No, My Goal Isn’t to Lose Weight
In my 20s exercise was about changing how I looked. In my 40s it’s about building healthy habits that support my long-term health and energy, for the next 40 years.
"Is your goal to lose weight?" he asked, like it was a formality. I’m overweight, therefore obviously that must be my reason for being in the gym.
Like many people, my wellness journey began with weight gain, thanks to a perfect storm of physical inactivity, working from home during Covid, and my thyroid deciding to throw in the towel. At that point, most of my daily nutrition was sponsored by coffee and sweeties , not exactly the makings of a bestselling wellness memoir.
When I say, I’d put on a lot of weight, I’m talking over 25% of my body mass and then some. When I passed the 25% mark, I stopped weighing myself. The scale and I agreed to stop speaking. It was better for both of us.
Four years on, I’m still “working on losing the weight”, but mostly because it’s not my primary focus, it’s not the reason I go to the gym, and it doesn’t drive my decision making on a day-to-day basis.
If it did, I would probably have lost a lot of that weight by now. But, let’s be honest: I really enjoy cake.
If I’d made weight loss my sole focus, I know exactly how that plotline goes. I’d have chased rapid results, tried some punishing calorie-slashing plan, dropped pounds fast, and watched it all come back the moment real life got in the way again.
Because when weight loss becomes the only goal, the next question becomes: how fast can I lose it? Cue the never-ending parade of detoxes, intermittent fasting evangelists, and meal replacements that taste like despair.
This is the trap of most rapid weight loss approaches: they don’t address the real issue, the habits, stresses, and suboptimal routines that led to putting the weight on in the first place.
Without addressing the habits and routines that built the weight gain in the first place, weight loss becomes fragile, stressful, and temporary.
I didn’t want temporary. I wanted sustainable weight loss, and more importantly, long-term health.
What I Actually Want from My Body (And It’s Not Just a Smaller Jeans Size)
What’s more important to me is
Feeling better in my body.
Having more energy for the things that matter to me.
A routine I can sustain over the long term.
So, I smiled at the nice Personal Trainer and said “No, weight loss is not my goal, in fact it’s really quite low on the list of priorities.”
What I actually want isn’t to hit some magic number on the scale. I’m not chasing a smaller version of me (although it would be nice to get into the jeans currently relegated to the aspirational section of the wardrobe).
I want to build a strong foundation of healthier habits that will hopefully allow me to live the life I want for the next 40 years and more.
That strong foundation isn’t a radical diet plan or 30 day fitness challenge. Because I’ll be honest with you, it wasn’t just cakes and biscuits that led me to putting on this weight.
It was a whole combination of factors that include, physical inactivity, sleep and stress, as well as diet and nutrition.
Yes, Weight Matters. But It’s Not the Whole Story.
Let’s be clear: body weight does matter. It’s not irrelevant, and I’m not pretending otherwise. The research is very clear that body weight , and specifically, body fat distribution , plays a role in long-term health.
Waist size, BMI, visceral fat , these are all risk markers for things like cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and other metabolic issues. They’re not the only markers, but they are part of the picture.
Instead of trying to force the number on the scale, I’m concentrating on building the behaviours that will eventually get me to that optimal weight anyway. It just might take a little longer, because re-shaping my suboptimal habits it is taking a bit of time.
Trying to re-shape habits that are deeply entrenched after 30 years of repetition are hard. I do better some weeks than others.
So no, weight loss isn’t my main objective. If the jeans in the aspirational corner of my wardrobe eventually fit again, wonderful. If not, well, they’ll continue their dignified career as shelf ornaments.
The Habit Loop: Why Changing my Habits is Taking Time
Like most people, my routines and bad habits were simply running in the background, small choices made once, repeated automatically.
When I started working from home, it wasn’t like I made one big decision to move less or eat differently. The shifts were quiet. Almost invisible.
Every time I stayed at my desk through lunch because there wasn’t a natural break. Every time I grabbed something easy from the fridge instead of cooking a proper meal. Every time I reached for coffee and a sweet to get me through the next Zoom call.
None of these felt like decisions in the moment, they were just part of the work-from-home rhythm I fell into. Little habits that stacked up quietly, until they weren’t so little anymore.
That’s the power, and the challenge, of habits. Once they’re embedded, they run on autopilot.
Habits free up mental bandwidth. But once they’re entrenched, they’re sneaky little tyrants. Charles Duhigg calls this the Habit Loop: Cue → Routine → Reward.
Cue: Stress.
Routine: Grab chocolate.
Reward: Momentary comfort. (Repeat until trousers no longer fit.)
The more times you repeat the loop, the more deeply ingrained it becomes. Changing those habits isn’t about willpower or grand declarations. It’s about rewiring the loops, one tiny change at a time.
That’s why making sustainable behaviour change isn’t about willpower or big dramatic shifts. It’s about noticing the loops, and intentionally rewiring them.
I started attaching physical activity to the existing routines in my day:
Walk at lunchtime, no matter the weather.
Heel raises while waiting for the kettle.
Glass of water instead of instant sugar fix (sometimes).
The beauty of micro habits is simple: too small to fail, too easy to skip excuses, and surprisingly effective once they start stacking.
Because when you're reshaping habits that have been quietly running for decades, it’s not about doing everything at once, it’s about noticing the cues, making small adjustments to the routine, and checking in with yourself to see whether the new version still helps you move toward the life you want to build.
Stacking the Small Wins: How Micro-Habits Became My Foundation
When I first started building healthy habits into my work-from-home day, I wasn’t trying to overhaul my entire routine. I was just trying to feel a little better. To not end every workday completely drained. To have a bit more energy so I didn’t need a nap in front of the TV every evening.
What worked for me was stacking small, consistent actions , micro-habits that felt too easy to fail.
Five minutes of stretching between meetings.
A walk during lunch.
Filling my water bottle while the kettle boiled.
Taking voice-only phone calls so I could pace while talking.
Periodically standing up during long conference calls.
Individually, none of these feel impressive. They don’t make for inspirational Instagram posts. But collectively? They’ve shifted how I feel in my body, how much energy I have, and how resilient I am when life gets busy (which, let’s be honest, is most of the time).
Micro habits for weight loss work because they build momentum. Each small win makes the next one easier. They slot into your day without requiring radical scheduling changes or bursts of motivation you may not have. And over time, they quietly reshape your defaults.
Instead of trying to “find time” for exercise, using the Active Break Framework I’ve developed a way to build movement into the flow of my day. Movement has become part of how I work, how I reset, how I care for myself, not something extra I have to chase after everything else is done.
And slowly, those tiny shifts have become the new foundation I’m building my long-term health on.
The Active Break Framework: From Academic Project to Daily Practice
The Active Break Framework didn’t start as a personal wellness experiment , it began as an intervention I designed during my MSc in Dance Science. Back then, I was studying how to reduce sedentary behaviour in office workers by using short, intentional movement breaks throughout the workday.
The science is clear: prolonged sitting negatively impacts both metabolic health and cognitive performance. But even short movement breaks throughout the workday, 5 minutes at a time, can make a real difference.
At the time, I approached it academically , developing the structure, studying the behavioural models, and designing the protocols. But it wasn’t until working from home during Covid, that I became my own case study.
I was living through the same problem I’d researched. Long hours at my desk, minimal movement, shrinking energy levels, and creeping fatigue. I realised I needed to apply my own work to my own life , and start using Active Breaks as part of my everyday life.
The framework gave me a simple, sustainable way to disrupt the routine habits that kept me sitting and rebuild my energy across the workday. Rather than waiting for a big block of free time (which never arrived), I took advantage of structural opportunities of the workday to add movement and physical activity.
Over time, those tiny adjustments have made a real difference: physically, mentally, emotionally.
The Framework in Action: What Active Breaks Look Like Now
These days, the Active Break Framework isn’t just a theory I designed for a university assignment , it’s part of how I move through my actual day. And the beauty of it is: it’s not complicated. In fact, that’s the whole point.
I don’t have a rigid schedule of workouts or some perfectly optimised wellness routine. What I do have is a series of short movement activities that I use to break up any prolonged sitting. These Active Breaks fit into the natural rhythm of my workday.
A typical day might include:
Lunchtime walks (yes, even when it's raining sideways).
Resistance band repetitions when I feel my stress levels creeping up. (A hundred reps does a surprisingly good job of clearing mental fog.)
Household chores , yes, they absolutely count.
Standing every hour, even if it’s just for water or pacing like a caffeinated meerkat.
These breaks aren’t glamorous. They won’t earn me a fitness influencer sponsorship. But they keep me moving, keep me sane, and keep my body feeling less like it’s fossilising into my office chair.
Most importantly: I rarely sit for more than an hour without some kind of movement. I’ve become much better at listening to the signals my body sends, the creeping tension in my neck, the restlessness in my legs, or the drop in focus that tells me: time to move.
And there’s solid science behind why these micro-breaks work. Short bouts of physical activity:
Improve circulation, delivering more oxygen and nutrients to the brain and muscles.
Support metabolic health, helping regulate blood glucose and insulin levels.
Reduce mental fatigue and improve focus.
Provide relief for your back. Sitting puts 40-90% more pressure on your lower back than standing.
None of these changes are dramatic on their own. But collectively, they’ve completely shifted how I feel at the end of the workday. I’m less drained. Less irritable. More able to stay focused throughout the day , and better able to enjoy my evenings without needing recovery time from simply having sat too long.
In short: moving more and sitting less.
The Long Game: Sustainable Change and Self-Compassion
A few years ago, if the personal trainer had asked me “Is your goal to lose weight?” I might have said yes. Back then, it would have felt like the obvious (and only) answer. But these days, my wellbeing is about the bigger goal of feeling stronger in my body and able to do all the things I want to do.
What I want is:
Energy for dance, work, and life.
Strength to carry heavy bags without tactical rest stops.
Physical capacity to age well without becoming a cautionary tale for future generations.
The weight? It’s quietly shifting anyway, as a side effect. Because the foundation underneath it is finally starting to look a little different.
And that’s been the real shift: my wellbeing no longer hangs on big, unsustainable bursts of motivation. It’s anchored in a thousand tiny adjustments, active breaks, small walks, better sleep, more water, and yes, even the occasional gym session, that, together, allow me to show up for my life with more energy, more resilience, and more ease.
And by focussing on building healthy habits and wellbeing instead of chasing the scale, my weight is gradually sorting itself out anyway, but as a side effect, not the central goal.
So, although my weight still fluctuates, the swings are smaller. The overall trend is (slowly) downward, not because I’m chasing it, but because I’m building a different kind of foundation underneath it.
Ready to be more active?
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You’ll learn the tools, strategies, and mindset shifts needed to build lasting habits in just 5 minutes at a time.
Perfect if: you want to a quick way to start making a change today.
