Step off the weight loss rollercoaster with these simple psychological tricks to silence your inner demons: DR MAX PEMBERTON’S new book reveals his 3-step guide to healthier eating – everyday

Losing weight should ­herald the beginning of a new life of better health and fitness.

But coming off weight-loss jabs or an extreme diet needs to be approached carefully to ensure you don’t slip back into your old, destructive habits and watch the weight pile on again.

That’s because obesity is often rooted in psychology. If you’ve struggled with your weight for years, chances are your efforts have been sabotaged by ­myriad, unconscious assumptions and behaviour patterns. Addressing these is key to long-lasting success.

So I’ve teamed up with Dr ­Courtney Raspin, a chartered psychologist and weight-loss expert, to design a practical psychological programme which forms the basis of our new book The Weight Loss Prescription. It offers a ­science-based toolkit, based on our years of experience with patients who struggle with their weight and body image, that will enable you to permanently step off the weight‑loss rollercoaster.

Today, in the final part of our exclusive series, I’ll share expert strategies for silencing your inner critic and explain how to build healthier habits for life.

1. Learning to be neutral about your body

If you’ve lost weight, you may be thrilled with your new body. This can be both liberating and disorientating.

You may equally find that, despite health improvements, you encounter unexpected challenges such as ‘phantom fat’ (where you continue to perceive your body as much larger than it is, a misperception that eventually rights itself), facial changes (such as ‘Ozempic face’, when its volume loss can lead to a hollow, gaunt appearance) or other problems you didn’t anticipate.

One of these may be that your body suddenly becomes public property – colleagues, family members, friends and even casual acquaintances will feel entitled to discuss your appearance. This is partly because our culture celebrates thinness, equating it with discipline and success.

For other people, your weight loss may trigger insecurities about their own body. Compliments such as ‘you look so much better now’ can make you feel your previous self was not good enough. Although we’re all encouraged by the body positive movement to ‘love our bodies’, this isn’t always possible. The good news is – you don’t have to.

When you tell yourself ‘I love my body’ but don’t believe it, the gap between the statement and your actual feelings creates more distress, not less. Instead, try to cultivate feelings of neutrality towards your body.

You treat it with care, respect and feel genuinely grateful for the things it allows you – such as climbing stairs without breathlessness. You may also be genuinely pleased with how you look in a particular outfit. But never force yourself to feel more positive than you really do. Body neutrality gives you ­permission to have mixed feelings about your body while still caring for it.

2. Dealing with setbacks

Whether it’s a stressful week at work, an injury or a family crisis, life has a way of throwing ­setbacks at us. It’s how you respond to these that determines ultimate success.

Research consistently shows that self-compassion is a reliably strong predictor of emotional resilience. People who practise self-compassion recover faster from setbacks, maintain motivation longer and are more likely to achieve their goals.

That’s not because they let themselves off the hook, but because they create balanced emotional conditions that leave them open to learning from mistakes. Learning to recognise and quieten your inner critic and speaking to yourself with genuine kindness, even when you’ve slipped up, can help build the resilience you’ll need to navigate future challenges.

We all have an inner, repetitive, negative voice that we like to call our ‘poisoned parrot’ because it constantly says the same undermining things over and over again. It may tell you ‘you have no ­willpower’, ‘you’re lazy’ or even ‘you’ve tried this before and failed – you’re a fool to think this time will be different’.

This voice squawks particularly loudly during tough times when you’re struggling with motivation, serving to demotivate us further.

Research shows this is because self-criticism activates the areas of our brains involved in detecting threat – so we are now in survival mode rather than learning mode.

It means our nervous system becomes flooded with stress hormones, which in turn weakens our ability to think clearly and make good decisions. If you are already struggling with your eating, it’s easy to see why this might make you want to give up altogether.

But the poisoned parrot isn’t just saying random cruel things, it’s repeating decades of internalised weight stigma that has accumulated in your head. And it’s not just criticising your eating but attacking your entire sense of worth as a person in a harsh, unproductive and unrealistic way. This is why learning to recognise it is the first step in reducing its power over you.

Luckily, by learning to encourage another, compassionate, voice you can banish the power of the inner critic.

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is a psychological approach that enables you to tune in to when you (or others) are in distress and to recognise that suffering is simply a part of being human. Adopting this mindset also enables you to do something constructive to ease the suffering – for instance, offering practical support or simply listening ­without judgment.

Most people find receiving compassion makes them feel understood, less alone, more able to think clearly about problem-­solving and to keep trying. ­Compassionate support shifts our nervous system out of survival mode and into a state of safety.

You can learn to be your own compassion coach, using this simple tool we’ve developed for everyday use: whenever you’re facing a challenge, remember NAK – three simple steps to help shift from criticism to compassion…

N: Notice the suffering, e.g. ‘I’m really struggling. This is difficult.’

A: Acknowledge our shared humanity. Tell yourself: ‘Setbacks are a part of any change process. I am not alone in this.’

K: Kindness in action. Ask yourself: ‘What do I need right now? How can I support myself?’

Think of it as giving yourself a gentle NAK (nudge) in the right direction rather than a harsh knock down. Practise catching the poisoned parrot and consciously replacing its messages. For instance, instead of: ‘I have no willpower,’ try, ‘I’m learning new skills which takes practice.’ Glitches are normal – and if you are taking GLP-1 medications you are likely to hit a plateau for a while. Remember that medication is a tool not a magic solution.

3. Build healthy habits

Lasting change requires building sustainable patterns around eating, movement and self-care that will support you long after you have stopped taking GLP-1s or strictly following a diet.

The good news is that building healthy habits is easier once you make a major life change, such as taking weight-loss medication, creating what psychologists term a ‘fresh start effect’.

Understanding your habits, by compiling an inventory, is the first step to building new ones.

Start by noting daily habits around food – what do you automatically reach for when stressed? Which foods do you eat when distracted (e.g. watching TV, or on your phone)? What time-based eating patterns do you follow regardless of hunger?

Now write down your daily movement habits – what do you automatically do when you have ten free minutes? How do you ­typically spend your evenings after work? How do you get around for daily tasks (driving or walking, lifts or stairs)?

Finally, list your self-care habits – how do you typically unwind after a hard day? How do you celebrate good news or achievements? What’s your go-to comfort activity when things go wrong?

Reflect on which of these supports your health goals and which are holding you back. Understanding how your habits developed and how they contribute to your weight and why previous attempts to change them have failed will help you build a new framework. Research suggests it takes an average of 66 days to build a new habit – but it can take nearly three times as long, depending on how complex the behaviour is and how often the new habit is repeated.

Many people make the mistake of trying to change everything at once, but small, simple and consistent changes are more effective. You are more likely to stick to a daily walk of ten minutes than a 45-minute workout. Add one ­vegetable at a time to your meals or drink an extra glass of water when you get up in the morning, rather than anything more ambitious. Such changes may feel insignificant but they are building the ­neurological pathways that make behaviour patterns feel natural.

Your action plan

Now it’s time to create your ­personalised road map. Choose one new healthy habit – but resist the urge to pick something ­dramatic. Here are some ideas that many of my patients use.

Food: Drinking water first thing in the morning; eating without distractions once a day; including all food groups in meals.

Movement: Taking stairs instead of lifts; parking further away; doing calf raises while brushing your teeth; taking a two-minute walk every hour.

Self-care: Getting adequate sleep; spending five minutes ­outdoors daily; regularly catching up with a friend; trying a stress management technique.

Troubleshooting

Setbacks happen, but it’s what you do next that counts.

Reflect on what went wrong so you can learn from it and adjust your behaviour next time. Did you have the capability or skills? Did your environment make things too ­difficult? Did a lack of time or resources get in the way? Or maybe the habit was too big and overwhelming?

Keeping up good work

Successful weight maintainers don’t rely on willpower, which is exhausting and runs out. Instead, they fall back on systems and routines that make healthy choices as automatic as brushing your teeth in the morning.

This is why this programme focuses on creating and building healthy behaviours that become so embedded they happen without constant decision-making.

One effective way to reinforce healthy patterns is ‘habit stacking.’ Instead of trying to remember a new behaviour randomly, you link it to something else you already do. It is also easier to remember if it’s pegged to a set time. For example: ‘After I brush my teeth, I do five squats.’

The morning is a good time for this kind of routine. For instance: ‘After I wake up, I drink the glass of water by my bed. After I drink water, I take the vitamins next to the kettle while it’s ­boiling. After the vitamins, I eat the overnight oats I prepped last night.’

Another good habit is to start preparing tonight for what lies ahead tomorrow. So preparing tomorrow’s lunch before you go to bed, completing your food diary and looking at any potential ­challenges the next day may hold – e.g. travelling or a change of your normal routine.

• Adapted from The Weight Loss Prescription, by Dr Max Pemberton and Dr Courtney Raspin ­(Thorsons, £16.99), to be published February 26. © Max Pemberton and Courtney Raspin 2026. To order a copy for £15.29 (offer valid to 07/03/26; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.