Why Is It So Hard to Lose Weight? Understanding Your Eating Habits
Updated: Sep 5
If losing weight were simply a matter of knowing what to eat, far fewer people would struggle with it.
Most of us already know the basics. We know that regularly eating more than our body needs can lead to weight gain. We know that healthier food choices and physical activity matter. Yet knowing what to do and consistently doing it are two very different things.
Perhaps you've lost weight before only to gradually put it back on. You start each new attempt feeling determined, but old habits slowly return. You snack when you're stressed, reach for something sweet when you're tired or abandon your plans after one difficult day.
As a clinical hypnotherapist, counsellor and psychotherapist with more than 25 years' experience, I have worked with many people who understood perfectly well what they wanted to change but found the habits around food much harder to alter.
That's why it can be useful to look beyond diets and ask a different question:
What is actually driving the way I eat?
Why Is Losing Weight So Difficult?
Body weight is influenced by many factors, and it isn't helpful to reduce everything to willpower.
What and how much we eat matters, as does physical activity, but sleep, stress, health conditions, medications, age and other individual circumstances can also affect weight and weight management.
Then there are habits.
You may automatically have biscuits with a cup of tea, snack while watching television or finish everything on your plate even though you're already full.
None of these behaviours necessarily begins with a conscious decision.
They become familiar routines.
And familiar routines can be surprisingly persistent.
Why Do Old Eating Habits Keep Coming Back?
Think about something you do every day without giving it much thought.
Perhaps you automatically reach for your phone when you wake up or follow exactly the same sequence when making your morning coffee.
Eating behaviours can become just as automatic.
If you've spent years reaching for food whenever you're stressed, bored or upset, deciding on Monday morning that you're going to stop doesn't immediately remove that association.
This is one reason extremely restrictive approaches can be difficult to maintain.
For a while, motivation may be enough to override the old pattern. But when you're tired, stressed or distracted, the familiar behaviour can return.
Rather than thinking I've failed again, it can be more useful to identify the habit you're actually trying to change.
Are You Eating Because You're Hungry or Because It's a Habit?
Not every desire to eat begins with physical hunger.
You might eat because:
you're bored
you're stressed
food is available
somebody else is eating
it's a particular time of day
you want comfort
you feel you deserve a treat
you're watching television
you don't want food to go to waste
Try occasionally pausing before you eat and asking:
Am I physically hungry, or is something else prompting me to eat?
There's no need to judge the answer.
You're simply becoming more aware of what happens immediately before the behaviour.
If you discover that emotions rather than hunger frequently drive your eating, you may find my Emotional Eating Self-Hypnosis MP3 useful alongside the ideas in this article.
Why Does Emotional Eating Make Weight Loss Harder?
Food can become associated with comfort surprisingly early in life.
We celebrate with food. We reward ourselves with food. We offer food to comfort somebody who's upset.
As adults, those associations can remain.
After a difficult day, eating something enjoyable may provide a temporary change in how you feel. The problem isn't that you've enjoyed some food. It becomes more difficult when eating becomes your automatic way of responding to stress, loneliness, boredom or other uncomfortable emotions.
If that sounds familiar, try identifying the emotion before reaching for food.
Ask yourself:
What am I actually needing right now?
Sometimes the answer may genuinely be food.
At other times it might be rest, distraction, company, reassurance, relaxation or simply a break from whatever you've been dealing with.
Recognising the difference gives you more choice.
Why Do I Crave Sugary Foods?
Sweet foods can be particularly difficult for some people to moderate because they are enjoyable, readily available and often strongly associated with reward.
Your environment matters too.
If chocolate, biscuits or sweets are always within reach, you're repeatedly being asked to make a decision about whether to eat them.
It can be easier to change the environment than rely on willpower every time.
You might decide not to keep particular foods beside your chair or desk, buy smaller quantities, or create a different routine for the time of day when cravings tend to appear.
If sugar is the particular habit you struggle with, my Sugar Addiction Self-Hypnosis MP3 focuses specifically on changing the thoughts and routines associated with sugary foods rather than weight loss in general.
What If I Know What Healthy Food Is but Still Don't Choose It?
Knowing which foods are healthier doesn't automatically mean you'll choose them when you're hungry, rushed or tired.
Convenience plays a large part in everyday eating.
If the easiest option available is the one you're trying to eat less often, you're relying on motivation every time.
Make the healthier choice easier.
That might mean planning a few meals before shopping, keeping convenient healthier foods available, preparing something in advance or deciding what you'll eat before you become extremely hungry.
Small changes to your environment can remove dozens of unnecessary decisions.
For people whose main difficulty is repeatedly choosing foods they would rather eat less often, I also have a Healthy Food Choices Self-Hypnosis MP3 specifically focused on developing more helpful everyday food choices.
Does Portion Size Matter for Weight Loss?
What you eat matters, but so does how much.
Portion sizes can gradually become larger without us noticing, particularly when we regularly eat from large plates, order the same restaurant meals or serve ourselves automatically.
Try slowing the beginning of a meal down.
Notice the food rather than eating while concentrating entirely on a screen or something else. Give yourself an opportunity to recognise when you're becoming satisfied.
You don't have to continue eating simply because food remains on the plate.
If portion control is one of your main difficulties, this is also the particular behaviour addressed by my Virtual Gastric Band Hypnosis programme. Despite the name, it doesn't physically alter your stomach. It uses hypnosis and mental rehearsal to work with eating habits, portion awareness and feeling satisfied with less food.
Why Does One Bad Day Turn Into a Bad Week?
All-or-nothing thinking can undo a great deal of progress.
You planned to eat healthily, then had an unplanned takeaway.
The thought becomes:
I've ruined it now.
So the rest of the evening becomes a write-off.
Sometimes the weekend follows.
Instead, treat one decision as exactly that — one decision.
You don't need to wait until Monday, next month or after your holiday to make your next choice.
Your next meal is another opportunity.
Successful long-term change doesn't require perfection. It requires being able to return to your intentions after the occasions when things don't go according to plan.
Why Is Motivation So Difficult to Maintain?
Motivation naturally changes.
When you first decide to lose weight, you may feel highly focused. You imagine the result you want and you're prepared to make considerable effort.
Several weeks later, the novelty has disappeared.
This is where habits become more important than motivation.
Rather than asking yourself to feel enthusiastic about every healthy decision, make some behaviours part of your normal routine.
That could mean walking at the same time each day, planning meals on a particular evening or keeping your exercise clothes somewhere visible.
If becoming more active is the part you continually struggle to maintain, my Exercise Motivation Self-Hypnosis MP3 + companion eBook focuses specifically on building a more positive and consistent attitude towards exercise.
Can Self-Hypnosis Help With Weight Loss?
Self-hypnosis doesn't cause your body to lose weight, and it isn't a substitute for appropriate nutrition, physical activity or medical support.
If you'd like to explore this in more detail, I've written a complete guide to weight loss, overeating and self-hypnosis, including how eating habits develop, why we sometimes eat when we're not hungry and how self-hypnosis may support healthier patterns.
Where it may be useful is in working with some of the behaviours that make weight management difficult.
In a relaxed, focused state, you can mentally rehearse making different choices, noticing when you're satisfied, responding differently to cravings and seeing yourself following through with the habits you want to develop.
I created my Weight Loss Self-Hypnosis MP3 + companion eBook for people who understand that sustainable weight management involves changing everyday behaviours rather than looking for an instant solution.
The hypnosis recording focuses on areas such as eating habits, food choices, portion awareness and motivation, while the eBook provides practical information and exercises to support those changes in everyday life.
What If I've Tried to Lose Weight Many Times Before?
Try not to see previous attempts simply as failures.
Instead, look for information in them.
What worked while you were losing weight?
What became difficult?
When did old habits return?
Were you trying to follow something you couldn't realistically maintain?
Did stress, tiredness or changes in your circumstances make things harder?
The answers can help you approach things differently this time.
Long-term weight management generally requires changes that can fit into your actual life rather than changes you can tolerate for only a few weeks.
When Should You Get Professional Help With Your Weight?
Weight management isn't always something you should tackle entirely by yourself.
Speak to your GP or another appropriate healthcare professional if you're concerned about your weight or have health conditions that may be affected by it.
Professional advice is particularly important if you think a medical condition or medication may be contributing to weight changes, or if you have concerns about binge eating, an eating disorder or your relationship with food.
There are also structured weight-management programmes and other treatments available for people who need additional support.
Self-hypnosis should be considered an optional tool for working with habits and behaviour — not a replacement for medical assessment or appropriate weight-management treatment.
Stop Looking for the Perfect Diet and Start Looking at Your Patterns
There is no single reason why everybody struggles with weight.
For one person, evening snacking may be the biggest problem.
For another, it might be emotional eating.
Someone else may struggle with portion sizes, sugary foods, motivation to exercise or repeatedly abandoning their plans after one difficult day.
That's why understanding your particular pattern matters.
Instead of trying to change everything tomorrow, identify one behaviour that repeatedly gets in your way and start there.
Small changes that become part of everyday life can be far more valuable than dramatic changes you can't maintain.
If you'd like additional support with the habits around eating and weight management, you can read more about my Weight Loss Self-Hypnosis MP3 + companion eBook.
And if you've never experienced hypnosis before, you can listen to a free 10-minute self-hypnosis taster on my About Sharon Shinwell page.
About Sharon Shinwell
Sharon Shinwell is a UK clinical hypnotherapist, counsellor, psychotherapist and clinical supervisor with more than 25 years' professional experience.
Through Self Hypnosis UK, Sharon creates professionally guided self-hypnosis recordings designed to help people work with habits, thoughts and behaviours in a private and convenient way.
