⭐️LOSE IT! January Jumpstart 2026⭐️

[TheRealHousewife]

⭐️ Open to All ⭐️

January 2026! Following on from LOSE IT! 8 Week Christmas Countdown

Fresh Start, New Habits! To reach optimum health and vitality (as well as a trim body) we need to focus not only on our food intake; but movement, our mental health and sleep quality too!

Who doesn’t want to feel good and energetic as well looking great!

Get on board to reset & refresh and become a healthier version of yourself.
These threads are for those who’d like to lose weight and those who wish to maintain whilst eating a healthy varied diet.
As no one size fits all, members need to follow their own way of eating. This thread aims to offer guidance, support and a bit of hand holding.

We have a WOW (weigh on Wednesday) day each week. However post and share your progress as often or as little as you prefer. Do what works for you.

The important thing is not to think of it as a diet (based on deprivation and unsustainable) but more a way of life (sustainable & enjoyable) that’s based on several sensible principles including:-

1. Eat a variety of real whole foods such as fresh vegetables, salad, berries, beans, nuts, eggs, lean meat, good fats etc.

2. Reduce sugars, simple carbs, alcohol and UPFs.

3. Plan your meals & log your intake. Also be mindful of portion control.

4. Intermittent fasting - research suggests (Zoe study) that adhering to an eating window of 10 hours can have a positive effect on health, wellbeing and weight loss. I personally have a eating window of approximately 7hrs - 12:00 - 19:00.

5. Stay hydrated! 💧

6. Move as much as able. Particularly strength based exercise. Muscle keeps you strong as well as revs up your metabolism.

7. Get the fibre in! Great for your gut biome as well as 💩

8. SLEEP! Good sleep hygiene and a regularly sleep routine can be beneficial to weight loss. I’m always more hungry following poor sleep.

9. Be mindful about your own mental wellbeing and try not to eat your feelings. We’ve all been there!

10. Be kind to yourself. One or two slip ups won’t undo all your previous efforts. Just check-in with yourself, reinforce your good intentions and carry on.

I calorie count based on a lower carb Mediterranean diet. I intermittent fast and eat twice a day. Im a long time healthy eater and overall I’ve lost over 3 stone. After having been on the wrong side of 12st Im now hovering around 9st 2lbs.

Are you in?😊 What food plan will you be following? What do you want to change and why? Any recipes/workouts that have worked for you, you’d like to share?

Started new year 0.3kg up from start of the holidays. Have a meal out tomorrow and hopefully back to normalish soon.

Morning all. Jumping back on board like I tend to do every January. Hopefully I will stick around this time!

I start the year on 15 stone 6. Which means I lost a whole 7lb last year. I mean I lost more but was very up and down and never actually got below 15!

My January aims are
2 litres of water
Move for 15 minutes each day
Track calories/macros. I am going to try not to worry too much on being within calories for the first week or so, I want to get into the habit of tracking and look at what I am eating and where I can improve.

Trying not to put too much pressure on myself!

Will sign in later. 1st January weight 13 stone 3. Recovering from major surgery but aim to tackle diet etc
Homemade soup for lunch!

Happy New Year all!
I won’t be weighing in or starting properly until Monday but have hit over 12,000 steps every day while we’ve been away (huge difference to when I’m WFH!). I’ve definitely overindulged during the festive period but looking forward to getting fit, healthy and hopefully feeling more like myself in 2026! (I definitely lost myself after having DS2 who is now 5 and turning 40 a couple of years ago!)

Would love to join this group for some motivation. This time last year I was close to 14"7 putting me in obese category. I properly started tracking and making better food choices in sept this year and today weigh in at 13"2. I had been under 13" for first time in about 3 years in Nov but with a few trips away I fell slightly off the wagon. I have a big event in April which I would to be under 12" for. Here's hoping! loving reading all the motivational posts already

Happy New Year everyone 🎉
I weighed in yesterday at 13 stone 5 lbs. My goal is 11 stone.
I went to Pilates yesterday and managed 10, 000 steps so I am happy with that. I also decluttered my bathroom and organized all the lovely skincare products I got for Christmas, so I'm encouraged to stick to that routine too.
I hope everyone has a lovely New Year's day ❤️

Joining this lovely thread again after falling off several times last year, sigh... After getting sorted with the right HRT doses in October/November though I was finally getting some progress in December though inevitably a slight upward swing over the actual holidays, I think mainly due to lack of exercise rather that excessive food. Only 0.5kg though and hopefully that'll drop away quickly once I'm back in the usual routine.

Also, I've just scrolled back in my Fitbit app and I started 2025 at 94 kg, weighed in this morning at 90.5 kg. 3.5kg in a year isn't much but it's not nothing either. Hopefully sustainable and hopefully I can increase that loss this year. I feel a lot better at this weight than I did at 94. My next goal is probably to get under 85kg and if I can manage that and it be sustainable even though I'd still be overweight I would be my lowest weight in 10 years.

My plan is to keep going with the meals I know work for me for calories and staying full without much snacking. I've indulged over Christmas but going back to what was working for me should result in steady losses. I've worked a lot on my binge eating too and have worked out better strategies for dealing with stress, hopefully this should help me avoid derailing my progress as well. Final piece of the puzzle is exercise. I'm going to work on building strength this year as a focus and let running take a more supporting role. My body feels quite achy and sore, especially my shoulders and hips, and I'm hoping strength work will help. Our house isn't very well set up for home workouts though I'll try to do some simple lifts with light weights to mobilise my shoulders a bit. My plan is to establish a habit of going to the gym at least once during the week (an extra one if I can at the weekend if possible but starting gently) in January and if I can get that firmly in my routine at a time that works most of the time I'll look into a few personal training sessions to get a good plan for going forward.

Finally, weigh in stats for the start of the month:
SW (1/1/26): 90.5 kg (BMI 28.6)
CW: 90.5 kg
Initial GW: 85 kg (BMI 26.8)
Ultimate GW: 75 kg (BMI 23.7)

Good luck for 2026 everyone! Looking forward to sharing progress and tips here this month!

Happy 2026 all!

I weighed today and:

SW: 150.2 lbs (68.13kg)
CW: 150.2 lbs
GW: 130lbs (58.96 kg)

Thanks for these ideas - something simple like teeth-brushing to avoid nighttime snacking is a good one! I also think you’re right about me needing to set expectations reasonably because this is my first baby and therefore my first experience of a postpartum body!

Happy new year everyone!
Checking in with a new year weight of 53.2kg.

For those just starting I personally find that exercise does matter, but we are all different. I only walk but I walk a lot. The school run alone is 5 miles a day. It will be nice to get back to it on Monday. Exercise used to make me hungrier but my body adjusted to the amount I usually do and it doesn’t at all now. It helps that I don’t drive so have to walk everywhere plus we live in a hilly place. When Ds was a baby and toddler I used to take him on sleep walks of around 2 miles each day. That helped keep the damage done by a severe chocolate hobnob habit in check. Ds breastfed until he was 4.5!! When he stopped, the biscuit habit soon saw me put on weight and during lockdown I gained weight and went up to over 68kg by the time it was September 2022. My BMI was 26 and now it hovers around 20/21. It’s currently 20.8 and I’m happy with that although need to tone up.
If I can lose weight, anyone can. Cutting UPFs has helped keep it off along with all the walking. For anyone doubting themselves, don’t, you can do it! These threads helped me so much and they’ll help you too.

👋
I would like to join please. I have very little portion control, and also I can’t stop eating when I start!
I am currently 12 stone and 1lb and I’d like to be 10 stone 7lbs.
Plan is to log everything and get to 10k steps daily (I do about 6000 at work).

Happy New Year and welcome to the new joiners.

1lb down today so nearly back to pre Christmas weight. I ran 6km yesterday and walked 6km today. Big family meal has left me with zero calories for the rest of the day.

My plan for 2026 is to keep at or below maintenance weight. Build more muscle and basically become the most healthy version of myself.

HI all, just signing in to this thread too. Happy new year to you all and a healthier year to you too.

I will just be going back to the basics: IF, making sensible food choices, self care like body brushing, visiting my osteopath and exercising still.
I also want to go see the GP about peri symptoms which is kicking my butt!

Good luck to you all!

Marking my spot to come check in later.

Happy New Year all. I won’t start counting calories until Monday, but will try and get some exercise in over the weekend to ease me back in!

I’m in! Weight has been slowly creeping up over the last couple of years and hardly dare weigh myself now. Id like to lose 3 stone by the summer following sensible eating/ meal planning and low carb/ low sugar diet. Like the idea of the Wednesday weigh in!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2026 🥳🥳🥳

2026 Start Weight 9st 2lb (up 1lb from yesterday … must have been the 1 New Year Eve Cocktail 🍹😅) Although I’d have happily gone to bed at my usual time of 21:30 if my OH had let me 😂 I’m with you on this one @TheWayTheLightFalls 👍

Menu
Meal 1 - Roast Beef, Cavolo Nero, carrots, Brussels sprouts, white cabbage, garden peas, horseradish sauce. ZS 91. Pecans & Brazil nuts ZS 100
Meal 2 - Fage 5% Greek Yoghurt, raspberries, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds & hazelnuts. ZS 98
Drinks - Tea, black coffee, Hibiscus tea, water.

@moondip The comment ‘Emotional eating is not a problem to eliminate. It’s a signal that regulation is needed. You’re not trying to “out-discipline’ it. You’re out-supporting it” Is the best emotional eating sentiment I’ve ever read! Thank you for sharing!

Apologies as I couldn’t remove the bold for the last sentence. @moondip Your whole post warrants applause for your honesty and ownership 👏👏👏

Hope you soon feel better @socks1107 💐

Hi @JuniorMint14 I really enjoy the Zoe Podcasts too! Informative and they have a bit of science behind them! The Zoe programme has changed somewhat. From what I’ve read it really just reinforces healthy eating. It scores food out of a 100 and the higher the number the healthier it is for you. It also tracks macros, calories and plant diversity. You can add in your own health data from blood tests (I have plenty of those via the GP and can access the results online) such as cholesterol, blood sugars etc. This together with results from the gut micro biome test precisely informs food recommendations etc. I’ve yet to submit my test so currently not receiving recommendations, although I can input my food intake and receive scores.

I’ll be honest my eating has always been on the healthy side and I’m blessed to have the time (not always the energy) to cook from scratch. That said I’m suffering terribly from increased inflammation (autoimmune) around my joints, tendons & muscles etc and I’m doing all I can food wise to not cause more damage. I’ve attached some screen shots of the Zoe App Interface. It’s on the simplistic side. Any questions feel free to ask. I’m not affiliated to Zoe.

Doing the 12 week post natal workouts would be beneficial to you but I can fully understand that it isn’t always easy to slot it into your busy day as a mum to young children.

We are the same starting weight with the same end goal - good luck!

I'm probably missing something blindingly obvious, but what do you mean by ZS please?

Anyone have any tips for stopping snacking in the evenings? I was bang on my calorie plan yesterday, did so well, put my DS to bed and ate myself out of house and home 😭😭😭

Well I’m normally a daily weigher (using happy scale) but I am giving myself a few days off after a huge amount of food and booze NYE and New Year’s Day! I don’t quite regret it, but my insides are definitely not happy with me…..

Definitely back into my usual eating pattern from today. Most of the Christmas decs will come down today as the tree needs to go out for collection tomorrow. So we’ll take the opportunity to do a bit of a tidy and find all the Christmas presents a new home.

Good Morning & Happy Friday!

Time to plan how to navigate the weekend foods without the wheels totally coming off. If I know I’m going out or will be offered indulgent foods I’ll eat lighter beforehand. To eat healthy isn’t about depravation, it’s about balance.

Hi @BraceFace92 It’s not always about the calories. To be able to get any snacking, especially at night, under control it helps if you keep your day to day blood sugar levels under control. Making sure to include protein, fibre and healthy fats with each meal and reducing sugary, carb heavy, upf type foods will keep you satiated and any cravings at bay. Keeping hydrated helps too. What you eat in the hours or even the day before can increase or decrease cravings the following day.

@staringatthesun ZS = Zoe Score from an app I’ve been using.

ZOE REVIEW
After having had paid access to the Zoe app FOR 2 days I’ve discovered it isn’t worth the money and I’ve requested a refund under the 14 day online purchase regulations. The app continually crashes, its layout is infantile and dumbed down, offers no recipes/menus and you can’t pre-load your daily menus (which I like to do). The photo upload function is very inaccurate although the bar code scanner is useful. On the App Store the positive reviews were highlighted but when I’ve visited (after the fact) the Trust Pilot Reviews it has around 20% 1-3 star reviews. Not good for a ‘science backed’ nutritional app. Back to Nutri-Check it is 👍

Menu
Meal 1 - Prawn, Salmon & Quinoa salad with spicy Marie Rose sauce.
Meal 2 - Mediterranean omelette. Greek yoghurt, ground flax seeds, pecans & chopped dates.
Drinks - Tea, black coffee, hibiscus tea & water.

I'm in. My weight has been creeping up and I really need to do something about it as I am firmly in the overweight BMI category. I need to lose a stone to get back to normal range - but also firmly in peri so this makes it difficult. I think my diet is generally ok, but I WFH so am quite sedentary, and snacks and alcohol calories are my downfall. I plan to do Dry Jan and focus on healthy eating, cutting out rubbish, trying to fit in a daily walk, and see how far that gets me this month.

I'm weighing in KG because I find it helps me take the emotion out of the number!
SW: 82.5kg
CW: 82.5kg
GW: 74kg
Mini goal 1: 79.9kg

That’s very interesting re Zoe, @TheRealHousewife . Thank you for sharing. I’m a fan of the podcast but reluctant to subscribe to an app.