giving in to temptation!

SMART goals are doable habits ...

When you know what and how often you eat and drink, come up with a couple of doable SMART goals. Set the behaviour change bar too high, you might not get over it and end up feeling disappointed with yourself. Make goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant to what you want to achieve and do them within a Timeframe – for example, once a day, twice a day, once a week, three times a week.

Keep a check on yourself! 

Monitor (see My Health & Wellbeing Journey journal) how you get on doing the goals. We rarely hit the SMART goal target every single day of a given week, and that’s fine. What can you learn from this week to make more it likely that you hit the target more often next week?

I hope you have a healthy and a very happy year ahead!

Tony Hirving
Dietitian

Those of us who live in the UK and have darker skin need longer exposure to summer sunlight to make the same amount of vitamin D as people with lighter skin - we are therefore at greater risk of vitamin D deficiency. 

Sunlight certainly wasn’t in short supply last summer, but this matters not, if one tends to avoid the sun or uses sunscreen every time when stepping into the rays. It would be sensible for most of us, regardless of skin colour, to take a vitamin D supplement between October and March if we don't get enough exposure to sunlight during April-September
 
Why is it important to have good vitamin D status?
 
Rickets in children is a well-known consequence of vitamin D deficiency.  Adults who have vitamin D deficiency may experience osteomalacia, a condition in which bones are more likely to fracture – due to poor calcification.  

Vitamin D is also needed by other tissues in our body, and this includes our brain.  Some studies link low vitamin D levels to depression – but the link might be explained by the likelihood that people who feel low are less likely to go out.  

​A particularly important role of vitamin D at this time of the year is that of supporting the immune system in keeping us well.  There is some evidence that having good vitamin D status offers a degree of protection against respiratory infections - might vitamin D help protect against COVID-19?
 
What are the best food sources of vitamin D?
 
Getting enough exposure to summer sun is the best way to build-up our vitamin D stores to maintain vitamin D sufficiency through winter months. 
 
The only naturally-rich food sources of vitamin D are oily fish (around 200IU - 600IU vitamin D per 140g serving) and egg (50IU - 150IU per egg). Dietary information resources often cite red meat (4IU - 40IU of vitamin D per 100g) and fortified margarine (around 15IU vitamin D per teaspoon) as sources of vitamin D, but each of these make only a very small contribution to our daily intake of vitamin D.  
 
Some foods are fortified with vitamin D and these include some brands of products, such as yogurt, breakfast cereal and plant-based alternatives to milk.
 
How else can we get vitamin D?

Inadequate intake of food sources of vitamin D (and this is not diffiult to do!) and insufficient exposure to the summer sun will, of course, lead to vitamin D deficiency – around 23% of adults have vitamin D deficiency, defined as bood 25OHD level below 25nmol/L. 

Vitamin D supplements are inexpensive and an easy way to boost vitamin D stores during winter months. They are available as tablets, oral sprays and drops and all are effective at increasing blood levels of vitamin D.
 
How much vitamin D do we need?

A daily serving of oily fish would get us close to (or exceed) the RNI for vitamin D (400IU = 10ug a day), but for most us, consuming oily fish on a daily basis is very unlikely, unless you’re a dolphin! The RNI for vitamin D is considerably lower than the dose of vitamin D (around 30ug a day) required by sun-avoiders if they are to achieve vitamin D sufficiency – a serum 25OHD concentration above 50nmol/L).
 
Most of us can meet our vitamin D requirement by taking a daily supplement providing 1000-2000IU (25-50ug) vitamin D - taking up to 4000IU (100ug) vitamin D a day is safe.
 
Click here for slides from the drop-in meeting of Aplos All-Stars. 

Tony Hirving
Dietitian                                       ​

Chocolate is irresistible to many of us

Whenever that rarest of patients tells me they don’t like chocolate and therefore don't eat it, try as I might to not do so, I can’t help but express my surprise at this unusual revelation. “How can you not like chocolate?” I say, as I consider the truthfulness of what is being said – we sometimes tell others what we think they want to hear from us!
 
Chocolate triggers release of opiates
 
There’s a whole heap of science around why chocolate is universally enjoyed – well, by most of us, that is.  This includes chocolate’s effect of triggering the natural opiates in the brain that make us feel good and the physical properties that give it that delightfully silky surface and smooth texture, and a chemical struture that makes it melt when it hits the tongue.  We know what makes it feel good in the mouth, taste good and why it may do us some good.
 
Milk chocolate contains at least 10% of cacao (high-quality milk chocolate may contain 30-40% cacao) and at least 12% milk – the rest will be made up of sugar and vegetable fats.  Dark chocolate, which contains at least 35% cacao (it may contain as much as 90%) has less sugar than does milk chocolate and this gives it a bitterness not enjoyed by some of us.  
 
Why do people say dark chocolate is healthy?
 
The ‘goodness’ in chocolate is in the cacao beans (called cocoa beans once fermented) from which the delectably smooth mouth-candy is made.  Cacao beans, like many plants, are a source of anti-oxidants – these are compounds that help protect our heart, and other organs, from becoming damaged and diseased.  The higher the percentage of cacao solids in chocolate, the higher the concentration of its antioxidants.
 
In theory this all sounds very good. ‘Dark chocolate is heart healthy” makes an eye-catching and unlikely headline for a processed snack that is loaded with saturated fat and sugar.  Dark chocolate with 70% cacao solids can deliver a whopping 27% sugar – that’s about one teaspoon of sugar in a couple of pieces of chocolate weighing around 20g.
 
How much dark chocolate is heart healthy?
 
If dark chocolate is actually heart protective, eating around 30g three times a week is as much as needed to get this protection – eating more doesn’t seem to bring further heart health benefit.   We must of course remember that dark chocolate consumed as part of a generally unhealthy diet is not going to do much in the way of heart protection.
 
It’s important to know that organisations, such as Mars, who have a commercial interest in this area of research tend to be involved in these studies in some way.   A very small 2017 study (only 31 people), funded by The Hershey Company and the Almond Board of California, explored the impact of the combination of almonds and dark chocolate on heart disease risk factors and found that consumption of almonds alone lowered blood cholesterol – eating dark chocolate alone had no impact on blood cholesterol level.
 
Take home message ...

Chocolate tastes great (to most of us!) and there is no need to exclude it from a healthy lifestyle.  Dark chocolate has more heart-protective antioxidants than does milk chocolate, but the fat content (as high as 45%) may be higher in dark chocolate, particularly bars that have a high percentage of cacao solids.  Whichever type of chocolate you prefer, enjoy it only in moderation, because a few squares three times a week is likely to be all that’s needed to contribute to heart health.  Any more than that brings no further benefit and neither will it help with trimming the waistline.

Tony Hirving
Dietitian

All diets work … if we stick to them. The deal breaker for many weight loss diets is that they don’t give us free licence to enjoy all the things we want to and as much we want to and when we want to. They restrict what we can eat and how much we can eat.  And we don’t much like that, do we?  Particularly when the diet doesn’t feel personalised to us. 

Personalised eating may be the future ...
 
I’m not talking about a personalised diet that fits around lifestyle, which is a good thing, of course. I’m referring to a diet that’s personalised to what we are as opposed to what we do.  An approach that takes into account how our body responds to different foods.
 
The blood type diet might be considered personalised eating. Before going into this, I want to briefly talk about what is relatively new research around the concept of eating according to what is inside our body.

Identical twins respond differently to the same food ...

In the past few years there have been ground-breaking studies observing that people (even identical twins) given the same food have different responses in their blood fat (triglycerides), blood sugar (glucose) and other things in the blood that increase or decrease after a meal.
 
Part of the explanation for this is our unique mix of gut-friendly bacteria.  Even identical twins apparently have a different mix of the hundreds of species making up the trillions of microbes that live and eat in our gut – only 30% of gut-friendly bacteria in identical twins are the same.  Each of us really is unique!

Gut bacteria affect our response to food ...

And what if we could drop the pounds if we ate from a list of foods matched to how our body handles various foods?  Exciting new research in this area hints at that possibility, but it can’t yet be concluded that certain foods, depending on genetics, gut-friendly bacteria and other factors, leads to weight gain in some people and not in others.
 
Let’s remember that the balance between the number of calories consumed, from food and drink, and the number of calories burned through basal metabolism (such as heart beating, brain thinking, kidneys filtering) and physical activity is what fundamentally leads to us gaining weight, losing weight or staying the same weight.
 
Weight loss side-effect of blood type diet ...

Okay, what about blood type diet for weight loss?  In 1996, the naturopathic doctor Peter D’Adamo first published his book Eat Right 4 Your Type, which claimed there is an optimal diet for each blood type, and that following the right diet for our blood type will better help protect us from disease.
 
Some of those following the diet recommended for their blood type report a ‘side-effect’ of having more energy and lost weight.  Weight loss is of course going to happen if new eating habits result in consumption of fewer calories than previously, which is highly likely in those losing weight on the blood type diet.  
 
Eating well helps us feel better ... and lose weight

My overweight patients will usually have lost some weight by the time of follow-up, and some tell me that they feel better and have more energy. This will have been achieved by reducing portion sizes, eating more veg and fruit, and eating fewer calorific snacks.  I have no need to know their blood type, because the fundamentals of weight loss are the same for all of us: eat less and move more.
 
A 2013 review of blood type diets did not find any evidence to support health claims made by proponents of this approach to looking after health.  A randomised controlled trial is the scientific way to test whether a specific diet for weight loss works any better than a comparison diet matched for calories.  There are no such studies I can find comparing blood type diet with other types of diets for weight loss.  
 
Back to the basic principle of weight loss. If we consume fewer calories than we burn, we will lose weight. Blood type diet, healthy eating, WW and the like are just a few of the different systems for reducing food and drink intake.  The trick is to find a weight-loss diet system to which you can stick.
 
Tony Hirving
Dietitian

Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight knows from experience how dishearteningly difficult this can be.  What if there were an easier way of doing it?  You know, a magic pill that takes away all effort and, even better, allows you to eat whatever you want and as often as you want.  How cool that would be.  

...Hmmm, if only this were true

Disappointingly there is no such pill, and it is very unlikely that there ever will be.  If one does pop up on the market, I’m sure that the associated risk to health it carried would be a deal-breaker when it came to licensing for use in the NHS.
 
The reality is that the effort it takes to “eat less and move more” is about as ‘magical’ as it gets. Follow that simple formula and the pounds do disappear – the magic happens when we stick to that tried and tested approach, especially controlling portion size.  This is not sexy, although some of the weight loss diets out there do try to seduce us into buying the latest way of losing weight.  It’s smoke and mirrors.

... Weight loss diets do actually work!

Regardless of a diet’s 'exotic' name (think South Beach Diet, Noom, Keto diet, WW, Intermittent Fasting), they are all variations on how to eat less food.  By the way, diets do work … if you stick to them. Finding a way of eating that you enjoy is the key to weight loss. Go simple, go slow and get to your goal surely ... and steadily - there are no quick fixes waiting to be discovered.
 
A weight loss pill that now seems to have been around forever (since 1998) is orlistat (Xenical). Orlistat on its own doesn’t make magic happen, but what it can do is to give you a bit more from your efforts to eat less and to move more.  It’s important that the diet is low in fat when taking orlistat, otherwise results will be disappointing.  

... A pill that helps your magic

Orlistat reduces the amount of fat that gets digested at mealtimes – the undigested fat can’t be absorbed and is expelled via stool.  It can be an effective add-on to the lifestyle changes that are essential for weight loss, but it’s important to know by how much orlistat can help you on your journey, so you can be realistic about your expectations when taking it. 
 
A study back in 2011 looked at effectiveness of orlistat for weight loss. Eighty patients were given either orlistat or placebo.  In those taking orlistat, the average weight loss at 24 weeks, was 4.7kg and the average weight loss in those taking placebo was 2.5kg.  

Something I think is important to note about this study, is that the researchers did not tell us whether those on orlistat were better at sticking to a low-fat diet than were those on placebo. 

​A side-effect of orlistat when there’s too much fat in the diet is anal leakage and oily stool.  Get caught out once by this and people are either going to stop taking orlistat or double-down on reducing their fat intake, which would reduce their overall calorie intake, resulting in more weight loss. Did it happen in this study, I wonder?
 
Orlistat can be helpful and free of side-effects for those who stick strictly to a low-fat diet and control their portion sizes – that’s right, portion control is still a key part of the magic for weight loss.  You can expect to lose a little more weight (around 2kg) at 6 months into your journey than you would if you did only lifestyle changes promoted on the Aplos Health & Wellbeing Programme.

If your diet is low in fat at the halfway point of the programme, your GP can be asked to prescribe orlistat if you would like to give it a try.
 
In the meantime, control your portions, control your weight!

Tony Hirving
Dietitian

That is the question ...

Let’s take a closer look at this and explore the pros and cons of weight measurement, when to do it and how often to do it, if weight change is how you want to check your progress with adopting a healthier lifestyle.
 
Measuring weight is very easy to do and it can tell us something about health risk, which is why GPs, practice nurses, dietitians and other healthcare professionals routinely ask their patient to step on the scales.  This itself can be an uncomfortable experience for those who would prefer to not see or hear what they know already … that their body is heavier than it was the last time this was checked.  
 
Weight measurements can leave us feeling ashamed ...

A feeling of shame is not what we really want to be taking away from any visit to a healthcare professional.  Still, the weight has been officially logged in medical records and that bar of chocolate, bought on the way home, goes some way in making us feel better – only temporarily, though, because after that last mouthful, guilt or self-loathing surfaces.  There seems to be no end to that cycle of pleasure and pain.
 
Having been told our weight by the healthcare professional, we can then at least choose to not face the hard truth of our own bathroom scales.  But is it helpful to ignore this measurement if we have set out on a journey to change to a healthier lifestyle?
 
Good health and wellbeing is not just about weight ...

Aplos Health & Wellbeing Programme is about doing things for looking after our health and wellbeing.  Body weight is just one factor, albeit an important one, that can affect our physical health and mental wellbeing. The quality of diet (vitamins, minerals, fibre phytonutrients and the rest), physical activity habits, sleep habits, alcohol drinking habits, management of stress can all have an impact on how we feel today and to our future health risk.  It’s not just about how much our body weighs.
 
There are participants on the programme who are choosing not to measure weight at this point on their journey. They are waiting until the end of the 12-week weight loss phase of the programme before they next step on the scales.  “My clothes are feeling looser, I feel better and that’s all I need to know”.  Absolutely.  How we feel is what’s important, even if at the end of the 12 weeks, the 5% weight loss target has not quite been achieved.  

Your health and wellbeing journey is for life ...

The journey doesn’t end 12 weeks after you started it – this is just the beginning of a life-long journey. It doesn’t end at any point in the future.  The remarkable story of a lady (Louise Muirhead) who lost 12st over 11 years, is testament to this. Having achieved her healthy weight in July 2021, Louise tells me, “I’m still on my journey”, to maintain what has been achieved.
 
Back to the question: “To weigh or not to weigh?” It’s a personal choice. To choose not to weigh works for some, whereas others want to know the tale of the scales all the way through their journey.  If weight check-ins are what you do, there are a few things to consider. It’s a good idea to measure weight when not wearing clothes, first thing in the morning, after having a pee and before eating or drinking anything.

The scales don't always tell the whole truth ...

Weight can fluctuate by 3 or more pounds in a couple of days at certain points in the menstrual cycle. This is down to changes in water retained by the body, as opposed to changes in stores of body fat, so find your weight at the same point in your menstrual cycle in the previous month and compare with your current weight to get a more accurate measure of change in the weight of your body fat.
 
If you have been following an eating plan and physical activity routine to live a negative energy balance lifestyle, then having a “weekend off” could see an increase of 4 pounds (2kg) as your glycogen stores are refilled with 3 pounds (1.5kg) of water.  Your glycogen stores and that 3lb of water will disappear as quickly as they appeared, once you get back to that negative energy balance lifestyle.

When to weigh ...
And how often should you weigh yourself? Some say daily weight checks are helpful, but I don't agree with this (remember I'm someone who hasn't actually "walked the walk"). I usually recommend checking weight about once a week. Before stepping on the scales, think how you have generally been feeling (physically, mentally and emotionally) up to that point is more important than is the number staring back at you from the floor. 

If the number on the floor is not what you were hoping for, reflect on how you've been getting on with your SMART behaviour (habit) goals. Feeling that you're making progress? Do you feel you have more energy? Sleeping better? There are so many aspects of wellbeing to value other than body weight. Keep doing the healthy habits and living a negative energy balance lifestyle and your weight will eventually go down.

​Tony Hirving
Dietitian

​Life is an up and down journey for all of us  

And it can be quite a roller coaster ride at times.  And during those low moments it may not be easy to believe that there is light along the way – there is, it’s just that we can’t see it yet, sometimes because we don’t know which way to turn or in which direction to look. 
 
The ‘moments’ when we don’t feel at our best might be stretched out over weeks or many months … or they could be, for want of a better term, ‘mini moments’.  You know, a day when up to that point things might generally have actually been rather good, but for whatever reason, something is said, something is done or something is thought or felt, and we no longer feel alright … and we … eat!  
 
We’re not necessarily hungry, but ...

Eating is an easy and enjoyable way of coping with the emotions of that moment … “hmmm, now, where did I hide that chocolate from myself?” No worries there, it will be in the same place it was hidden the last time!  The flaw with the “I’ll eat my way out of this” approach is that it can leave you feeling, at best, no better than before you indulged, or you may be consumed with self-loathing, having done what you quietly promised yourself not to do again this week.
 
A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips?  

Actually no, and for a number of reasons. What I think is an important takeaway here is the fact that we can’t gain more weight than the actual weight of the calories in whatever it is we’ve eaten.  That 75g pot of Cadbury Flake Chocolate Dessert has a ‘calorie weight’ of around 37g, which is the combined weight of the fat, carbohydrate and protein it contains - the other half is water.  
 
To gain one pound of weight from eating this particular dessert, you’d need to eat around 17 of those pots – if there are 17 of these in the fridge, then there’s an entirely different discussion to be had around ‘planning to overeat’.  Okay, so, this puts ‘unplanned’ eating, into some perspective.
​
The next time it happens to you, put your go-to pick-me-up (if there’s any left!) on the bathroom scales and see if the number goes up – btw, how helpful is it to weigh ourselves and how often on our journey – a blog for another day, perhaps?
 
That was a bit about the science around weight change after eating we hadn't planned, but emotional eating is about much more than waist size or numbers on the scales.  

It’s not just about chocolate, is it? 

We use all types of foods, and some may drink alcohol or do some other activity, such as go online to buy something, or obsessively clean the house to make us feel better.
 
Triggers of emotional eating include stress, boredom, anxiety, anger, sadness, loneliness, exhaustion and many other things we’d rather not be feeling in that moment.  Some of the reasons for choosing a particular food to make us feel better may be rooted in cherished childhood memories – and how comforting that can be, enjoying that ice cream the way we did when our parents used to give it to us out of love.
 
What's the story around your emotional eating?

Keeping a diary (there’s one on the Resources page) can be very helpful for building a story around the emotional eating pattern.  When we know the circumstances leading up to that first mouthful of whatever we choose to soothe ourselves with and know what we are thinking and feeling before and after we take that last mouthful, we can develop a better understanding of why we do it.  

​Is it when we’re with a particular person, time of the month, having to deal with finances? There are numerous possibilities, learn what your triggers are …
 
The solution is to change how you decide to cope with the emotion itself
 
Doing something physical is a distraction from the trigger emotion and has you burning addtional calories rather than eating them. That's a win-win.

​If anxiety is a trigger, get physical rather than 'feed' the emotion. Try playing some music and dancing (do it like the world isn’t watching!), squeezing a stress ball or going for a brisk walk - doing it in green space is particularly soothing. 
 
Or is being emotionally exhausted the trigger?  Immerse yourself in some recovery ‘therapy’, by burning scented candles, relaxing in a warm bubbly bath whilst listening to music or podcast that is undemanding on the ear and soothing. 

Tackling the trigger head on ...
 
A more challenging approach to the management of emotional eating is to change our mindset around the event that triggers the emotion that triggers the eating.

​Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) can help with this and there is a lot of information about it out there – this might be a useful starting point. 

Getting a handle on emotional eating takes effort, as does any aspect of looking after our health and wellbeing. Knowing how to do it is that first step. HelpGuide has lots of information on the management of emotional eating – it’s a longer read than this short blog, but may prove useful to you.

Tony Hirving
Dietitian