The Science of Slow Fat Loss: Why Fast Dieting Fails, What the Body Really Needs, and How Sustainable Weight Loss Actually Works
Every January, millions of us pledge allegiance to a new diet. It usually starts with a burst of enthusiasm and a trolley full of vegetables you do not even like. You promise yourself that you will eat clean, drink water, embrace quinoa and become the type of person who naturally wakes up before sunrise because you have evolved.
And for a few days, it is almost believable. The scale drops a little. You feel lighter. You feel virtuous. You feel like a better version of yourself. You convince yourself that this time you have cracked it.
Then the familiar shift arrives. Hunger begins to stalk you around the house. You become irrationally annoyed at people chewing near you. You start performing mental gymnastics around food choices. A single biscuit looks at you in a way that feels personal. Soon the diet is in pieces, your mood is strange, and you are convinced you simply lack discipline.
But here is the truth. There is nothing wrong with you. The problem is the approach.
The Burnout Body: How Stress Messes with Hunger, Habits and Health
I didn’t just burn out - I also added 8 inches to my waist (and the rest).
Somewhere between the tears, the overwhelming workload, and the ongoing moral injury, I gained over three stone.
At first I thought it was the usual story: too much snacking, not enough willpower. But this was different. There was a constant gnawing in my stomach - not emotional hunger, not boredom, just this deep, physical emptiness that only food could mute. Strangely, it went away when I was hungry, like my body was confusing exhaustion with appetite.
I wasn’t undisciplined; I was deregulated. My nervous system had been running a marathon in the background for years, flooding my body with cortisol and adrenaline. I’d mistaken survival mode for lack of self-control.
It turns out that when your brain thinks the world is on fire, it doesn’t care about balanced meals or portion sizes. It just wants fuel, and it wants it fast.
What Has Regulation Got To Do With GLP-1 Medication?
Every time I talk about habits, regulation, or the unglamorous magic of routine, someone eventually asks the same thing:
“Isn’t the whole point of a GLP-1 that you don’t need to do all this?”
It’s a fair question. After all, the medication does make food quieter. Hunger feels tamer, cravings soften, and that constant mental chatter about what, when, and how much to eat finally goes silent. For many people, it’s the first break they’ve had from an internal noise that’s been running for decades.
But here’s the thing: that silence isn’t the finish line… it’s the opening scene.
The Science of Being Boring: Why Predictable Routines Make Extraordinary Results
We live in a culture that worships extremes.
If something isn’t a challenge, a detox, or a ‘hack’, we assume it won’t work. We chase 5AM starts, ice baths, and 30-day resets like they’re personality traits.
Meanwhile, the people who actually sustain success - athletes, business founders, anyone who seems suspiciously calm - tend to do the same unremarkable things every day.
They eat the same breakfasts, work out at the same time, and go to bed like every night is a school night.
We call it boring. Science calls it regulation.
When the Food Noise Finally Stops: Relearning How to Eat (and Live) in the Quiet
There’s a strange kind of peace that follows years of chaos.
When I started my GLP-1 medication, I hoped I would be less hungry. What I didn’t expect was silence - not just from my stomach, but from the part of my brain that had spent decades negotiating with it.
Before this, I treated dieting like a hobby. I’d sign up for multiple diet plans in a single week… Weight Watchers on Monday, SlimFast by Thursday, something with ‘metabolic’ in the name by Sunday. Each new start hit like a dopamine rush. This one would be the fix. This one would make sense of my body. It never did.
I wasn’t just feeding hunger; I was chasing the high of hope. Psychologists call it intermittent reinforcement. This is the same mechanism that makes slot machines addictive.[^1] Every once in a while, a diet ‘worked’ briefly, and that tiny win was enough to keep me spending hundreds (if not thousands) a year trying to recreate it.
Then Mounjaro entered the chat and the compulsion vanished.
Why I’m Breaking Up With Extreme Diets (and Dating Science Instead)
There comes a point where you’ve tried so many diets that your body could qualify for a PhD in metabolic confusion. I’ve tried liquid only diets, the ‘no food after 6 pm’ rule, and I’ve counted enough calories, macros and points to win big on a diet themed ‘Who Wants To Be a Millionaire’.
Maybe it’s age, or maybe it’s wisdom disguised as fatigue. Either way, I’m done with the chaos. I don’t want another quick fix that promises to ‘reset’ my body; I want a way of living that doesn’t require an apology to my nervous system every Monday.
This isn’t a weight-loss confessional or a ‘before and after’ of using GLP-1 medication. It’s the story of unlearning the extremes and learning to trust the slow, evidence-based stuff that actually lasts.