How to make the switch to NOT dieting as per Jessica Cooke

[thenewaveragebear1983]

I didn’t know how to title my thread, sorry. And apologies for a lengthy post….

I guess what I’m asking is: I’ve been listening to a few podcasts recently, but one that’s really sticking out for me is Jessica Cooke. She’s quite hard lined and I don’t actually agree with a few of her values but I find her interesting. Basically her weight loss advice is:
DONT :

• count calories.
• do any kind of diet
• weigh yourself
• exercise to lose weight (as in, only do it for enjoyment) especially cardio
• have any kind of negative self talk whatsoever
• consider any foods as safe or ‘free’ or unlimited, even salad
• add extra veg or salad to meals to bulk it up
• restrict or limit any food groups or eat any foods you don’t like just because they are healthy

and what you should do is:

• trust your appetite, eat when your hungry, stop when full etc
• do strength training x 3 a week and a couple of walks a week
• use an item of clothing as a measure of weight loss and try it on occasionally

And that’s it….

now, I have listened to a few episodes now and it all sounds very motivational and healthy and positive and freeing and all that…. But how do you make the switch and trust the process and trust your appetite? I know that in the past, I’ve been much more able to self regulate, but only when I’ve eg. Cut carbs and balanced my appetite that way.

i appreciate what she is saying and can consider how wonderful and freeing it might be, but I genuinely don’t know how you make the switch.

I’m just interested in this discussion and whether anyone has actually done this, long term, and actually achieved the goals they want. (I guess also, I’m talking about people who have actually been overweight and have lost weight and not always been slim- I imagine it’s easier to not do all those things if you’ve never dieted)

if anyone would like to offer their thoughts on this over a pondering/ chat then please do join me…. ☕️

Personally I'd find it very hard to trust my appetite if I continued eating maom at the volume I'd like to eat them, or chocolate hob nobs.
I love the idea of all it I really do, but I just don't think that 'eating when hungry and stop when you're full' works unless you are already eating 80-90% fresh foods.

I remember Rosemary Conley saying the same thing about an item of clothing to go by. I still have a size 12 skirt in my wardrobe, it's there because one day I want to get back into it (I'll probably never wear it but it's there so I can say I fit it again).

Also a lot of trainers I follow say not to count calories, diet etc. Negative thoughts about food and restricting yourself does more harm as you're likely to binge when you do have something like cake and you end up in a cycle of feeling bad so you comfort eat which makes you feel bad etc.

It's about changing your mindset and building a routine.

I have a call with a trainer/coach tomorrow to talk about it so will be interesting to see what he has to say.

@SparrowFeet me too. I won’t deny, I have a terrible relationship with food and while I have been better in the past, the most positive time I’ve ever been was when I cut out all junk food, dairy, sugar, grains and processed foods. I did that for 6 months. I felt great. But I restricted loads of food groups which isn’t what JC is advising

it seems like ‘eat whatever you want’ with a subtext of - as long as what you want is healthy and in tiny quantities

@xSideshowAuntSallyx yes I’d be interested to hear what a trainer says too. My PT does recommend counting calories, but not going too low.

I try to stick to 1500-1600 but then I don’t lose weight. My Garmin says my calorie burn for the last 7 days was 2100 average- so that should be ok. But I have to actually track and count that. If I ate what I actually wanted, I would eat way more.

I’ll be honest, I feel like her advice is great (possibly) for mental wellbeing, but not for actually losing weight. I think I’d need a shit tonne of therapy before I could be completely able to just let go and not put on weight. I’m really interested to hear if people have successfully done it and how they did it.

Is it a similar approach to the rebel fit guy who hates slimming world? I have him on my Facebook and he says a lot of what not to do but when it comes to what to do instead says vague things like "heal from diet culture" and being overweight is caused by the stress of trying to lose weight (of all the stresses in my life, that one barely register, and I have a nice life, just have to juggle a lot!)
So any stories of how it pans out are welcome!

It sounds fab but doesn’t consider the fact that a lot of people are on medication which increases your appetite, such as some anti depressants, or steroids for example. If I ate when I was hungry I’d the the size of a house due to the medication I take. I’m always hungry.

we live in a culture of complete excess and for me, managing my appetite also means managing what I have in the house.

There definitely is something in what she's saying in terms of don't be so restrictive - it's how people fall off the wagon- you have to be on it to fall off! One thing with restrictive diets is when you fall off you put it back on again, and some more. Whereas perhaps if you weren't on it to begin with and just maintained what you were eating, you'd probably stay the same weight..

But, as I say, I'm definitely one for dessert, but if I had access to it all the time, I would struggle.

@Love51 I don’t know this guy, she does hate slimming world though (as does everyone!) To be honest I don’t really know who she is, she’s a trainer/life coach and I sort of stumbled across her podcast, which seem to be her just talking about what you need to do to lose weight (her buzz line is ‘as a woman over 40’)

i ‘m totally on board with doing strength training, and after 25 years of feeling miserable about food and trying to lose weight, and yo-yo dieting, I’m also well up for breaking free of diet culture- but I don’t know how to go from counting/tracking calories or macros, or low carb or slimming right or whatever thing I’m doing which helps me to eat less. I don’t think it’s as easy as saying ‘just don’t do it’. Somewhere in the process I’d need to be actively restricting my food intake, surely?

@Youdontevengohere I’m not always hungry, but I am never full. I can always eat. I can always eat more than I need to. I think I’d need quite a lot of therapy to not emotionally eat and eat my feelings, and overeat sweet food ever.

I just don't think this will work for most people. Once you have been fat your body is always trying to get you back to the higher weight you once were. My appetite has always far exceeded my calorie needs, so if I was relying on eating until satisfied I would be eating too much.

I feel like it’s just another stick to whack us with to be honest. Now, even losing weight by calorie counting and exercise isn’t good, you shouldn’t do all those ‘diet’ things, you should just basically be able to manage yourself sufficiently to lose weight effortlessly. You see it here on some MN threads, everyone saying how hard it is but then there’s some who just don’t even think about food, or macros, or calories…

I’m finding weight loss very hard and demotivating right now. I don’t have a lot to lose really, just a stone or so, but I am finding it so difficult. I run, I workout, I eat well, I count calories, i get enough protein.., but I have a shit relationship with food and I feel like it just shouldn’t be this hard. I’d love to wave a magic wand and just give up all these things and just step away from the scales and just trust myself, but I really don’t think I will lose weight doing that. Alternatively, I have to make my peace with being a stone heavier than I want to be, because I maintain exceptionally well and I could probably stay this weight forever.

Last time I lost weight was during lockdown, I didn't think about food or a diet or losing weight, I went for a run/walk every day for at least an hour. Maybe because there was something else going on, to take my mind off food it helped.

I can't remember the last time I didn't spend the day worrying about what I ate. I'm currently 3 stone overweight and 2 stone above what I was in lockdown and it's really upsetting. I'm not meant to be this size.

I do think a lot is down to retraining your mind and how you think about food.

I’d say that while admirable, this is near impossible to achieve.

We live in a crazy food world. We are not surrounded by natural food anymore, just vast amounts of food-type products that are actively designed to be addictive. Sugar and fat are added to so many products; companies spend millions on making their food addictive and moreish.

Biscuits/cakes for example have finely tuned ratios of fat/sugar to make them as irresistible as possible to our brains. Almost every ready meal has sugar added to fire up our brains to want more/buy it again. The processed food industry is worth billions; they NEED us to buy/eat/consume more than we need so that they can continue to make a profit.

There are very few foods in nature that contain high levels of both fat and sugar…..

We evolved to eat everything possible, to excess, when it was available in order to store up fat reserves to allow us to survive through lean times, when food was scarce. It is how humans are designed. We are hardwired to overeat, and foods high in calories are particularly attractive as they provide the most bang for your buck. You didn’t survive a stone age winter easily…..

Her idea, while noble is just not workable unless you are very, very conscious of how you relate to the food you eat. You DO need to override your instinct to feast when food is available, it is part of who we are.

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-sweet-fat-foods-20180618-story.html

I agree @STST , and even more difficult when we consider that the people she’s suggesting should do this are already overweight- indicating they are clearly already affected by these factors.

I read that the only food in nature with a ratio of 1g fat to 2g carbs is human breast milk - and yet almost all junk food has a that ratio, or thereabouts, making it super addictive.

I’ll admit it, I’m addicted to food. I’m a functioning addict, as in, I restrain myself pretty well and I keep my addiction in check, but as such it’s a constant (and I do mean constant) battle. Like an alcoholic who doesn’t drink anymore. I need the calorie counting and the scales and the diet plan to help keep my addiction under control, but conversely, I’d love to be free of them which is why the podcast has struck a chord with me.

this isn’t a Jessica Cooke bashing by the way. I like her podcast, I like her straight talking and some of it has really struck a chord with me, and importantly, no pun intended, given me food for thought…

It is really hard, for anyone, to maintain a healthy weight in the western world.

The insidious creep of eating waaaay more than we need, while not really noticing. Very dangerous for future health issues; if we think the NHS is struggling now….

The bottom line is that you do have to restrict/resist constantly to keep a healthy weight. The culture of snacking/eating is staggering. Lattes/bubble teas/milk shakes for example just blow my mind - devoid of any nutrition, full of empty calories. Social media does not help, it just normalises these eating habits. Frightening really.

Meals out are always loaded with far more fat/sugar/salt than you’d use at home; that is what makes them palatable and delicious. But ultimately, not very healthy to eat regularly. It is an absolute minefield. Once you are aware of the constant advertising of unhealthy food products and the many millions of fast food shops that we are surrounded by every single day, it is a wonder we aren’t all hugely overweight! Haven’t seen many ads for broccoli or blueberries…..

It’s so hard to control eating. With other addictions, it is possible to cut them out entirely (alcohol/tobacco/drugs) but with food you can’t do that; you have to eat!

Maybe you can change your mindset about the calories and the scales; accept they are part and parcel of keeping yourself healthy and accountable to YOURSELF. Not for anything else. A bit like brushing teeth; you won’t die if you don’t brush your teeth and it’s a bit of a faff twice a day every day but we all just do it without thinking about it. I frame food in much the same way; I want my body to be strong and healthy and so I need to actively choose what I put in it. And remembering that the odd cake/biscuit/chocolate bar/burger is not going to be a problem provided that most of the time I do my best to eat consciously and healthily.

It’s not being on a ‘diet’; it is a lifestyle/outlook change.

I think it sounds like what she’s referring to is “intuitive eating” or similar and quite frankly that doesn’t work for me on an every day basis. It can only work for me in specific situations , like when I was on holiday in south east Asia a while back I was walking for literally hours every day in the heat , sleeping loads, being carefree as I’m on holiday and the sun is shining , I just wasn’t craving snacks or processed foods

I was eating about 3 times a day - things like smoothies and banana pancakes for breakfasts and then rice and noodle dishes for lunch or dinner and the occasional coffee. I didn’t even need to think about not eating too much and after 3 weeks of travelling I came back several pounds lighter. I don’t know how much weight I lost as I wasn’t weighing myself regularly then but many people commented on my weight loss as it was very noticeable and my clothes were loose on me.

But in my normal life living here in cold grey UK, WFH in a desk job while battling sleep issues , ruminating over anything I’m dealing with plus my mood being affected by lack of sunshine I’m more inclined to get bored or down and overeat, snack mindlessly on UPFs, plus my activity levels are far less. So things like calorie counting and regularly weighing myself are helpful to me. My weight went up to 13 stone during the pandemic when all of that slipped. I’ve since lost 2 stone, two more stone to go! So no, the trust your appetite thing isn’t ok for me and many other emotional or binge eaters.

trust your appetite, eat when your hungry, stop when full etc
do strength training x 3 a week and a couple of walks a week
use an item of clothing as a measure of weight loss and try it on occasionally

Strength training 3 x a week is good but I find it strange to advise a couple of walks a week is enough. It’s better than nothing if they were completely sedentary before of course but as general piece of health advice for someone who doesn’t do any other activity aside from strength training it doesn’t sound great.

Personally I aim to get 1-2 hours of walking /gentle cardio exercises in every day, usually broken up over the day.

When I used to commute to work in London I’d walk a minimum of around 70 minutes daily getting around, sometimes a lot longer on the weekend with all the activities I’d be doing in various parts of London which is how I maintained my 8.5 -9.5 stone weight for over a decade despite eating quite large portions and consuming a lot of cakes. I think walking every day should be normalised, there are so many benefits to it outside of weight loss.

@Shabnamsshoos I agree - intuitive eating sums it up, and I also would not manage that in real life. Context is everything. It does sound incredibly freeing and liberating though.

The closest I ever came to that was in lockdown, I did Whole30 which involved cutting out all processed foods and sugar and grains etc, and dairy. I did it for 6 months and I really did feel free from food issues, ironically because there was a list of about 25 common foods that were banned. But it wasn’t sustainable in real life. I lost 11lbs in a month but then didn’t lose any more, but I felt really fit and well , and that 11lbs took me to a really healthy weight. I wonder if I’d had more to lose if I would have lost more?

surely the ‘intuitive eating’ or other ‘free yourself from diet culture’ is just another diet plan though- SW gets berated for saying “eat as much as you like of these ‘free’ healthy foods, you never need to be hungry, you never need to track calories or macros, and free yourself from dieting “, whereas intuitive eating says listen to what your body needs and eat it, (which makes sense eg if you’re low in iron and need a steak) but what if, like me this week, you’re hormonal and fed up and you just need chocolate? At least traditional dieting methods do impose a limit of some sort onto that?

I think it’s asking a lot of yourself to a) judge if you truly need something or just want it, and b) judge how much you need and only eat that much of it and c) not feel any lingering guilt/ remorse/ emotional response whatsoever to the food- surely the reason I am overweight is because I find it very difficult to do those things?

I think it’s asking a lot of yourself to a) judge if you truly need something or just want it, and b) judge how much you need and only eat that much of it and c) not feel any lingering guilt/ remorse/ emotional response whatsoever to the food- surely the reason I am overweight is because I find it very difficult to do those things?

Agree with this. You can’t forget the science of energy in vs energy out. Most people are clueless as to the calories/nutrients in things.

It does take effort to work out how much food you need and making sure you get good nutrition through your diet if you end goal is to be healthy, which is what I assume she is aiming for.

By her rules, if you ‘trust your appetite’ and ‘don’t count calories’ would end in disaster for most. A latte and muffin on the way to work would be A LOT of daily allowance for many women and you’d still feel hungry for a good sized lunch and dinner as well.

I have been giving this a great deal of thought, much pondering on my dog walks….

it’s actually incredibly difficult, surely, to practice intuitive eating and simultaneously undereat in order to lose weight? I can just about see how you could eat intuitively to maintain, but if you are really listening to your body and eating what it needs, your body isn’t going to ‘tell’ you that it needs less than it’s burning. It’s not designed or evolved to do that, we’re designed to maintain not lose. Even intuitive eating must require a certain amount of ‘I want that but I’m not going to eat it’ and actually if you consider you’re dropping from 2000 to 1500 calories daily, it actually requires that mindset to the tune of 25% of your daily calories every single day. Which sounds bloody hard and also pretty much like every other diet. AND if JC says you shouldn’t even track calories or use diet plans or eat ‘free foods’ (the podcast I listened to today even said you shouldn’t try new recipes 🤷) how exactly would you do that?

Some really good posts here

I calorie count and will likely do this for the rest of my life. I had WLS and I need to make sure I have enough but also not too much. I also need to log my liquids. If I didnt consciously ensure Im drinking enough I could easily go the whole day on about 500ml, even less. I just dont get thirsty and I dont enjoy drinking liquids.

I see it much like taking stock of my bank account, the petrol in my car (not great at that one), taking stock of when my insurances/mot/tax is due, taking stock of my prescriptions when they need renewing, remembering to take them etc

Its part and parcel of managing and organising my world and my health. I see nothing negative about it. I dont find it onerous or difficult.

I have to say I log in order to track protein more than anything else but obviously the information logs the calories too.

For me, this would not work. Has not worked.

I've lost three stone by counting carbs, exercising, and daily weighing. No way would I have done that with some airy fairy "see how your body feels" type stuff.

I think the only way this would work is to do it within some parameter which doesn't require calorie counting eg so you could follow the SW idea of lean meats/fish with fruit and veg and low fat dairy; or stop eating added sugar, reduce carbs, or stop all UPFs. They kind of thing so that you aren't obsessing about the calorie content of what you are eating but are following some kind of plan which is already reducing your calorie intake . And stop eating when you are 'satisfied' rather than 'stuffed'. Combined with exercise that may work but you would probably need to be fairly strict that you don't stray into eating things not on your 'plan'.

what if, like me this week, you’re hormonal and fed up and you just need chocolate? At least traditional dieting methods do impose a limit of some sort onto that?

I think it’s asking a lot of yourself to a) judge if you truly need something or just want it, and b) judge how much you need and only eat that much of it and c) not feel any lingering guilt/ remorse/ emotional response whatsoever to the food- surely the reason I am overweight is because I find it very difficult to do those things?

Exactly I’ve been on my period and I’ve felt like I need to have several slices of Warburton fruit loaf as well as several slices of homemade cake. I didn’t need them at all. At least not in the amounts that I had them.

I get anaemic at this time of month, what I should have did if anything is had some iron rich veg and maybe low fat beef mince. But that isn’t what I “felt” like.

I’ve been binge eating since I was ten. It’s only after I’ve over eaten that I feel regret. Planning what I’ll eat in a day and Calorie counting whether it’s in my head or using MFP is helpful for me.

I also don’t always feel like exercising every day, but I almost always feel better once I’ve did it. Sometimes it’s a case of discipline over motivation.

I’ve fallen off the wagon this past week but tomorrow I’ll get back on to calorie counting and exercising, and it’s not because I feel like eating healthier or doing exercise but because I’m committed to being healthier and feeling fitter and losing weight.

@Shabnamsshoos exactly, I’ve had disordered eating for my entire adult life. Now, some would argue that it’s because of diet culture that i have this? But regardless, I do daily calorie tracking and plan my food for the next day. It helps keep me on track. In reality, the tracking helps me maintain, not lose - I’m still endlessly persuing a stone weight loss that seems unreachable. But I’m fairly confident that if I just stopped that I would gain weight.

I suppose the takeaways for me from this are that there are other ways. If I am counting and tracking and not actually getting results, then maybe I need to rethink. I think that I’m working really hard and exercise loads and I’m maybe not being completely honest with myself about the quantity of food I am eating. I had such good results and felt amazing when I did a very strict, no UPF, no dairy etc plan, and I did experience food freedom and I did lose weight- but I need a good headspace to actually do that and i’m not quite there. And also, maybe I am too harsh on myself and berate myself too much when I don’t meet my calorie goals or when I don’t lose weight. I suppose that tracking calories and macros gives a benchmark, a “good day/bad day” value, makes it quantified- when actually there could be other things that aren’t measurable that could constitute a good day- especially if a good day is one that makes you feel good and enriches your life. I’m going to look for those and not just just focus on numbers.