6- What Does That Repetition Mean?

So what exactly do I mean when I talk about Weight-Regain Patterns?

Weight-Regain Patterns aren't simply the weight coming back.

They're behaviours, thoughts and responses that can repeatedly show up throughout our weight-loss history and contribute to us moving away from some of the things that had been supporting our weight loss.

Some can be incredibly obvious.

Others can become so familiar that we don't necessarily recognise them as patterns until we stop looking at one individual attempt and start looking across our history.

For me, emotional eating was a big one.

Food had become connected to almost every emotion I experienced.

Sad? Food could make me feel better.

Stressed? Food could give me relief.

Bored? Food gave me something to do.

Disappointed? Food could soften the blow.

Happy or celebrating? Food belonged there too.

I wasn't necessarily making a conscious decision each time that food was the solution.

It had become a familiar response.

And because life continued to contain emotions whether I was trying to lose weight or not, that response didn't magically disappear simply because I'd started another diet.

But emotional eating was only one of the patterns I began recognising.

And over the years I've worked in weight management, first within the NHS and later through my own work with women, I've seen many of the same kinds of patterns appear again and again.

Not in every woman.

Not in exactly the same combination.

And certainly not for exactly the same reasons.

But often enough that there are some Weight-Regain Patterns I now recognise as particularly common.

Emotional eating.

Comfort eating, boredom eating, stress eating or using food as a reward.

Impulsive eating.

Overeating or binge eating.

Picking and grazing.

Automatic eating attached to particular times, places, people or routines.

Food noise and repeatedly thinking about food, wanting it, resisting it and thinking about it even more.

All-or-nothing thinking.

Perfectionism and rigid rules around what doing weight loss properly is supposed to look like.

Negative self-talk.

Procrastination.

Avoidance.

Restarting.

Waiting until you feel more motivated, more focused or more ready before doing something you already intend to do.

Repeatedly making plans that work brilliantly when everything goes to plan, but become difficult to adapt when it doesn't.

Starting with enormous enthusiasm, doing everything at once and then struggling to sustain everything you've asked of yourself.

Putting something off until tomorrow, next week or Monday even though you haven't changed your mind about wanting to do it.

And gradually drifting away from things you had been doing without ever consciously deciding to stop.

And through midlife, some of those patterns can begin showing up in ways that feel slightly different too.

Food noise that feels louder or more persistent than you remember.

Starting with a familiar burst of motivation, but finding that the burst doesn't seem to carry you for as long.

Knowing exactly what you intended to do, but finding it harder to keep your attention and focus there.

Putting something off because you're tired, then putting it off again because tomorrow feels as though it might be easier.

Gradually doing less of what had been supporting you because your energy isn't as predictable as it once was.

Finding that after a disrupted night's sleep, the planning, decisions or preparation you'd intended to do feel harder the following day.

Moving away from exercise because what you used to do doesn't feel as manageable in your body anymore, without yet finding a different way of moving that works for you now.

Or responding to all of those experiences with another familiar pattern.

I need to try harder.

I need to get myself together.

I need to be more disciplined.

Maybe you're already recognising some of those in your own history.

Perhaps you've found yourself eating almost automatically while part of you was thinking, Why am I doing this?

Maybe you've made one choice you hadn't intended to make and immediately thought, I've ruined it now.

Perhaps one meal became the rest of the day.

The day became the weekend.

And the weekend became another promise to start again on Monday.

Maybe you've created such rigid rules around doing weight loss properly that when real life made those rules difficult to follow, adapting them didn't feel like an option.

So instead, you stopped.

Perhaps you've repeatedly told yourself you'll plan your meals tomorrow, go shopping later, get back to the gym next week or start taking things seriously again when life calms down.

You haven't necessarily decided not to do those things.

You still intend to.

But the action keeps moving further into the future.

Maybe you've had periods where you've thrown yourself completely into weight loss.

You've planned everything.

Tracked everything.

Changed everything.

And for a while, you've felt completely focused on it.

But somewhere along the way that intensity has dropped, your attention has moved elsewhere or maintaining everything you started doing has become harder.

Not because you consciously decided that losing weight no longer mattered.

But because what you were doing stopped translating into what you continued to do.

Maybe avoidance has been part of your experience too.

You stop getting on the scales because you're frightened of what you'll see.

You avoid returning to the gym because you've been away for so long that going back now feels uncomfortable.

You stop looking closely at your eating because part of you already knows things have changed and you don't want to face how much.

Or perhaps negative self-talk has become so familiar that you barely recognise it anymore.

Why did you do that?

You were doing so well.

You've got no self-control.

You always do this.

You're never going to change.

And perhaps some of those patterns have been with you for years.

You may recognise the emotional eating from your twenties or thirties.

The food noise may be familiar.

You may remember the same all-or-nothing thinking, the same promises to start again and the same bursts of motivation that accompanied previous attempts.

But familiar doesn't necessarily mean unchanged.

Maybe the food noise feels louder now.

Perhaps those bursts of motivation don't seem to carry you for as long as they once did.

Maybe staying focused on what you intended to do feels harder amongst everything else occupying your attention.

Perhaps an urge to emotionally eat that you could sometimes move through relatively easily at another point in your life now feels much harder to interrupt.

Maybe you still start with the same determination, but find yourself moving away from what you intended to do sooner.

Or perhaps one interruption seems to gather momentum more quickly and recovering from it takes longer.

That doesn't necessarily mean the pattern itself is new.

But your experience of navigating it may feel very different.

And when something you've managed differently before suddenly seems harder, it's very easy to make that mean something about you.

I'm less motivated than I used to be.

I've lost my discipline.

I can't focus anymore.

I used to have more willpower.

Why can't I just do what I used to do?

We're going to come back to that.

Because before we decide what any of those changes mean, we need to understand something else about the patterns themselves.

The thing that happened and the way you responded to yourself afterwards are two different things.

Eating something you hadn't intended to eat is a behaviour.

Turning that behaviour into evidence that you're weak, greedy, useless or incapable of changing is a response.

And if that response happens repeatedly, it can become a pattern too.

Sometimes there isn't one obvious moment where everything changes at all.

Sometimes it's a gradual drift.

The meals you were planning become a little less planned.

The portions you were paying attention to become a little less considered.

The walks you were taking regularly become slightly less frequent.

The things you had been doing most of the time start happening some of the time.

And eventually you look up and realise you've moved much further away from them than you intended.

There can also be patterns in how we respond when life becomes more demanding.

When we're tired.

When we're stressed.

When routines change.

When work becomes busier.

When we're caring for everybody else.

When we're grieving.

When life simply asks more of us than it was asking before.

And perhaps when you're looking across several decades of your own history, you can see that the life those patterns are happening within has changed too.

There may be different responsibilities now.

Different pressures.

Different demands on your time and attention.

Your sleep may not be what it once was.

Your energy may feel less predictable.

Your body may feel different to move in.

Your appetite, emotions or concentration may feel different at times.

You may be navigating changes associated with perimenopause or menopause alongside everything else already happening in your life.

And perhaps that's why simply telling yourself to be more disciplined or consistent no longer feels like an adequate explanation for what you're experiencing.

I'm deliberately not explaining why those circumstances and changes can make such a difference yet, because we're going to come to that.

For now, I simply want you to notice whether there are particular behaviours, thoughts or responses that seem to appear repeatedly in your own history, and whether your experience of navigating some of them has changed over time.

You don't need to recognise yourself in every example I've given you.

You may recognise several.

You may recognise one.

Or yours may look completely different.

This isn't a diagnostic checklist of all the reasons women regain weight.

And it certainly isn't another list of things for you to judge yourself for.

It's an invitation to become curious.

What tends to repeat for me?

What happens when things are going well?

What tends to happen when they become harder?

What happens after I do something I hadn't intended to do?

What tends to happen next?

And has any of that become easier or harder to navigate at different stages of my life?

Because these patterns don't only have the potential to affect our weight.

They can carry an emotional cost too.

The frustration of knowing what you wanted to do and watching yourself do something different.

The guilt after eating.

The disappointment of feeling as though you were doing so well and had ruined it again.

The fear that you're slipping back.

The anxiety of getting on the scales.

The embarrassment of starting again.

The shame of watching weight you'd worked incredibly hard to lose return.

The frustration of recognising exactly what is happening and still struggling to change what happens next.

The confusion of knowing what you want to do, sometimes knowing exactly what will happen if you don't, and still finding yourself unable to follow through in the way you intended.

And when you've lived through some version of that repeatedly over many years, you're not necessarily carrying the emotional cost of one experience.

There can be years of disappointment sitting behind the one you're experiencing now.

Years of promises you've made to yourself.

Years of believing you'd finally cracked it.

Years of watching the weight return.

And perhaps now the added frustration of wondering why something you've already done before seems to be getting harder rather than easier.

Sometimes repeated experiences like these can begin changing what you believe about yourself.

Maybe you've called yourself lazy.

Greedy.

Weak.

Undisciplined.

Inconsistent.

Someone who always gives up.

Someone who can't be trusted around food.

Someone who can lose weight but will inevitably put it back on.

Or perhaps the story has changed slightly over the years.

I used to be able to do this.

I don't know what's happened to me.

Maybe I'm just too old to change now.

Those aren't small things to carry.

And that's another reason understanding these patterns matters.

A repeated behaviour, thought or response isn't evidence of who you are.

It's something that has been happening.

And once I began looking at my own experiences that way, I could see something else many of my Weight-Regain Patterns had in common.

They had the potential to interrupt my ability to keep doing some of the things I already knew supported my weight loss.

They interrupted implementation.

And this is where another distinction became incredibly important.

Because I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions we have around weight-loss success.

The physical principles of weight loss matter.

Of course they do.

We need information that helps us understand what supports the reduction of body weight through things like nutrition, energy intake and movement.

That information matters.

But the information we can have about weight loss extends much further than simply knowing what to eat or how to exercise.

We can also know what happens when we move away from some of the things supporting our weight loss.

You can know that regularly eating considerably more across a weekend can affect the progress you've made during the week.

You can know that one meal you hadn't planned doesn't undo everything, while also knowing that allowing it to become the rest of the day, the weekend or the week can have a much greater effect.

You can know that repeatedly missing the movement you intended to do means you're moving less than you were before.

You can know that the habits you were following have started to change.

You can recognise the signs that you're gradually drifting away from what you'd been doing.

You can know exactly what it feels like when you're beginning to go off track because you've experienced it before.

You can know that waiting until Monday won't change what happens between now and Monday.

You can know that avoiding the scales doesn't change what may be happening with your weight.

You can know that continuing to eat in a way you hadn't intended to eat may move you further away from the outcome you want.

You may even recognise a familiar pattern while it's happening.

You can be standing in the kitchen knowing you aren't physically hungry, knowing you're reaching for food because you've had a terrible day and knowing you'll probably feel disappointed afterwards.

And still eat it.

You can know on Saturday that you've slipped into the familiar pattern of turning one meal into the whole weekend.

And still struggle to interrupt it.

You can know you've been saying, I'll do it tomorrow, for the last two weeks.

And still say it again.

You can know you're gradually moving away from the behaviours that were supporting your weight loss.

And still find yourself continuing to move away from them.

That's information too.

Information isn't only knowing what supports weight loss.

It can include knowing what isn't supporting it.

Knowing the likely consequences of something you're doing.

Recognising that something has started to change.

Knowing what has happened when you've followed the same pattern before.

And sometimes even recognising exactly what is happening while it's happening.

But having that information and being able to use it to influence what you repeatedly do are still two different things.

That's where implementation comes in.

On paper, the process of weight loss can look relatively simple.

Eat in a way that supports weight loss.

Move your body.

Repeat those behaviours consistently enough over time.

But that word consistently contains an enormous amount of real life.

Because those behaviours don't happen on paper.

They have to be implemented day after day while you're working, parenting, shopping, cooking, socialising, feeling emotions, making decisions, experiencing cravings, navigating disrupted routines and living the rest of your life.

And perhaps by this point in your life, you understand that distinction more than you ever wanted to.

Because you may know more about weight loss now than you did twenty years ago.

You have more experience.

You may have followed several different approaches successfully.

You may know which meals work well for you.

What kind of movement you enjoy.

What tends to happen when you stop planning ahead.

You may know exactly what you would tell somebody else to do.

And yet carrying all of that knowledge into your own everyday life can sometimes feel harder than it used to.

That's confusing.

Because surely more knowledge and more experience should make this easier.

So when it doesn't, it's very easy to conclude that something about you must have got worse.

Less motivated.

Less disciplined.

Less focused.

Less capable.

But what if knowing what to do was never the only thing involved in being able to keep doing it?

Because that's why something that can look relatively simple in principle can be far from simple to repeatedly implement.

Information helps us understand what supports weight loss, what may move us away from it and what may happen when we do.

Implementation is our ability to repeatedly carry that information into what we actually do.

And implementation can be interrupted.

That's the distinction I had been missing.

Information is knowing that planning your meals helps you make more supportive choices.

Implementation is sitting down and actually planning them when your mind already feels full of everything else you need to think about.

Information is knowing that having food available at home makes it easier to eat in the way you intend to.

Implementation is going shopping and buying it when you're tired, busy or making decisions for everybody else too.

Information is knowing which foods support the way you want to eat.

Implementation is making those choices when the food noise feels louder, your appetite feels different or you're already mentally and emotionally stretched.

Information is knowing movement is beneficial.

Implementation is actually getting out for the walk or doing the workout when you've slept badly, your energy feels different or your body doesn't feel quite as willing as it once did.

Information is knowing that one meal you hadn't planned doesn't undo everything you've already done.

Implementation is making your next meal a supportive choice when recovering from that interruption feels harder than it used to.

Information is knowing that missing one workout doesn't mean you've failed.

Implementation is continuing with movement after a missed workout rather than allowing that one interruption to determine what happens next.

Information is knowing that you don't have to follow your plan perfectly for it to support you.

Implementation is adapting what you're doing when your life, energy, body or circumstances change rather than abandoning it because you can't do everything exactly as planned.

Knowing what supports your weight loss, recognising what happens when you move away from it and being able to keep using that information in what you actually do are not the same thing.

And if you've been around the weight-loss rodeo for any length of time, there's a good chance you've already accumulated a huge amount of information about weight loss.

I certainly had.

I'd done Slimming World and knew my red days from my green days.

I'd followed Weight Watchers and knew how to lose weight using a points system.

I'd learned about calorie counting, portion control and intermittent fasting.

I'd had nutrition plans written for me by personal trainers, followed plans I'd bought or found in magazines and tried meal-replacement approaches like SlimFast.

I'd done Rosemary Conley.

I'd done the cabbage soup diet.

I'd tried so many different approaches that weight loss had almost become an education in itself.

My cupboards and fridge reflected it too.

There had been Mug Shots, Hi-Fi bars, quark, quinoa and whatever else belonged to the particular version of weight loss I was following at the time.

I knew a lot about losing weight.

And perhaps you do too.

In fact, after years of losing weight and regaining it, you may know far more now than you did during some of your most successful attempts.

You may know about calories, portions, nutrition and movement.

You may know exactly how the weight-loss approach you're following works.

You may have followed it for years.

And you may know far more than that.

You may know your own warning signs.

You may recognise when your eating has started changing.

You may know when you're beginning to avoid things.

You may recognise the familiar feeling of slipping away from what you'd been doing.

You may know what usually happens after you tell yourself you've ruined it.

You may know what a weekend of bingeing is likely to mean for your progress.

You may know exactly how you'll feel afterwards.

You may have lived through the same sequence enough times that none of it is particularly surprising anymore.

And perhaps that's part of what makes your experience now so frustrating.

You don't necessarily know less than you did before.

You may know considerably more.

You may even be returning to something you've successfully used before and wondering why doing the same things seems to require so much more from you now.

But information still has to become implementation.

When I looked back at the periods where I'd successfully lost weight, I hadn't simply possessed information about how to do it.

I had implemented it.

Not perfectly.

Not necessarily in exactly the same way every day.

But regularly enough for those behaviours to contribute to me losing weight.

And when my Weight-Regain Patterns appeared, they could interrupt that implementation.

Emotional eating could interrupt what I'd intended to eat.

An automatic habit could interrupt a choice I'd intended to make.

Food noise could make following through on my intentions increasingly difficult.

All-or-nothing thinking could turn one interruption into several.

Negative self-talk could change how I responded after something hadn't gone to plan.

Procrastination could keep moving something I intended to do further into the future.

Avoidance could make returning increasingly difficult.

A restart pattern could keep me waiting for Monday and prolong the interruption.

Trying to do everything at once could create an approach I struggled to keep implementing.

Waiting to feel motivated could mean an intention remained an intention for much longer than I'd expected.

And gradual drift could mean things I'd been doing regularly became less regular without me necessarily noticing how much had changed.

Different patterns.

Different circumstances.

But each had the potential to interrupt the regular implementation of some of the things that had been supporting my weight loss.

And I'd like you to look at your own history through that same distinction.

Think about the times when you struggled to continue with some of the things you'd intended to do.

Was it because the information had somehow disappeared?

Did you suddenly forget the plan you'd perhaps been following successfully for weeks, months or even years?

Did you stop knowing what supported your weight loss?

Did you stop understanding that repeatedly moving away from those things could affect your progress?

Or were there times when you actually knew exactly what was happening and still struggled to change what happened next?

Probably not because you suddenly knew nothing.

You may have known perfectly well what you intended to do.

You may have understood the consequences of what you were doing instead.

You may even have recognised a familiar pattern unfolding while you were in it.

The information was still there.

And perhaps that's even more obvious when you compare where you are now with earlier periods of your life.

You may know more now.

But the food noise can feel louder.

You may understand the importance of consistency more clearly.

But the bursts of motivation that once helped you get going may seem shorter.

You may know exactly what you want to focus on.

But keeping your attention there amongst everything else can feel harder.

You may understand emotional eating better than you ever have.

But understanding the response and interrupting it in a difficult moment are not the same thing.

You may know that one difficult day doesn't need to become a difficult week.

But knowing that doesn't necessarily mean recovering from it feels as easy as it once did.

So what actually happened?

Somewhere between having that information and applying it regularly in your life, there were interruptions.

And now you may be able to recognise some of them.

Maybe the information was never the part you had lost at all.

And for me, that was another enormous shift in understanding.

Because once again, it moved me away from simply asking why I couldn't be more disciplined, motivated or consistent.

I could begin asking what had repeatedly interrupted my ability to keep implementing some of the things I already knew.

But recognising those interruptions led me to another question.

Because even the same pattern didn't always affect me in the same way.

There were times when I could experience an urge to emotionally eat and respond differently.

And other times when that same familiar response felt incredibly difficult to interrupt.

There were times when planning food, making decisions and following through felt relatively manageable.

And other times when those very same things seemed to require far more from me.

There were times when one difficult day remained one difficult day.

And others when recovering from it seemed much harder.

And perhaps that's exactly the contradiction you've been trying to understand too.

The emotional eating isn't necessarily new.

The food noise may not be new.

The all-or-nothing thinking isn't necessarily new.

The tendency to drift, procrastinate, restart or lose focus may have appeared at other points in your life too.

But perhaps they don't feel the same now.

The food noise feels louder.

The motivation disappears more quickly.

Staying focused takes more effort.

The urge to emotionally eat feels harder to interrupt.

A poor night's sleep seems to affect more of the following day.

One difficult day takes longer to recover from.

And things you know perfectly well how to do can somehow feel as though they require more from you than they once did.

So perhaps the question isn't simply:

Why am I doing this again?

Perhaps there's another question sitting underneath it.

Why does something I've experienced before feel so much harder to navigate now?

The information may still be there.

And now we can see that information may include far more than simply knowing what to eat or how to lose weight.

You may recognise what's happening.

You may know where the pattern has taken you before.

You may understand what it's likely to mean for your progress.

You may know exactly what you would prefer to do instead.

The behaviour you're trying to carry out may be familiar.

Even the Weight-Regain Pattern interrupting you may have been part of your history for years.

So what else has changed?