Struggling to lose weight?

If you’ve been on a weight loss journey for a while with limited success, you may be wondering if you’re doing something wrong. You might be eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly, but there are lots of factors that influence your weight and the way your body looks.

Simply put, losing weight can be complex. But understanding the roles of genetics, metabolism, lifestyle, environment, sleep, and mindset on your weight management journey can help you manage your expectations and reach your goals.

Losing weight usually means using more energy than you take in over time. This is called a calorie deficit. But creating and maintaining that deficit is not always easy. Appetite, cravings, tiredness, stress, habits, health conditions, medicines, and your daily routine can all make weight loss more challenging.

Your genes can play a critical part in your weight loss journey. For example, some people have variants, or different forms, of a gene called FTO that makes it more difficult to control your appetite. These differences can also make it more likely for you to store fat and use energy from food inefficiently.

Although you may never know your genetic make-up, it may explain why you may be struggling with weight loss. If your parents or close relatives are overweight or obese, it could be part of the reason weight loss is a challenge for you.

That doesn’t mean weight loss is impossible. Your genes may influence things like hunger, fullness, and body shape, but they don’t influence everything. Healthy habits, support, and a firm plan can still make a meaningful difference.

How quickly your body burns calories, also known as your metabolism, can also impact your weight management. Everyone’s metabolism is different. It may be that you have a naturally slower metabolism than others. This means you may burn fewer calories when resting, which can make weight loss more challenging.

Metabolic rate is also affected by muscle mass, genetics, and age. Your body size, activity levels, hormones, health conditions and some medicines can also play a part. Building or maintaining muscle and moving more throughout the day can help support how much energy your body uses.

The everyday choices you make can determine how successful your weight loss journey is. Maintaining consistent, positive habits around food, sleep, smoking, drinking, and exercise can make losing weight less challenging.

But it’s not unusual to fall into bad habits. Sometimes these can be conscious choices and other times there are factors outside your control that cause you to do this.

For example, if you work in an office, you may find that you’re not moving much throughout the day. Long periods of sitting and low activity levels can reduce how much energy you use across the day, even if you exercise a few times a week.

This level of inactivity can be harmful to your health over time. It is linked with a higher risk of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, and it may reduce your weight loss potential because you are burning fewer calories during the day.

Your environment can also affect your eating habits. Long workdays, shift work, caring responsibilities, stress, takeaways, alcohol, portion sizes, and easy access to high-calorie snacks can all make healthy choices harder to maintain.

Small changes can still help. Walking more, taking the stairs, standing up regularly, planning meals, and keeping healthier snacks available can all support your weight loss journey.

Not sleeping well, also known as sleep deprivation, can disrupt the balance of hormones that control your appetite. Leptin, which tells your body when it’s full, decreases with insufficient sleep, while ghrelin, which tells the body when it’s hungry, increases. This hormonal imbalance can lead to increased appetite and cravings, especially for high-calorie, carbohydrate-rich foods.

Not getting enough sleep can also negatively impact your metabolism and insulin sensitivity, making it harder for your body to regulate blood sugar levels. If you regularly sleep poorly, you may also feel less motivated to exercise, plan meals or cook from scratch.

This doesn’t mean you need perfect sleep to lose weight. But if you often sleep less than you need, weight loss may feel more difficult, even when you are trying to eat well.

A regular sleep routine, reducing caffeine later in the day, limiting alcohol, and giving yourself time to wind down may help. If sleep problems are ongoing, speak to your GP.

Your mental wellbeing is just as important as your physical health. This is certainly true for people aiming to shed weight. When you feel stressed, have low mood, or are depressed it can have physical consequences.

Cortisol, a stress hormone, can make you feel hungrier and encourage fat storage. And depression can change your relationship with food, making it more difficult to manage your eating habits.

When your wellbeing is neglected, weight gain can, for some people, become more likely. It can also lead to negative feelings about your body image or self-worth.

Stress, anxiety, and low mood can also affect sleep, motivation, and activity levels. Some people eat more when they feel stressed, while others skip meals and feel overly hungry later. Neither reaction means you have failed. It may simply mean you need more support.

Sometimes weight loss is harder because of a health condition or medicine.

Conditions such as an underactive thyroid, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (previously known as PCOS), Cushing’s syndrome, menopause symptoms, sleep apnoea, depression, or chronic pain can affect your weight, appetite, energy levels or ability to be active.

Some medicines can also affect weight or appetite. These may include steroids, some antidepressants, antipsychotics, insulin, and some medicines used for epilepsy or diabetes.

Don’t stop taking prescribed medicines without speaking to a healthcare professional. If you think a medicine or health condition is affecting your weight, speak to your GP or pharmacist. They can review your symptoms, check your medicines and help you understand what support may be available.

Even if you are making progress, weight loss is rarely a straight line.

You may lose weight for a few weeks and then notice the scales stop moving. This is often called a weight loss plateau. It can happen because your body uses fewer calories as you lose weight, your routine changes, or you become less active without realising.

Short-term changes in weight can also be caused by water retention, salt intake, constipation, menstrual cycle changes, stress, sleep, and even exercise. This is why daily weigh-ins can sometimes feel discouraging.

If your weight hasn’t changed for a few weeks, that doesn’t always mean you are doing something wrong. Try looking at your wider progress too, such as your waist measurement, how your clothes fit, energy levels, fitness, strength, blood pressure, and mood.

If weight loss feels difficult, try reviewing one area at a time. Changing everything at once can feel overwhelming, counterproductive, and may be harder to keep up. You should look at:

• Portion sizes
• Snacks between meals
• Sugary drinks
• Alcohol
• Takeaways or convenience foods
• Sauces, oils, and dressings
• Daily movement
• Sleep and stress
• Do your meals contain enough protein and fibre

Small changes can make a difference when they’re done consistently. For example, you could add a short walk after meals, reduce sugary drinks, plan a few simple meals each week, or include more protein and vegetables with your main meals.

It may also help to track more than your weight. Waist measurements, progress photos, fitness, strength, energy, mood, and how your clothes fit can all show progress that the scales may not immediately show.

You don’t have to manage weight loss on your own.

Speak to a GP, pharmacist, or healthcare professional if you’ve been trying to lose weight for several months without progress, your weight is affecting your health, or you think a health condition or medicine may be making weight loss harder.

You should also ask for support if your relationship with food, exercise, or body image feels difficult, stressful or hard to control. A healthcare professional can help you look at the bigger picture and choose a weight management plan that is safe, practical, and suited to your needs.