Liever Nederlands? · Lieber auf Deutsch? Hi__NAAM__, I get the same question again and again: "Tanja, I'm already eating so little, so why am I still not losing weight?" And it's that question that sends people looking for something else, until they end up at medically supported weight loss. That search almost always comes from the same feeling: I don't understand my own body any more. And I get that completely. Especially when stress or hormonal swings come on top, it can all get to be too much. It feels unfair, too. Why can one person eat and drink whatever they like and stay slim, while it just doesn't work for you? And once you start looking into it online, that's when you really get buried. At that point a jab suddenly looks a lot simpler. The side effects are still far away, and sometimes that's simply a price you're willing to pay to fit your size again at last. But what if I told you there's nothing mysterious about it? That your body is doing exactly what it was built to do? If you're eating very little and still not losing weight, that isn't a fault. That's a body surviving. Give it too few nutrients for long enough and it shifts into survival mode. You make more stress hormone, and that holds fat around your middle. Exactly where you don't want it. And let's be honest: after two or three weeks of eating too little, you're the one standing at the fridge in the evening, and in goes all sorts of things you never meant to eat, simply because you've lost your grip on it. And because your body is running on low power by then, it hits all the harder. That's why diets don't work for most people. When it can be almost simple: Seven things you can do yourself - Eat a little less and move a little more, both of them just a bit. Two small changes are far easier on your body than one big one, and together they add up to the same result.
- Sitting a lot? Set an alarm every 30 minutes and get up for two minutes to move. After an hour of sitting, the activity of your fat-burning enzyme drops by around 90 per cent. At eight hours of sitting a day, that alone can be behind those extra kilos. Move it!
- Strength training twice a week for your big muscle groups. More is fine too. Muscles burn energy even at rest and pull sugar out of your blood more easily. That makes them your best helpers when you want to lose weight healthily.
- Aim for 25 to 40 grams of protein a meal. Digesting protein takes your body more energy than fat or carbs does, and it keeps you full for longer.
- Walk for ten minutes after you eat. After which meal? After every one, if you ask me. Your muscles pull the sugar straight out of your blood, with no extra insulin needed. This is the easiest one on the whole list.
- Sleep. After a short night your hunger hormone (ghrelin) goes up and your satiety hormone (leptin) goes down. So the next day you're hungrier and slower to feel full, while you're busy thinking it's down to your willpower. And you still reckon sleeping is doing nothing? Quite the opposite: while you sleep, body and mind repair themselves and you build muscle (provided you train it regularly, of course).
- Feed your gut with fibre. That switches on the same substance* as those weight-loss jabs do. More on that below!
Just so we're clear: this isn't a menu to pick from. Every step counts. Do all of them and you can expect a result.  *That substance is called GLP-1 Your gut bacteria ferment fibre into short-chain fatty acids, and those prompt your gut to make GLP-1. That's the satiety hormone the well-known injections act on. Your body makes it itself, every day, and how much depends partly on what you feed those bacteria. And that's where the problem sits. Most people eat around 20 grams of fibre a day, when you want to be heading for 40 grams to get the satiety effect you're after. So this isn't a matter of an extra spoonful of brown rice with dinner. You have to go at this properly. And you can get help with that. One kind of fibre works especially well here: starch your small intestine can't digest, which therefore arrives in your large intestine intact. You make it yourself, by cooking potatoes, rice or sweet potato and then letting them cool overnight. But there's more! And it's easy (Phew, yes, really!). That's what the training is about. Free training: The GOOD. Reset You can learn this, in five days. And because I get this question so often, and because this isn't just my job but my passion and my mission, I'm giving it to you. Yes, really, a gift 💝 You can sign up here. The first step lands in your inbox straight away.  | ONE EMAIL EVERY MORNING The GOOD. Reset, 5 days One switch from your own metabolism each morning, with a PDF that shows you what you’re doing and why it works. Fibre, muscle, rest, sleep, and on day 5 your whole week on one sheet. Free. |
Let's go! Tanja PS Already using a weight-loss medicine, or talking it through with your doctor? Everything above holds just the same. What you build alongside it decides how much muscle you keep, and what's still standing on the day you stop. The studies on resistant starch and visceral fat: Ni et al., Cell Metabolism, 2023 · Long et al., Cell Metabolism, 2025 · Li et al., Nature Metabolism, 2024 · Zhang et al., Scientific Reports, 2019 · Peterson et al., American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2018 · Johnston et al., Diabetic Medicine, 2010 |