While weight loss is an individual journey, I often see people facing common challenges even though they are in different occupations and at different life stages.
So if you’ve decided the time has come to get in shape, check out if any of these challenges apply to you. Don’t worry if some of them sound a little too familiar. Understanding your environment and what led you to gain weight in the first place is a powerful first step to success.
From teens to young adults
Feast and famine approach to food intake: skipping meals (especially breakfast) and going too hard at lunch or dinner with unbalanced meals.
Quick fix energy hits: overdoing it with coffee and caffeine-boosted energy drinks.
Dial for it, don’t cook it: overdoing takeaway meals and fast food snacks on the run.
Blue collar
Big blokes, big appetites: rising portion sizes, especially with on-the-job takeaways that do not balance amount of physical activity. Includes time-inappropriate eating, eg. pie and sauce for morning tea.
Weekend couch potatoes: binge drinking and high fat snacking while watching weekend TV, especially sport.
Fast family meal deals: feeding a family on a budget makes all-you-can-eat buffets and fast food meal deals attractive.
Homemakers
Eating amnesia: grazing all day on kids snacks, dinner ingredients and leftovers, plus coffee and biscuits.
Family comes first: no ‘me’ time to exercise or plan ahead for healthy eating.
What’s for dinner dilemmas: taking kitchen shortcuts and meal solutions that are high in fat and kilojoules.
Corporate crusaders
Let’s do lunch: overdoing it with work functions and client entertainment.
Wine o’clock: having one too many alcoholic drinks on too many nights of the week.
Gourmet delights: increased offerings of new food products and restaurants lead to the ‘must try’ approach and overeating.
Over 55s
Empty nester: cooking for four or more when only two to dine leads to increased portion size.
Emotional eating: to counter feelings of loneliness, anxiety related to aging or retirement and hormonal related drivers like menopause.
Overeating for wellbeing: mixed messages on what’s right for healthy weight and what’s best for my heart, diabetes, inner health and so on. This can lead to increased food intake and potentially higher kilojoule intake from supplements like fish oils.
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