“What is the Best Way to Lose Weight?” Dietitian Advice

Wondering what the best way to lose weight is? We get this question a lot!

If you’re wondering about the best way to lose weight, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common questions we hear at our nutrition counselling and dietitian office.

The good news? After helping people for over 25 years, we’ve learned that lasting change isn’t about another diet or chasing perfection. It’s about building realistic habits that support your health, your personal best weight, and a healthy relationship with food.

Clients often come to us with comments and questions like this:

• “I’d like to lose X pounds by X date, can you help?”
• “I’ve tried to lose weight for years but each year it gets higher and higher, what can I do?”
• “I’ve followed a long list of diets and now I’m heavier than ever, is there anything that works?”

Our response may surprise you: you may or may not lose weight working with us. While nutrition and movement certainly matter, they’re only part of the picture. Your weight is also influenced by genetics, family history, age, medications, sleep, stress, and medical conditions.

Rather than chasing another diet, our approach is to help our clients maximize their results and move to their personal best weight but through a non-dieting, non-extreme eating approach. We want to ensure you achieve good health and have enough fun and flexibility built into your eating plan to live a good life.

We believe healthy eating should help you enjoy your life, not take it over. That’s why we focus on sustainable habits instead of food rules or quick fixes.

WATCH my interview on Global Morning News here:

So where do you begin? Having worked with many clients over the years that reach out with the goal to lose weight, here are 3 strategies I think are very helpful to get you going:

3 Tips to Help You Achieve Your Best Weight Healthfully

#1 Stop Counting Numbers, Instead Focus on Habits

You don’t need to count calories or step on a scale daily to weigh yourself

While having a rough idea how many calories you need per day may be helpful, you don’t need to track every morsel of food in an app in order to achieve your personal best weight. Tracking numbers can become obsessive and make you feel like you have failed or trigger bingeing if you ate more than you were allocated. Healthy eating shouldn’t feel like a full-time job. We want nutrition to support your life, not become your life.

The same goes for the scale. Our weight naturally fluctuates on a wide variety of reasons so weighing yourself daily isn’t a good gauge as to how you are doing with your nutrition today. Following your overall weight trend is far better than fixating on a daily weight.

Instead track your habits

Track how much water or alcohol you are drinking. Track your progress on ensuring you are not skipping meals. Track how many vegetable servings you are eating per day. Track when you will shop and your meal planning ideas for the week.  Repeating healthy habits week after week will help you move towards your personal best weight far more effectively than focusing on numbers.

For a list of nutrition apps that don’t track calories that can improve your overall nutrition habits check out my recent blog post here: Top Nutrition Apps (that don’t track calories).

Remember, the goal isn’t perfect eating, it’s creating habits that make healthy choices feel simpler and leave more room to enjoy life.

#2 Time Block Meal Prep

You may not want to spend time in the kitchen but achieving your personal best weight depends on it

If you really don’t enjoy cooking you may be hoping there is a way to totally eliminate all meal prep to instead go with convenience solutions.  While there are certainly time saving strategies we teach our clients every day in our in-person / Online Nutritionist practice, eating well does take time and effort.  

Use the 5 minute time block solution

Constantly feeling stressed by meal planning? Grabbing too many convenience foods?  Tossing out fruits and veggies from your refrigerator that just didn’t get prepared?

We’ve found that most people don’t need more willpower, they just need a better system. You don’t need to be a professional planner or devote your entire Sunday to meal prep for the week, but it’s important to be intentional about time blocking meal prep.

Start by spending 5 minutes once per week to time block your calendar for mapping out your grocery shopping and meal prep. Most people need at least 30 minutes each day at supper or longer periods on the weekend blocked off to prepare and cook food.  Many people underestimate how long it takes to acquire, prepare and cook.  If it’s not on the calendar you will likely find it hard to fit in.

Think of meal prep as a gift to your future self. A little planning and prioritization now means less stress and more enjoyable meals later.

nn#3 Make Veggies Awesome & Abundant

The vast majority of our clients struggling with their weight could benefit from increasing the number of vegetables they eat each day. While most people know this, knowledge often does not lead to action.  Some of the barriers include simply not understanding how to cook vegetables in a way that tastes good and adding enough variety throughout the day to hit your target. 

Let the vegetables drive dinner

When you are meal planning start with the veggies first for a little more love and attention.  Build your repertoire of tasty recipes and cooking methods so you will actually want to eat veggies.  Start with these two simple tips:

Learn how to roast and season veggies (my favourite way to eat just about any veggie).

Learn how to make homemade vinaigrettes so your salads are satisfying and enjoyable – Watch this video on how to make a vinaigrette in under 1 minute.

Use my “2 by 2” rule for veggies

To make the goal to eat more vegetables more actionable, use my “2 by 2 rule” which simply states “eat two different vegetables, twice per day.”

Give yourself more than one opportunity each day to eat vegetables. You likely won’t eat enough if you only have them at supper. Add raw veggies and dip, salad or vegetable soup as a daily snack or as part of lunch. At supper, instead of only having a cooked vegetable or a salad, focus on having both. As an adult, aim to have half of your supper plate full of vegetables. In order to do this, go for steamed, grilled, roasted vegetables as well as a few raw veggies or a salad.

Healthy eating shouldn’t feel like punishment. The more delicious your vegetables are, the more likely you’ll actually look forward to eating them.

Wondering “What is the best weight loss diet?”

The best weight loss diet is the one you can live with for life.

If you can’t see yourself following a diet plan or meal plan you are looking at in a book or online weight loss program FOREVER, long term weight change is unlikely to be sustainable. The idea you can restrict now, and then return to having a life later just won’t work to sustain weight change. This is the most common reason weight will yo-yo up or down.

This may sound obvious but having worked with individuals who are trying to lose weight for close to two decades, I am often astounded by how frequently people will choose a crash diet to lose weight fast. The results are always the same though. There is initial weight loss but soon enough they find themselves back at their old weight or even heavier than where they were before. The most difficult part of the yo-yo cycle is the psychological damage it causes with feelings of failure, body dissatisfaction and worsening food relationships. I suggest you check out this article on the dangers of dieting on physical and mental health.

Ask yourself, what can I actually enjoy versus tolerate?

• If you do not enjoy legumes and prefer meat, then a strict vegetarian pattern may not be the best fit.
• If you are a carb lover and want to support sustainability efforts for the planet then a Paleo or keto plan certainly isn’t your best bet.
• If you have a chronic dieting or eating disorder history a system that meticulously has you tracking points or numbers in your phone will often increase obsessive thinking and steal the joy away from a healthy food and body relationship.

The best eating pattern is one that fits your real life, not someone else’s.

Instead of chasing another diet, shift your focus to building a way of eating you genuinely enjoy. Healthy eating should give you more freedom, not more food rules. When you create habits that nourish both your body and your soul, you’re far more likely to support your personal best weight—and enjoy the journey along the way.

Ready to work towards your personal best weight—without food guilt or another diet?

If you’ve been stuck in the cycle of losing and regaining weight, feeling frustrated by food, or wondering what actually works, you’re not alone. Our Registered Dietitians specializing in weight concerns are here to help you build a realistic, sustainable approach that fits your life.

Together, we’ll help you improve your eating habits, strengthen your relationship with food, and move towards your personal best weight with compassionate, evidence-based guidance—no extreme diets, calorie obsession, or food guilt required.

Book a complimentary discovery call below to learn how we can support your goals.

Have employee or extended health benefits? Many insurance plans cover Registered Dietitian services.