Sustainable nutrition that fits your life

The feeling of eating little and the amount actually eaten often do not match. Sweetened coffees, fruit juices, tastes taken while cooking, nuts eaten in front of a screen and weekends tend to stay outside the daily count. On the other hand, if you really are eating very little, the body adapts by cutting its expenditure; low-protein, very low-calorie diets cause muscle loss and make weight loss progressively harder.

Lack of sleep, stress, water retention during the menstrual cycle and constipation can also mislead the scales. Insulin resistance, an underactive thyroid and some medicines can make the process harder as well; these are diagnosed by a doctor. A few days of honest food records usually show the cause better than guesswork.

Usually not. Someone who goes hungry for long stretches of the day eats faster, more and less selectively in the evening; the deficit from the skipped meal is often more than made up at the next one. This is also why cravings for sweets and pastries rise after a long time without food.

The right number of meals is not the same for everyone; what matters is that a meal keeps you full until the next one. Including a source of protein, vegetables and a moderate amount of whole grains or pulses in each meal makes this easier. Methods such as intermittent fasting should be assessed according to your health; people taking diabetes medication or insulin should not try them without their doctor’s approval.

The scales show the total of fat, muscle, water and bowel contents. Water retained after a salty dinner, in the days before a period, with constipation or after a hard workout can move the number by a kilo or two from one day to the next. That change is not a gain or loss of fat.

For a truer picture, weigh yourself under the same conditions, for example once a week, in the morning after using the toilet and before eating, and look at your waist and hip measurements and how your clothes fit as well. Look at the trend over weeks, not at a single reading.

Food soothes, even if only briefly; the brain learns this relief and turns to the same route in moments of boredom, tiredness or loneliness. Emotional hunger usually comes on suddenly, wants a specific food and carries on even when you are full. Physical hunger builds gradually and can be satisfied with different foods.

Not eating enough during the day, a diet full of bans and lack of sleep all strengthen this cycle. Regular, satisfying meals, pausing for a few minutes before reaching for food to notice what you are feeling, and finding a response to the emotion other than food can help. If emotional eating comes with loss of control, bingeing or intense guilt, you should also seek mental health support.

Night eating often starts during the day. Someone who skips breakfast, rushes lunch and eats little until the evening is genuinely hungry at night. So the first step is to make daytime meals adequate, with protein and fibre.

Closing the kitchen after dinner, keeping snacks out of sight, not eating in front of a screen and regularising your bedtime also help. If you really want something, choosing a small, planned option instead of banning it prevents uncontrolled snacking. If you wake at night and cannot get back to sleep without eating, talk to your doctor as well; night eating syndrome needs to be assessed separately.

No. A single meal does not ruin the process; what ruins it is saying “it’s already ruined” and abandoning the day or the week. Going hungry the next day to make up for it does not work either; hunger sets up the next loss of control.

What to do is simple: carry on with your usual routine at the next meal. A meal off plan is not a failure but information: what was different that day? Had you gone hungry, were you tired, did the setting make it hard? The answers show what needs to change next time.

They can. Nuts, dried fruit, granola, oat bars and “sugar-free” sweets made with walnuts and dates can be nourishing, but they are energy-dense, and a small handful easily turns into several. Labels such as “no added sugar”, “gluten-free” or “fit” do not mean a product is low in calories.

It helps to think of a snack as a meal: eat it when you are hungry, sitting down, with the portion decided in advance. Eating from a plate rather than from the packet makes it easier to see how much you snack during the day.

On average women have less muscle mass and therefore a lower daily energy expenditure; the same amount of food can more easily create an energy surplus. Water retention and appetite changes across the menstrual cycle also affect both the scales and motivation.

Conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome and an underactive thyroid, which is more common in women, can make weight management harder, and with menopause fat often shifts towards the abdomen. None of this makes weight loss impossible, but it calls for enough protein, resistance exercise, sleep and realistic expectations that take the cycle into account.

No. The most common causes of bloating are everyday factors such as eating quickly, large portions, fizzy drinks, constipation, a sudden increase in fibre and stress. It is also normal for foods such as pulses, cabbage and onions to produce gas in the gut; this is not an intolerance.

The “food intolerance tests” sold online are often misleading and can lead to dozens of foods being cut out for no reason. If bloating keeps appearing after a particular food, keeping a food and symptom diary is the first step. If there is weight loss, blood in the stool, pain that wakes you at night, or new complaints starting later in life, see a doctor first.

Diet is one of the habits that affect blood fats the most. Cutting down on the saturated and trans fats in butter, fatty red meat, processed meat and packaged products, and replacing them with olive oil, nuts such as walnuts and hazelnuts, and fish a few times a week, can help lower LDL cholesterol.

The soluble fibre in oats, barley, pulses, vegetables and fruit also reduces the absorption of cholesterol in the gut. If your cholesterol is high, your doctor decides whether you need medication; dietary changes continue alongside medication, but they do not replace it when it is needed.