Frequently Asked Questions

I’ve been on lots of diets, what’s different about Weight Loss Resources?

How much weight will I lose? How quickly?

How much time will I need to spend using the programme?

Do I have to exercise?

Do I have to complete my Food Diary every day?

I’ve been on lots of diets, what’s different about Weight Loss Resources?

Many diets fail because they are too difficult to live with, either because they are too restrictive in lifestyle terms or because they leave you feeling deprived which often leads to rebellion and overeating. Weight Loss Resources is not a diet, but a set of tools that will enable you to make gradual changes to your eating habits that result in losing weight. Simply having real awareness about the things you eat and drink each day, the number of calories in them and the number of calories you need, enables you to start losing weight by making relatively small changes that suit your tastes and your lifestyle.

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How much weight will I lose? How quickly?

It really is up to you – you choose a weight loss goal and a rate of loss, the programme makes calculations for you that tell you how many calories you need, what date you should reach your goal or how much you will lose by your target date. We recommend you set weight loss goals using milestones of half a stone or a stone at a time, and aim to lose weight at a rate of between half a pound and two pounds a week, depending on how much weight you want to lose in the longer term. Go to Setting Goals for further advice.

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How much time will I need to spend using the programme?

Once you have set up your starting point and goal details (this normally takes a few minutes but can take longer if you want to experiment with different goals/rates of loss before you decide what is going to suit you) the main thing you will need to do is complete your food diary. This may take around 20-30 minutes the first few times you do it, as everything will be new to you and you will need to find the things you have eaten from the main food database. As soon as you begin adding foods to your diary, the programme starts to compile your favourites list. This means that the next time you want to put a food into your food diary, if it is something you have added before, you will be able to select it from your favourites list instead of searching for it again from the database. You should find that it takes less than ten minutes to complete a day’s food diary once you get going. You will probably want to access updated reports once a week or so – it takes less than a minute to update your weight and generate the reports and charts, and viewing them will take a few minutes. How long you spend on the programme is really up to you and the time you have available, and how many things you want to look at or input to in a session. In order to get the benefits of using WLR, you probably need to allow a minimum of ten minutes a day, or a couple of 30-40 minute sessions a week – though you could spend quite a bit longer if you’re going to use the tools and resources to their full potential.

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Do I have to exercise?

No, but you probably should if you can. You will lose weight if you use more calories than you eat, with or without exercise. However, regular, moderate exercise is recommended for general good health and can help with weight loss and improving body shape.

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Do I have to complete my Food Diary every day?

No, you can do several days at one session if you wish. The important thing is to jot everything you eat and drink down, otherwise you may forget things, which will reduce the value of your food diary. (We provide members with a regular supply of pocket-sized jotters for this purpose.) Your nutrition report uses information from your food diary to provide you with analysis, so you need to make sure that your food diary has been completed for each day of the period for which you want to generate the report.