Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - How To Lose Weight Healthily - Without Crash Dieting

Episode Date: January 2, 2020

Weight loss will likely be on the minds of many at this time of year, despite it becoming an increasingly controversial topic within the wellness world. But if you do want to lose weight to improve your health, what does smart, sustainable weight loss look like? What tactics do you need to use in order to achieve it? And what approaches should you steer well clear of? Senior Editor Roisín Dervish-O’Kane discusses all this and more with NHS GP Dr Zoe Williams (who you’ll recognise from TV shows including Trust Me I’m a Doctor and This Morning) and Renee McGregor, a sports dietician specialising in eating disorders.  Join Women’s Health on Instagram: @womenshealthuk Join Roisín Dervish-O’Kane on Instagram: @roisin.dervishokane Join Dr Zoe Williams on Instagram: @drzoewilliams Join Renee McGregor on Instagram: @r_mcgregor Have a goal that you want us to put to the experts? Record a voice note telling us your name and your goal then send it to [e-mail], putting ‘GOING FOR GOAL’ in the subject line - and your goal could be the subject of a future episode.  Topics:  Why does healthy weight loss advice matter? What is a crash diet? How do people track their progress? When is it helpful to think about calories? How do you spot the signs of disordered eating? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now streaming on Paramount Plus is the epic return of Mayor of Kingstown. Warden? You know who I am. Starring Academy Award nominee Jeremy Runner. I swear in these walls. Emmy Award winner E.D. Falco. You're an ex-con who ran this place for years. And now, now you can't do that. And Bafta Award winner Lenny James.

You're about to have a plague of outsiders descend on your town. Let me tell you this. It's going to be consequences. Mayor of Kingstown, new season now streaming on Paramount Plus. You know what's better than the one big thing? Two big things. Exactly. The new iPhone 17 Pro on TELUS's five-year rate plan price lock.

Yep, it's the most powerful iPhone ever, plus more peace of mind with your bill over five years. This is big. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at tellus.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the very first episode of Going for Goal, the new women's health podcast that's to help you make good on the goals you want to achieve. I'm your host, senior editor, Roshin Devichokane. Each week, with the help of our brilliant network of experts across

health, fitness, nutrition and emotional well-being, will arm you with the tools you need to turn aspiration into action in January and beyond. Want to finally fall in love with exercise, become a productivity ninja, or even one of those people who thrives before 9am, we've got you. To kick off, we're going to tackle a goal that's on the minds of many at this time of year. That is, how to go about losing weight in a healthy, sustainable way without crash dieting. It's a topic that's become increasingly controversial over the past few years, but that doesn't mean it's something to shy away from, especially when there's so much bogus advice and false promises out there. Appetites, suppressant lollipops, anyone?

When we asked the women's health community what health goals they wanted to achieve in 2020, weight loss came up time and again. We're going to hear now from one women's health reader, Ellie. Hi, my name's Ellie. I really want to know how to lose weight in a way that's healthy. I turned 30 a couple years ago and had my son. And since then I've just really struggled to get rid of the weight that I put on. There's just so many diets out there and I've tried loads. But I just get worried cutting things out that I shouldn't be. And I want to make sure I'm getting all the nutrients that I need as well. So I just want to know how. how I can lose weight in a way that's not going to mess with my health. Thanks so much to Ellie for that. We really want to hear your 2020 goals, so send us a voice note. We'll stick all the details of how to get in touch in the show notes below. Right, on with the show.

Here with me to talk healthy weight loss, what that looks like and why it's okay to want to do it, are two esteemed experts with a lot to say on the topic. First, there's Dr Zoe Williams, an NHS GP who you'll recognise from TV shows such as this morning. Hello, thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on. And Renee McGregor, a sports dietitian specialising in eating disorders. Hello. Welcome both of you.

So as I mentioned in the introduction, this is by no means an easy, breezy topic to talk about. But why do you think it's one worth discussing? If I go first on that, working as a GP in the NHS, in a deprived area, probably 50% of the patients I see on a typical daily basis have too much fat on their bodies to the extent that it is detrimental to their health. And type 2 diabetes, which is in most cases, directly linked to somebody carrying an access part on their body, is absolutely stifling the NHS,

causing so much disability amongst people. And that's just one obesity-related disease. So although I understand there is a movement towards body positivity and health at any size and all of that, the truth of the matter is, the vast majority of people who are, living with obesity are not living healthily with it. And it is likely to impact on their health and not just their health, but their happiness.

And these people, unless they're supported and that support comes in lots of different forms that we can talk about massively from top down, then we're doing them a disservice by just saying, actually, do you know what, it doesn't matter because it does. Thank you very much. And that's a really, really valuable perspective. Renee, what about you? What are your thoughts and why we need to be talking about? about this? Yeah, I'm in a complete agreement with Zoe. I think, you know, as someone who's sort of sitting here as part of the nutrition community or the nutrition practitioner community, there's a lot of people out there spouting about health at any size, body positivity, but we cannot, cannot move away from the fact that actually some people legitimately need to

lose weight. And it's become quite difficult to navigate that. You know, like, it's almost like taboo to say to someone, actually yeah, realistically in this case, you do need to lose some weights. You know, I'm not, I would never advocate weight loss for people who are well. You know, you monitor their bloods and you monitor their height and their weight and their adiposity. And I would never advocate that if it was unnecessary. But, you know, Zoe's just pointed out, there is a big percentage of the population that actually legitimately need to lose weight. And I think as nutritional practitioners, we have a, we have a place to work. work with these people and give them the advice they need.

I think there's a lot of scaremongering as well. Like, we can't say this because it's going to cause an eating disorder. We can't do this. And I get quite cross because it's almost, it's almost disrespectful. And I know that sounds weird, but it's like an eating disorder is more than just diet and diet culture. It's a really complicated mental illness. It's debilitating. And honestly, if you've spent 12 hours a day in clinic with me, you would understand that actually

it's not as simple as someone going on a diet that went wrong. We're going to come back to that, I think, at the end, and talk about the relationship with disordered eating. But for the moment, I guess it's important to talk about as well because there is some wild advice out there at the moment, isn't there? Especially, I mean, there's some great things on Instagram, but there's also some crazily unhelpful, probably damaging advice that's going around on the explore function.

And I guess a lot of these probably come under the, could come under the umbrella of a crash diet. Can you, Renee, actually, can you explain what a crash diet is? So in terms of crash diet, it's usually when it's very, very restrictive, as in it could be very restrictive from a calorie point of view. It could be restrictive that you're removing food groups. So the concern about all of those would be that you'd become deficient in certain nutrients. But the biggest thing is when you reduce your calorie intake below what is necessary for the body to function,

It can be detrimental to your metabolic rate generally. So you might see that initially you get weight loss, but then the problem is maintaining that weight loss with a low metabolic rate. So that's where, you know, from my point of view, it can be very, very dangerous. I think there are ways you can do it sensibly and realistically. And if I have individuals that I have to work with that do need to lose weight, then it's very much a very long-term approach rather than a quick-firm approach. fast approach. But when somebody undertakes a crash diet, these crazy diets that we get every January,

which drive me insane, and I get asked to quote on them a lot, they're not sustainable. That's fundamentally the bottom line. They're not sustainable and they can be really dangerous to your long-term health. You know, like they can affect your hormones, which can then affect your bones. They can affect your, you know, your iron levels, which affects your energy levels. They can affect your mood. And I think this is it. It's so easy to say, if we reduce our calis or intake and we get we lose weight we're going to feel better but it's not as simple as that like our bodies are so complicated and there are so many processes that interject with each other you know your hormones are important for your mood for example your hormones are important for

satiety for example and if you start messing around and satiety just said that is am I right in thinking that's your feeling of fullness yes exactly and if you start messing around with this without any real proper support, then, you know, it can have long-term health consequences. All right. So I'm thinking of our editor, Claire Sanderson, who writes in the editor's letter of our January issue, that although she exercises most days a week

and follows a largely plant-based diet, she is borderline overweight, according to her BMI. So clearly their weight alone isn't a reflection of health and whether you need to think about fat loss. So with that said, what is? That's a really good question. And if there isn't a simple answer, the correct answer is that there isn't really any such determining factor

because we're all individuals, we're all different. And some people can live very healthily with the BMI above 30, for example, even if that is because they're carrying a lot of weight, because it depends whereabouts you're carrying that weight on your body. It may be that, you know, you also have a lot of muscle mass. So, you know, we often give that example of the England rugby team. Most of them are probably obese by their BMI, but actually they're very, very healthy. When somebody is carrying excess body fat to the point that it's detrimental to their health,

well, there are lots of different conditions that await related conditions. So obviously, type two diabetes, high blood pressure, sometimes things like joint pain, and lots of other conditions as well. So I guess that's a really simple answer for me as a GP. if somebody has a condition that they're suffering with or that they require medication with and weight loss would form part of the management plan for managing their condition, that's an option for the patient. And it's an option that should be shared with them.

We shouldn't be holding it back and saying, actually, I'm just going to give you drugs because I daren't mention that your weight could be linked to this condition. Some patients may feel that actually losing weight is not something they want to do or something they're not able to do at that time. And that's fine as well. But they deserve to know that their weight may well be. contributing to their condition. Fertility is a huge one. I think one in seven couples,

and they're now saying one in six couples, are struggling with infertility. And if somebody is overweight and certainly if they're obese, then losing weight can be one of the quickest, most effective ways to improve fertility. And that's not just women, that's men as well. So I feel like at the moment there's almost this, you know, we, as doctors, we mustn't even suggests to the patient that their weight may be implemented in this. Yeah. I completely, if I was a patient, I'd at least want to know. So that's the simple answer, I guess, the weight is affecting your health if you have

a health-related condition that could be managed in part by weight loss. I think the other time when, you know, obviously people may be carrying a lot of excess body fat for many, many years and not have any symptoms or not have any other health conditions. and the chances are that, you know, if that is a bit, say for example, most people, the vast majority of people who have a BMI above 40 would be healthier if they were able to lose weight. There are exceptions, but I would say, you know, 99% of people with a BMI of 40 would be healthier if they could lose the weight. So there is that kind of, that number is important when you're looking at more, the more

upper levels of obesity. And what we're seeing with the trends of obesity at the moment, which is actually quite concerning is the numbers, the proportion of people who were obese in society or who have obesity, which is the correct terminology, it's about a third. About a third of the adult population have a BMI of 30 or above. And that stopped increasing actually. It started to level off, which sounds like good news. But then when you dig down a bit deeper, although the number of people with the BMI above 30 doesn't seem to be increasing, the number of people with the BMI above 40 most certainly is and the number of people with the BMI above 50 is increasing at a rate of knots.

So what we're seeing is a huge increase in the severity of obesity. And if you have a BMI between 25 and 30, it's cast us overweight. You know, for most of us, actually, that isn't going to have a huge negative impact on our health, especially if we're exercising and we're eating well and we're putting nutrients into our body and we're living a life that is fulfilling and not stressful and we have people around us. So your weight on its own as a single indicator in that scenario is probably not that important. However, if your BMI is above 50 and you're exercising and you're eating a good nutritious diet and you've got people around you, then I think probably your weight as a single factor is detrimental to your health

in the fact that you are likely to die younger and you like to live life with more disability purely because of your weight. So it's complicated and it's a long-winded answer. but it's a long-winded topic it's not it's not a topic with easy answers or quick fixes i guess that's the one that's the one thing the thread that runs throughout scales have fallen out of favour in a massive way in terms of people monitoring their body composition question to either of you how would you suggest someone if someone has decided that their bMI is such and their lifestyle is such that they do want to lose a bit of weight to improve their health and happiness, how would you suggest that they go about doing it? What's a healthy pace? How should

they be monitoring it? Huge question. There's absolutely no right or wrong answer. If some, I would say, if a person sat in front of me and they want to lose a bit of weight, you know, it's not a huge health implication, but hi doctor, I've come to see you for some weight loss advice. I want to lose weight. I'd be like, okay, you know, why do you want to lose weight? What are your motivators. It could be for aesthetics or it could be to have more energy or it could be because I want to be able to run around my kids and for whatever reason. So it's really important for me to identify what are the motivators. And then what are the barriers? You know, what are the things that have been holding you back? So, you know, why is it you making this change now? Why did you not make it

before? And that can help you think, well, okay, well, how do we overcome some of those barriers? You almost have to pick it apart a little bit and then say, well, what would you like to do? because there's no point me telling you to start lifting weights in a gym if you hate gyms and you don't like weights. And then it's that awareness that you don't necessarily have to do it the same way that everybody else does. So you might read an article about plant-based eating and how that's going to help you lose weight.

It might. But it might not. If you're sleeping really poorly, it might be that improving your sleep could do that for you. If you've had a, you know, you've got some, if you spend a lot of time on your own, you're quite lonely, then. actually addressing that could help you lose weight, which sounds weird because all these things have a knock on effect. So I think if it was a person sat in front of me and it was a clinical scenario and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't this person absolutely must lose weight because

it's dangerous for them to not do so. It would kind of be a case just exploring of why they want to do it, what's been stopping them, how they'd like to do it, which way is going to be easy and actually quite enjoyable, like stopping eating cake. Why would anyone stop eating cake? you know, it's a delicious, wonderful thing to eat. Unless you don't like cake. You just eat it because everyone else does at work, then actually it's a really wise thing to do. So there is no answer.

It really is so personal, and it comes down to what that person actually wants to do and is going to get joy out of doing. And if they start with something small and they succeed with it, well, it's that celebration of, oh, I did it, you know, I did that. I lost that little bit of weight, or I'm feeling a bit fitter,

or my blood pressure has come down a bit, or I'm feeling less stressed. achieved this and it's like, well, what next? And you just build onto it. But they've got to be sustainable changes. Otherwise, you're not going to keep it up. You could make a change like, for example, I'm going to switch my white rice to brown rice. Now, particularly if you're a family who eats rice every day, then if you just make that change and decide that you quite like the brown rice, you're probably brown rice forever. Now, you're not going to lose loads of weight by summer, but over the course of your lifetime, over the next 50 years, having two portions

of brown rice a day in place of two portions of white rice a day, you're probably going to live longer, live healthier, you're going to reduce your risk of heart disease, you're going to have lower cholesterol, you're going to have better nutrients, you're going to go to the toilet better. So it's little things like that that aren't a real hassle and aren't really difficult that you're going to sustain over many, many years that, from a health perspective as a doctor, the types of changes I encourage people to make. Ontario, the weight is over. The gold standard of online casinos has arrived.

Golden Nugget online casino is live. Bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your fingertips. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, signing up is fast and simple. And in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and top-tier table games.

Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots that can turn any mundane moment into a golden opportunity at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino? Gambling Problem Call connects Ontario 1866-531-260. 19 and over. Physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nugget Cascarion. know.com for details. Please play responsibly. I love that. So it's thinking about kind of small habits, but then also thinking about thinking long game. Yeah. Massively. René, do you have anything to

add to that? Yeah. I mean, I completely agree with Zoe in the sense that, you know, you have to look at the whole picture. You have to. You have to look at where these people are coming from as well. Like, realistically, what's their family background? Like, what does food mean? Like, I come from an Asian family where food is everything. Like if you don't eat, there's something wrong with you. You know, it's one of those families. And my mum's a feeder. So you kind of have to look at all those things as well, like the relationships and everything that's kind of developed. And it is, it's this, in creating these healthy behaviours, nobody is sitting here saying, you should never have a piece of cake. You should never have a glass of wine. You should never have sugar. Like,

I get really cross when people throw that at me, that, well, you know, we should never eat. You just go sugar-free. It's like you don't have to though because even with the guidelines that are out, it doesn't say anywhere that you have to remove sugar completely. It says it needs to be a smaller percentage of your overall intake, but you don't have to lose it completely. And I think this is where it can get really difficult, especially with social media and kind of people who maybe don't have the right qualifications, who don't have the experience that Zoe and I have. And it's not as simple as saying, oh, let's all go sugar-free or let's all go gluten-free or let's all go, you know, vegan or whatever it is, because it's not going to fit with everybody.

And there is no one-size-fits-all. You have to also look at budget, and you have to make things really practical. And, you know, we're talking about healthy behaviours, also portions. Like, for some people, you can, it's not even that they, you need to change what they're eating. You just need to help them understand that maybe they're eating a bit too much of the one thing that if they had that a little bit less and they had a bit more vegetables if they could. even if it's, you know, frozen veg is great. Tinned vegetables is great. If you can just do some simple changes like that, it makes such a big difference.

Okay, Renee, let's talk about calories. Lots of people have many different opinions on them. How are they helpful as a metric and how are they not? Calories are really complicated. I think, like, unless you are sat in a lab and you've got all your equipment on, it's really hard to absolutely, absolutely know what you're really. requirements are. So I know again we have some we have some average numbers for the average population but it's really difficult to to know because your your your energy requirements will

be based on so many different things like your genetics, your height, your muscle mass. And so it's it's hard to say and also your gender as well. So it's difficult to say you need 2,000 calories or you need 2,500 calories. It's really, really difficult to do. do that. And I think the other thing is that there's this, there seems to be this standard approach that if someone wants to go on a diet, they should be on 1,500 calories, no matter where you start. And so when, again, when I work with somebody, and I, you know, when I've worked with people in the past where they have needed to lose weight, then it's actually looking at where they are right now and then deciding how can we have a little bit of a deficit. And then,

and it's not just about the calories. I think it's really important to understand that you have to kind of do things side by side. Again, we talked about healthier behaviours and that's so important. So if you cut back too much, you can increase that cortisol response chronically because the body's physically under stress as well. And so then that can also stop you from losing weight and it can stop you from losing body fat because you'll tend to hold it around your truncle area mainly. So you have to be like the deficit has to be quite carefully monitored. And I would, I never sort of say to people you must reduce your intake by 500 calories or 600 calories because everybody's different. I sit here cautiously saying I probably wouldn't give a prescriptive number. Yeah. Because I think it's too

difficult to do that. And you have to look at the overall thing. But at the same time, encouraging more of an output. So again, as Zoe said, it doesn't have to be, you have to go to the gym or you have to go and join a hit class or whatever. You can go for a walk. 20 minutes, three times a week will make a difference. Or, just skipping in your garden for five minutes every day makes a difference. You know, it's these simple things that will make the difference. And of course, Renee, when you're saying the temptation, when someone is looking at calories is, of course, to think about food as a numbers game.

But what we're talking about here, we're not talking about weight loss to achieve a certain number and that to be the goal. We're talking about weight maintenance to achieve like peak holistic health. Yeah. And obviously when you consider that, it's about so much more than numbers. How, Renee, how would you suggest someone shapes their plate when they're looking to calorie control? What should they be adding in? So the thing I see, the worst mistake people make is cutting out a whole food group.

So again, you know, you hear about, or we'll go low carb or, you know, dairy's bad for you or you shouldn't have sugar. And all that does is displace your nutrients. in other ways. So you end up, if you don't have enough carbs, you'll probably end up being a bit more protein, which, okay, is not the end of the world, but actually you're then going to miss out on vital nutrients. And one of the things I'm seeing, particularly in my clinic, is that the removal of carbs in females, regardless of their weight, whether they're overweight or underweight or normal weight, and their exercising, is one of the biggest issues in causing hypothalamic aim and So when you lose your period for no real reason.

But, you know, I mean, as in there's no medical reason, should we say. Yes. And so I think the first thing I would say is that choose whole grains. Like we've mentioned that already. So, you know, your brown rice over the white rice, your whole grain pastures over your white pastors and whole grain bread, et cetera. Use beans. Use pulses. So I always say when you're looking at your plate, it should be lovely and colorful because that's what we'd like as much as possible.

possible. But you kind of want to, it's kind of like thinking about it from a third point of view, like a third of a plate of protein, a third of a plate of carbs and a third of plate of veg and you want to kind of doll up a little bit of essential fats in there. It's kind of how I look at it. Or another method that we use quite often in the nutrition world is using your hands. So, you know, a good, like a good portion of protein would be sort of your palm size portion of protein. And the reason you'd use your hand is often your hands are in proportion to the rest of your body. So they help it kind of guide you in terms of your size and what you should have.

And then you'd have like, you know, like a couple of handfuls of your whole grain rice. I'm sat here with my hands. I'm praying. But a couple of your carbohydrates. And then, you know, your vegetables can be ample. I mean, obviously we want to encourage people to eat vegetables. But again, not at the point where it can displace those important nutrients. I think the biggest mistake people make is trying to cut things too far.

And then they miss out on vitamins and minerals. So what about you? Sometimes what I do with patients in the restricted time that I have, the tip that I have the most success with and they actually really like is I get them to draw their plate, I draw a circle, say, what do you have on your typical plate, how much of it is carbohydrates, you know, what do you eat rice, how much of it is rice, how much of it is vegetables? And I say people don't eat veg.

They don't eat veg. They'll have like potatoes and a bit of meat and some sauce. And I say if you can make half that plate of veg, I don't really care what else you have on it, get into the habit of having half a plate of veg, whatever else's fine. Is there the argument with fitness as well that actually there's, is it more fun to add those things in as well? Like coming back to Ellie,

who left our voice note at the start. She's someone that reads Women's Health, follows us on Instagram. Is there a way that people can add something into their training regime to really, I don't know, see results in terms of weight loss and in terms of body composition? What would you recommend, Zoe? Well, we often hear this phrase, you can't outrun a bad diet, which I don't disagree with.

But then we also hear people saying exercise alone won't help you achieve weight loss. And that's actually not true because if you do enough of it, then it will. So the guidelines for physical activity, the government guidelines, again, these probably sound quite low to women's health readers because we're talking to a more active than average population. But it's 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity activity. Now that can be brisk walking, can be cycling, anything that gets your heart rate up and slightly out of breath. Now if you double that and do 300, then actually that is enough exercise to achieve weight loss on its own. Strictly speaking, across the board, obviously not for an individual. It could be different.

So you can achieve weight loss with exercise. You have to do quite a lot of it. But everything that you do that involves movement counts. So often people who are quite fit and healthy who've exercised their whole lives will count their park run. a Saturday morning. They'll count their three sessions at the gym with their personal trainer. But they won't count the 10-minute walk

to the tube station in the morning and then the 15-minute walk at the other side. Well, actually, that counts. And if some days you get the bus and some days you walk, just thinking, well, actually, the walking, this is significant because I'm doing this walk,

if I do it twice a day, well, actually four times a day, if you include all four bits of walking, if I'm doing it four times a day, that's 40 minutes of walking at a moderate pace. I'm doing that five times a week and I'm doing that throughout the year and I'm going to do it for the next 20 years.

Well, that adds up to a hell of a lot, probably more than two of the PT sessions. It certainly counts more than one year I'm going to do a marathon and this year I did loads of running and did the marathon and did okay. That's not significant over 50 years, but 40 minutes of walking a day to work because you use that as your form of transport.

is really significant. So it's those little things like taking the stairs and not the lift and making it happen and doing that regularly that make a huge difference. That's really helpful.

Thank you very much. So it's important that any time we talk about weight loss being helpful for quite a large section of people like Ellie, like many others in our audience, there are also some people for whom it would not be helpful and for whom following a

trying to lose weight could cause that kind of physical and mental health issues. Renee, what are some signs that suggest that someone's approach to weight loss is tipped over from healthy into the realms of disordered eating? It tends to be certain types of people that are more susceptible to developing an eating disorder. And this is really important because I think, again, diet culture gets massively blamed for causing an eating disorder or health messages get blamed for causing an eating disorder.

And I think that, again, it's very simplistic. So what we know is that the higher the rate of perfectionism within someone, the more likely they are to develop an eating disorder. So when I'm working with the people I work with, often you will find they are this kind of type A personality. They're driven. They're focused. They're perfectionist. They're self-critical. They're sensitive.

They're compulsive. They're obsessive. And I put my hand up to all of those as well. But the thing is I guess the thing is I'm very careful about managing that. I'm very aware of it because of my job. I'm very, very aware of it. Whereas a lot of people don't. They don't realize that their personality type is kind of what could get them into trouble.

And I say that could. I'm not saying you will, but it could get you into trouble. And I suppose that's kind of where you have to be mindful of. And I see this a lot with kind of people in quite high power jobs where they are, you know, they're very driven. They're very successful. They've got that kind of real hunger to do what. and then they start a diet or they start a fitness craze and they take it to an extreme. And we also know that when you potentially with, if you have this personality type,

you are probably 25% more likely to take two extreme behaviors hand in hand. So this is why we often see exercise with eating disorders. In terms of how you can spot the signs, I mean, I think I always say this about any eating disorder, when it becomes something that once again affects your health, in the same way we started this conversation, it's the same thing but the opposite end. You know, it's like if you cannot socialise because you are so fearful of what food is going to be provided that you don't think you can join in, if you find yourself withdrawing because food takes up so much of your time and your headspace, if you feel you can't deviate from your rules, you know, like maybe you've started with a, with a

I don't know some sort of nutrition plan or whatever that you're working with. And then you go, well, I definitely can't, I can't go and have that cake or I can't go and have a drink or I can't, you know, if you can't deviate from your rules, when food starts creating anxiety for you, that's when it becomes a problem. And that's when I think you have to be, you've got to sit back and be mindful. Right. There's loads to discuss there. Thank you so much to both of you. Before we go, I'd like you both to share with the listeners. the one key thing that you'd like them to take away from this conversation, one tip or great piece of info.

Let's start with Renee. Oh, gosh. Put me on the spot. I think the biggest thing I would say is ask yourself why. And is it about acceptance, approval, or is it something that you need to do? Because I think we do get caught up in this aspect of, you know, if we're thinner, life will be. easier for some reason. Like we do definitely have that in our society. I don't think that's, I know that's not true. But actually, if you need to, if there's a legitimate reason that your health is suffering, then, then yeah, then it's important to do, put the process in place to,

to achieve that because then you're also going to be healthier, but hopefully also still content with who you are. Lovely. Thank you. What about you, Zeri? I think, My final take-home message is that you have the answers and you're the only one who does. And, okay, we're starting from a place where somebody wants to lose weight. Do you want to be happier? Do you want to be healthier? And is weight loss going to do either of those two things? Because actually, often people lose weight and they didn't need to for their health and it doesn't

make them happier. So do you want to be happier? Do you want to be healthier? Is weight loss going to achieve that? If it is, think about how to do it. If it's not, then what would? Because that's all that really matters, isn't it? When we're looking at self-improvement and for ourselves,

it's either to be healthier or to be happier. So weight loss may or may not be the way to get there. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone for listening. There's so much good stuff coming up. So please subscribe wherever you get your podcast to make sure you never miss an episode.

And this podcast is all about helping you reach your goals. So get in touch on Instagram. We're at Women's Health UK and let us know what you want to achieve. in 2020. Oh, and we love nothing more than to see your progress, so do tag us in your posts using the hashtag going for goal. Until next time.