What's the best way to lose weight?

And just like that, Autumn has crisply breezed its way into our mornings after one of the longest and most peculiar summers in living memory. With the promise of new beginnings, Autumn blazers and fresh starts, we dust off the pencil cases and head back to school. It’s a fantastic time of year to embrace something new and I hope that for many, that something new will be a step towards a happier and healthier you.

Hello, I’m Hannah – Registered Nutritional Therapist, Functional Medicine Practitioner, PCOS and weight loss expert and founder of The Positive Method – The Wellness Approach to Weight Loss™. I work with women caught in the yo yo diet trap to positively lose weight for good, balance hormones and find happiness.

I often hear the following from potential clients - What's the best way to lose weight? What's the most effective way to lose weight? How do I lose weight for good?

And what do I say? Ditch the diet, welcome wellness and transform your life!

Following a lockdown that for some included a lot more prosecco and kettle chips than planned, now comes the lure of the crash diet. Before you think about investing a nutritionally unsound plan that leaves you feeling miserable, hungry and heavier in the long run – I would love to offer some pearls of wisdom.

Ditch the diet and welcome wellness. Ditch the idea of complete restriction. Ditch the idea of eating different food to the rest of your friends and family as you are on a diet. Ditch the idea of feeling shame around food. Ditch the idea that you are valued by your weight. You are beautiful no matter what size you are and you must never define yourself by your weight. Like any good collection of shoes, we all come in different shapes, sizes, heights and colours. Ditch the diet and welcome wellness instead.

This is an absolutely key component to The Positive Method – The Wellness Approach to Weight Loss™ – and it must run through your mindset like a rainbow through a rainy spring sky. If we focus on our health and wellness, truly amazing things can happen. We can reverse symptoms of endocrine disorders like PCOS, we can shift excess weight that can drive metabolic disease, we can experience energy like never before and we can feel absolute freedom with an entirely new mindset and relationship with food and our confidence.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

A restrictive calorie deficit diet does not work in the long run as the focus can often be on weight alone. Two meals comprised of different foods with the same amount of calories can have substantially different effects on the body.

Just like boybands, calories are not created equal – I know that I’d rather be stuck in a lift with The Backstreet Boys than Busted any day. And just like we need a variety of power ballads and key changes to get us through a road trip, we also need a kaleidoscope of macronutrients (protein, fat, carbs) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) in our diet to ensure that our body has everything that it needs to work optimally. 500 calories of doughnuts are not the same as 500 calories of gorgeous, colourful, plant based whole foods.

This is why calorie restricted diets alone do not work in the long run. The more time you dedicate to your wellness via nutritious foods the better you will feel and less time will be spend eating processed foods that don’t do us any favours. Once you start to feel the benefits of eating nutrient dense food you’ll be amazed at how you adapt to make sure you get your fix. Dieting will only make you feel deprived and it won’t help you in the long run. Many women I work with have spent the majority of their lives yo-yoing through miserable nutrient deficient diets, only to be faced with weight gain, guilt and shame once the “diet” is abandoned. That was until they worked with the support of an expert who got them to their happy place.

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