Diet and exercise operate in combination to ensure you lose weight, each enhancing the other when it comes to losing body fat without shedding too much metabolism-boosting muscle mass. What — and when — you eat matters, not just in terms of calories consumed but because adhering to a more nutritious eating plan and including important staples in your diet can help you to live a longer and healthier life.
There is now convincing evidence that consuming more plant-based foods is helpful not just for weight loss — it also has the potential to boost your health. A higher intake of fibre, which comes naturally when you consume more fruits, vegetables, wholegrains and pulses, means a flourishing microbiome; in turn, a healthy gut will leave you less prone to digestion problems, viruses and infections. If you are following our exercise plan and gradually increasing the amount of resistance training and other activity in your week, you will benefit from focusing on getting good quality protein-rich foods in your meals.
Cutting down on alcohol, sugar and foods that are ultra-processed and salty — all of which will hamper your weight loss and your health — is essential, but the good news is that you will feel so energised from the healthier foods that you won’t miss them at all.
How quickly you lose weight depends on multiple factors, including age, genetics, activity and stress levels. “There is no one size fits all but what we do know from current research is that sustained adherence to a diet — that is, choosing an approach you can stick to for life — is the most effective way to shed body fat for good,” says the registered nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert, author of The Science of Nutrition. “Losing up to two pounds a week is an achievable aim with our nutrition and exercise plan, and that is a rate that allows your body muscles to adapt and is more sustainable in the long run.”
Ultimately, Lambert says, the key to long-term weight loss is to find a way of eating healthily that works for you. Here are the guidelines to getting leaner, stronger and healthier for life — no Ozempic required.
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How to lose weight and keep it off in 2025
1. Pick a diet window
Some people need to eat breakfast while others don’t — but whether you prefer to eat your first meal of the day at 7am or 11am is less important than sticking to a regular routine. “Your unique internal body clock controls your natural preference for meal times or your daily diet window and we know that people who stick to these tend to eat 300 fewer calories overall each day,” says the sports nutritionist Rob Hobson. “Try checking in with your hunger cues to determine the breakfast, lunch and dinner times that work for you.”
It is a good idea to front-load your calories so that you eat your largest meal of the day first. “Avoid having a heavy meal in the evening or eating too late,” Hobson says. Your body needs time to digest and assimilate food and any carbohydrates you consume are more likely to turn to lipids and be stored as fat if you eat late at night. “Allowing yourself an overnight fast means your gut microbes, which follow a circadian rhythm, have a break from digesting food,” Hobson says.
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2. Increase your protein intake
UK guidelines suggest that we need about 0.75g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight daily. That’s about 54g for the average woman or 64g for men, which looks like two palm-sized portions of meat, fish, nuts or tofu per day. As we age, our body’s ability to digest and utilise protein reduces. That means we probably need proportionately more of it in our diets to get the same benefits, particularly if strength and resistance exercise is increased. “Most studies suggest we need a slightly higher intake than health chiefs currently recommend,” says Jonathan Folland, professor of neuromuscular performance at Loughborough University. “Most of us do not need ultra-processed protein powders and supplements, and it is much better to get quality protein from food sources.”
A team from University College Dublin reported in Age and Ageing, the journal of the British Geriatrics Society, that increasing daily protein intake to 1.2g per kilogram of bodyweight (70-80g) is needed alongside resistance training to ward off the muscle loss that comes with ageing. It works: a review of 49 studies in the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that midlifers who ate more protein while doing resistance or weight training developed larger and stronger muscles than those whose intake was low.
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3. Eat plant-based protein
Foods that contain all essential amino acids are known as complete proteins, but they’re not just dairy and animal products. “Animal sources such as dairy foods are mostly complete proteins but quinoa, soya, chia seeds and mycoprotein (Quorn) also fall into that category,” Lambert says. Other plant foods, while “incomplete” protein sources, do contain some of the proteins we need on a daily basis. “Pack in the pulses, nuts and seeds, and get as great a variety of good quality protein in your diet as you can,” Lambert says. A recent study from the University of Exeter, published in the Journal of Nutrition, found that vegan diets can support muscle growth during resistance training in the same way as diets containing dairy and meat.
4. Get your daily quota of fibre
Most of us consume just two thirds of the recommended daily 30g intake of fibre. Getting enough of this important nutrient in our diet helps to keep the colon healthy, aiding digestion, and according to the NHS is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer. Scientists at Imperial College London also showed that high fibre intakes are associated with stronger muscles and that it can help with weight loss.
Researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden switched the diets of mice from high in fibre to typically Western-style low-fibre foods “with a lot of fat, a lot of sugar and 20 per cent protein”. Within several weeks their blood-sugar levels spiked and they began to lay down more body fat, findings that the authors said are “translatable to humans”. Fibre also helps to regulate appetite and satiety. “The bulking effects of fibre in the colon can help to make you feel full,” Hobson says. “Eat plenty of vegetables, wholegrains, beans, nuts and seeds to get your fibre quota.”
5. Eat lots of gut-friendly foods
“Our gut microbes play a role in helping us to maintain a healthy weight,” Lambert says. “Exactly how this works is not entirely clear, but we do know that changing the balance of your gut microbiome to include more beneficial than bad bacteria might be helpful with weight loss.” Research by French scientists has shown that a diverse gut microbiome is also important for healthy muscle function and metabolism. So what should we include to enhance gut health? Fermented foods containing live probiotic bacteria such as yoghurt, kefir and sauerkraut are important, but so are specific fibre-rich foods such as leeks, garlic, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, oats and wholegrains, all of which contain prebiotic substances that act as a source of fuel for “good” gut bugs. Researchers reporting in the BMJ Open found that a daily serving of kimchi, a Korean dish made from fermented vegetables, cut the risk of obesity in midlifers by 11 per cent.
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6. Take a vitamin D supplement
Vitamin D helps to regulate the body’s levels of calcium and phosphate, minerals needed to keep bones, teeth and muscles healthy. Most of us get enough vitamin D from sunlight between April and September but health chiefs recommend a 10mcg supplement during the winter when our bodies don’t produce enough.
According to government figures about one in six adults in the UK have low vitamin D levels, with figures even higher among the elderly and people from black and south Asian communities. Food sources include oily fish and egg yolks but it might be worthwhile taking a supplement all year round from midlife onwards. Studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency is associated with decreased muscle size and function as we age. “There is evidence that vitamin D deficiency can have a negative impact on muscle strength as well as on bone density,” Folland says. “It’s important that we get enough of it.”
7. Alternate soft drinks with alcohol
It’s not just the considerable number of calories in alcohol that will hamper your attempts to get strong and lean. One study of almost 200,000 people aged between 37 and 73 found that they had lower amounts of muscle mass the more that they drank. Even men who consumed a single unit of alcohol per day day (slightly less than a small glass of wine) and women who consumed just under two units (a pint of lager) had less muscle than non-drinkers. Heavy drinkers had 4-5 per cent less muscle than those who did not drink at all.
The researchers suggested that “if you are in your fifties and sixties, avoiding excess alcohol consumption may also help you to avoid losing too much muscle mass as you get older”. Hobson says that, when trying to lose weight, keeping intake to a minimum — and staying well below the 14-unit upper limit recommended for good health — is beneficial. “Try to have a few alcohol-free days each week,” he says. “And on those nights [when you consume alcohol] try to alternate with soft drinks so that your intake is limited to just a few units.”
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8. Eat less sugar
Sugar found naturally in whole fruit and vegetables is fine to consume in a healthy diet as it comes accompanied with fibre and essential nutrients. It is what nutritionists term “free sugars”, the type that are added to food in the form of honey, table sugar, syrups, fruit juice, molasses, fructose, glucose and fruit juice, that we should reducing. The World Health Organisation recommends no more than 5 per cent of total calories from free sugars, and the NHS states that adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars (about seven sugar cubes) a day.
“Sugars provide four calories per gram, which can soon rack up without you realising it when you consider a flavoured yoghurt provides about 11.5g of free sugars per individual pot and a slice of cake 21g,” Lambert says. Excess intakes will be stored as unsightly body fat, with researchers from the University of Minnesota warning that too much sugar leads to larger fat deposits around the heart and belly, which raises the risk of metabolic and cardiovascular disease. High sugar intake has also been linked to intermuscular fat, a type stored inside muscle fibres, which is associated with reduced muscle function and a raised risk of disease. “It’s not good for your waistline or for your health,” Lambert says.
9. Avoid ultra-processed foods
Ready meals, refined foods and processed snacks really need to go. “The more UPFs you eat, the more calories you consume alongside sugar, fat and salt and the less fibre and beneficial nutrients you take in,” Hobson says. “Food processing affects satiety signalling and the speed at which food is digested, and there are strong links with obesity and its related conditions.” It can hamper your fitness gains too. In one study of 10,255 adults aged 20 to 59 published in Frontiers in Nutrition, midlifers with the highest UPF intake were at a 60 per cent increased risk of low muscle mass compared with those who ate the least processed food.
10. Eat less than 6g of salt per day
Salt itself won’t lead to increases in body fat but since the saltiest foods are often most appetising and calorific, a high intake is indirectly linked to weight gain. “About 74 per cent of the salt in our diet is present in UPFs, such as snacks and ready meals,” Lambert says. “Even biscuits, cakes and tinned soups and vegetables can contain pretty high levels of salt.” High intakes can lead to high blood pressure, a major risk factor for stroke and cardiovascular disease, which is why it is recommended we reduce our daily consumption from 8.1 grams of salt a day to less than 6 grams daily.
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11. Increase your intake of red peppers, berries and oranges
According to the NHS, adults in the UK need 40mg of vitamin C a day and, as it cannot be stored in the body, a regular supply is required. Good sources include leafy greens, dark berries, citrus fruits and vegetables. “Yellow, green and brightly coloured plant foods tend to be rich sources of vitamin C, which helps to protect the body’s cells, support immune function and maintain healthy skin and bones,” Lambert says. For the over-50s, it plays a key role in preserving muscle health, according to researchers at the University of East Anglia’s Norwich Medical School, who showed that the vitamin helps to protect cells and tissues from harmful free radical substances that contribute to the loss of muscle mass. In a study of 13,000 people who were middle-aged and older, those with the highest amounts of vitamin C in their diet also had the strongest and healthiest muscles, compared with those with the lowest amounts.
12. Make sure you take on enough fluids
Hydration is overlooked in the weight-loss game, yet thirst is often mistaken for hunger, which results in unnecessary extra calories being consumed. Dehydration has severe consequences for health. Researchers in the journal Nutrients explain that it can have “severe consequences for the intracellular protein structure”, which ultimately results in cell damage and can affect muscle strength and brain function. “Fluids help with so many of the body’s functions, including digestion,” Hobson says. “Rather than just consuming lots more water, my tip is to add more fluid-rich foods such as salads, stews and soups to your diet, as the high water content means the meals are less calorie-dense than many but also trick the brain into thinking you are fuller sooner so that you eat less overall.”
