Getting the right balance

Getting a balanced diet that provides you with all the nutrients you need for health is an essential part of weight management. Each food group provides you with different nutrients and it is important to not unnecessarily cut out any food groups from your diet as you will be missing out on valuable nutrients which may have a negative impact on your health. Being too restrictive with your diet can often trigger cycles of overeating and then restriction and so on. Ensuring you are getting the right number of portions from each food group will help you to feel satisfied from your food and can help to promote weight loss.

Cutting down your food intake remains the main principle when trying to lose weight, but the nutritional balance of your diet is also vital for long-term success. We need more food from some food groups and less from others – but there shouldn’t be any need to cut out any one food or drink completely. Remember – long-term, sustainable changes are key for success. This means making small manageable changes that can be maintained and become your new habits:

Guidelines for a healthy diet 

• Eat regular and well-spaced meals e.g. breakfast, lunch and evening meal, with healthy snacks in between if needed.
• Try to eat more high fibre foods such as fruit and vegetables and wholegrain foods.
• Cut down on fat and fatty foods.
• Reduce your sugar intake.
• Try to get to the weight that is right for you and maintain it.
• Be careful not to use too much salt.
• If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation and never on an empty stomach.

It is common knowledge that to lose weight, you need to consume fewer calories than you are burning. The problem with this is that the lighter you become, the fewer calories your body needs, and to top it off, hormonal changes occur to make you hungry and
feel less full! No wonder it’s so hard to keep weight off – and sure enough, no good quality evidence exists to suggest that eating less and exercising more alone results in a sustained reduction in weight if you are living with excess weight.

Of course, eating less is only successful if you are eating a well-balanced diet. The key is to consider any changes you make to your diet as permanent – not short-term or restrictive changes that won’t work in the real world.

We have devised a programme that allows you to still enjoy a full range of foods, using portion size guides to make sure you are eating an amount of food to achieve a gradual weight loss of 0.5 to 1kg (1 to 2lbs) per week, but with a reduced level of hunger with the use of Saxenda®.

Find out more about our weight management programme here.