The diets that used to work brilliantly when you were younger don’t shift a kilo now, no matter how strictly you follow them.
It’s all happened gradually over the years. When playing with your children (or grandchildren), you find yourself a bit short of breath, or maybe your knees hurt when you walk to the park, or none of your favourite clothes fit. Perhaps your doctor has advised you have high blood pressure and you need to make some lifestyle changes. In reality, the actual goal is to be fitter, stronger and healthier.
So you put yourself on a diet. Your resolve is brilliant for a few days, maybe even a few weeks. But then you’re starving all the time, you cave and eat half a packet of biscuits, feel terrible about yourself, and think ‘what’s the point’? The cycle starts all over again.
Sound familiar?
What’s really important for you to know is that most conventional weight loss approaches are basically unsustainable, particularly as our bodies age.
There is an approach that works, it just looks different from what you might expect.
You’ve likely heard the saying that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. While this isn’t a scientifically proven formula, there’s truth to the principle: creating a calorie deficit is far easier through nutrition than through burning calories at the gym. Think about it—you could skip a large, flavoured coffee and save 500 calories, or you could spend an hour cycling to burn the same amount. The maths clearly favours dietary changes.
However, this shouldn’t diminish the important role of exercise, particularly when it comes to accountability. Showing up to a personal trainer creates a powerful psychological effect that extends far beyond the gym.
When you know someone is expecting to hear from you—someone who will ask how your week went and whether you stuck to your nutrition plan—it changes your decision-making.
That commitment to your Tuesday morning session influences the choices you make on Monday night. You're more likely to skip the late-night snack because you don't want to report a setback. The effort you've invested in your workout primes your mindset for the rest of the day, making it psychologically easier to choose the salad over the burger at lunch.
This accountability bridges the gap between knowing what to do and doing it consistently—which is where most weight loss efforts ultimately succeed or fail.
If it sounds like common sense, it's because it is
What we’ve found after working with clients for nearly two decades is that weight management comes down to energy balance. How much you’re consuming versus how much you’re expending.
Whatever diet you follow, whether it’s the carnivore, keto or intermittent fasting, they all achieve the same thing—they help you consume fewer calories.
But from there, we approach things a bit differently.
Instead of prescribing specific diets, we ask: what are your current eating habits, and how can we make the smallest possible changes that work for your life?
This approach is based on what we’ve seen succeed time and time again. It's the little steps that stick. Instead of eliminating entire food groups, switching to lower-calorie versions of snacks you already enjoy proves far more sustainable. After all, unless you’re planning to follow that eating strategy for the rest of your life, why be miserable?
“But I can’t maintain my weight loss”
The most revealing thing our clients tell us when they start on this journey? They understand how to lose weight. They also understand how to gain weight. What they don’t understand is how to maintain their weight loss.
If that resonates, you’re in good company. This yo-yoing between strict dieting and old habits is at the heart of why so many people struggle. The space between these extremes—sustainable maintenance—often remains completely unexplored.
As we age, our hormones change. The exact eating strategy that worked five years ago might produce no results whatsoever now, leaving you feeling lost and wondering what you’re doing wrong. (Spoiler: you’re probably not doing anything wrong—your body has simply changed).
Building habits that fit your real life
Sustainable weight loss takes time. If it took you years to gain the weight, you’re looking at a couple of years to lose it and keep it off. We know that sounds discouraging when you want results now, but while quick fixes might deliver dramatic results, they rarely teach you the habits you need for life. Our clients who succeed long-term have built habits that fit their real situation, not some impossibly perfect version.
How to make it easier
Dramatic diet overhauls rarely stick. Here are three simple ways that consistently get results.
First, manage your calorie intake through workable swaps. When you have a sweet craving, drink water or have fruit instead of a processed snack.
Second, increase your daily activity through non-strenuous exercise. Strenuous exercise makes you hungrier, whilst going for a 7000-step walk doesn’t trigger the same response.
Third, look at your protein intake. Protein keeps you fuller for longer and burns more energy during digestion.
Stop the guilt
And something important to know: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with eating a row of chocolate when you want to. Having that as a planned, guilt-free part of your day? That’s healthy and normal. Problems arise not from planned indulgences but from deprivation-driven binges where you eat half the block because you’ve been ‘so good’ all week.
Shift the focus-it’s not about the number
When clients come to us fixated on reaching a specific weight, we redirect that conversation. Where did that number come from? And more importantly, what change are you expecting when you reach it?
Often, people have an image in their head of what a particular weight should look like—perhaps influenced by a film star or someone they’ve seen on social media. The issue is that weight alone tells you remarkably little about how you'll look or feel. Two people at the same weight can appear completely different depending on their muscle mass and body composition. Muscle is denser than fat, so someone with more muscle mass might weigh more whilst looking leaner and feeling stronger.
The true desire is usually something entirely different—confidence, clothes that fit comfortably, improved health markers, or being able to move without pain. These are the things that matter in your daily life.
A scenario we’ve encountered many times: say someone is targeting 70 kilos, but they already fit perfectly into their desired pants at 74 kilos. Our response? You’ve achieved what you wanted. The trousers fit. That arbitrary number on the scales doesn't need to dictate whether you feel successful or not.
Finding the approach that works for you
What we’ve found consistently works is patience, minimal and sustainable changes, and a shift from numerical targets.
Now it’s about finding an approach that acknowledges your real life, with all its demands and complications, and build something sustainable around that.
This isn’t about becoming someone else or living some impossibly disciplined life. It’s about making manageable changes that give you back the freedom to do what matters most to you.
