Weight Loss and Weight Maintenance Counseling

Making peace with the mirror and fitting back into old clothes are both fair goals. But the question most people are really asking when they look for a dietitian is a different one: will it hold this time? Among the clients I have followed over the years, what makes the difference has never been the list. Anyone can find a list; what nobody finds is the two weeks that come after it. Below I have set out what the service covers, how the process runs and who it is not suitable for.

The Difference Is Not the List, It Is the Fortnight After It

Let me describe where weight loss stalls most often in practice: the plan is set correctly, the first two weeks go well, then portions quietly grow and nobody notices. When the scales stop, the reason gets guessed at. A photograph of the plate makes that drift visible within days, and the voice call every two weeks means we measure the reason instead of guessing it. Follow-up is not an extra; it is the work itself.

The second thing I do is fit the plan to your actual day. Your working hours, your budget, your kitchen habits and the foods you dislike all go into it; I do not send a ready-made template. I do not hand out a banned list either, because a food removed completely comes back out of control sooner or later; it is the most common reason I see people drop out. Bread or a dessert can stay on the plan with the portion and the timing adjusted.

I do not give a figure for how much comes off in how long. The rate shifts with your starting weight, your lab picture and your routine. Rather than promising a pace, I would rather measure the first weeks and see your real curve; the target is set from there.

If Something Is Making Weight Loss Harder

What sits under stalled weight loss is usually not willpower but a clinical picture. If your labs show insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome, meal frequency and carbohydrate distribution become decisive, and it works better to run the process under metabolic syndrome counseling. With Hashimoto's or hypothyroidism the gap between medication hours and meals moves to the centre of the work, and that process is set up under Hashimoto and thyroid counseling. Where polycystic ovary syndrome calls for cycle-based planning, PCOS nutrition support is the better address.

If you are using a weight loss medication, or thinking about it, we talk about that from the start. Choosing the drug, starting it and setting the dose are your doctor's decisions. My work is watching muscle loss and protein intake through that period, keeping meals adequate while appetite drops, and building a routine that does not collapse back once the medicine stops. Stopping, lowering or skipping the medicine is not my area.

What Are You Buying?

• Intake and lab review: your blood results from the last six months, the medicines you take and your eating habits are read one by one.
• A personalized plan and recipe support, built around the flavours you like and the way you cook.
• Photo meal analysis: I comment on your plates through the day, so a wrong portion does not run for weeks.
• A voice call every two weeks, with WhatsApp message support in between.
• Body measurement tracking; the scales alone mislead, and the circumference figures show where the loss is coming from.

The scope is the same in all three packages; only the duration and the fee change, and call frequency does not. Calls are voice only; video consultations are not offered. The programme reaches you within a few business days. The whole process runs online, so the city or country you live in makes no difference. Payment is taken by bank transfer and fees are not refunded.

Keeping It Off: Where Does the Process End?

Most of my clients are not doing this for the first time; they lost weight before and put it back on. So reaching the target is not the end of the process but the start of its last stretch. As the goal comes closer, calories are raised in steps rather than released all at once, and a maintenance period runs for several weeks. In that period we look less at the scales than at the measurements and at whether the meal routine is still standing.

The real question in maintenance is what you are left holding when the counseling ends. If portion judgement, label reading and a strategy for eating out have stayed with you, the process has done its job. If they have not, the plan ends up in a drawer soon enough. That is why I build the second half of the process on habit rather than restriction.

Where I Say No

Where I stop is clear. I do not write a weight loss plan where an eating disorder has been diagnosed; where there is binge eating, purging, severe restriction or an obsessive relationship with food, psychiatry and psychotherapy come first, and the nutrition side runs only alongside that team. Pregnancy, breastfeeding and under-18 clients need separate protocols rather than the general approach on this page. If you have had bariatric surgery, the process follows its own post-operative timetable and belongs under a separate heading. Where an advanced condition needs active treatment, nutrition therapy is not run on its own.

These are not nutrition matters but doctor's work: unintentional weight loss that speeds up, fainting or repeated dizziness, weakness with palpitations, periods stopping, and vomiting after meals. The WhatsApp line is a support channel, not an emergency line; in these pictures you contact your doctor or go to emergency care.

The First Step Is a Conversation, Not a List

You can send your application through WhatsApp at no charge; our assistant receives your initial request. I send the intake form, and you send it back with your lab results from the last six months. Nothing is prescribed and no dose is altered during the intake assessment; we look together at whether the picture fits this programme. If I think it does not, I say so plainly.

After that we decide together which package suits you. How long it takes differs from person to person; your starting weight, your lab picture and what you have already tried all shape that decision.