The New Year has just started. Behind us lies the festive season where many of us would have stacked up the pounds by over eating and minimal exercise. Not surprisingly, adopting a healthier lifestyle including losing weight is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions.

We all know the formula to weight loss is pretty straight forward i.e. eat less and move more but keeping the weight off and making long term healthy choices to someone’s diet appears to be so much more difficult.

Many of us are under various daily pressures which interfere with our diet. Some work long hours which does not give much opportunity to shop and prepare food. While others may have time on their hands but they are lacking the skills and knowledge and maybe even resources to change their diet. Members of larger families may encounter additional difficulties as their choice of food might be limited because of the preferences of their family members.

Finally there are subtle often unrecognised eating habits which help us to deal with anxieties and large numbers of people and especially women are so called emotional eaters. Food helps them to fill the emptiness in their lives, forget daily stressors, missing self-confidence and painful memories. Food in our society is used very often to calm negative feelings and for many of us chocolate and ice cream have been friends in moments of real sadness. Hence food can be an escape from real problems and with raising numbers of recognised eating disorders the question for the perfect diet which will fix our physical and mental health is unanswered.

Recognising that your New Year’s resolution to a healthy and new you is a complex process which will require you to question many of your daily routines is probably the most important step. Short term approaches which lead to quick weight loss usually won’t deal with the question how can healthy foods be part of everyday life. Whereas focused and regular personalised assessment of someone’s diet will recognise practical issues surrounding a healthy diet and may reveal unrecognised eating habits.

Esteem Fitness offers clients nutritional consultations which can be anything from a one-off assessment to more regular and personal discussions about how to achieve sustained changes of someone’s diet. This may not lead to losing the 5kg gained over Christmas within a week but may help to tackle the various aspects of ‘yo-yo’ dieting and help you to embrace a healthy diet day in and day out.

Andrea Zick, Esteem Fitness Nutritionist London

Esteem Fitness – Personal Training London and the South East