Eating less but not losing weight: what your body is doing.

Coffee at seven, then meetings until two. Lunch at half twelve turns into a packet of rice cakes at your screen. In the evening, a plate of vegetables, because you're being good. On Monday the scales show the same number as a month ago.

Most people reach the same conclusion: I need to eat even less. I see it often in the people I work with. But your body does its sums differently, and the more you cut, the harder it defends itself.

The signs before the scales

• You're cold and low on energy. Your body has turned itself down, like a house with the heating off.
• You move less without choosing to. You take the lift, make calls sitting down, rest longer between sets.
• Hunger arrives all at once. Nothing all day, then at eight you could empty the fridge.

Why your weight stalls

What would you do if your pay was cut? Spend less. Your body does the same. When income drops suddenly and stays low, it assumes hard times and cuts its outgoings.

It spends less across the board. Thyroid hormones fall, and they set how much you burn at rest. You move less through the day. And you burn less digesting food. So the amount that made you lose weight at first now just keeps you there.

A skipped meal raises cortisol. To keep your blood sugar steady without food, your body makes more stress hormone, which over time sends fat to your middle. A planned fast is different. I mean the lunch that vanished for lack of time.

You eat more than you remember. The fullness hormone drops, the hunger hormone rises, and in the evening you catch up without noticing: the extra oil, the slice of cake. People with over twenty diets behind them burned at most 15% less than expected. Yet they reported eating half of what they really ate.

Where to restart

With the opposite message: there is food, it comes on time, you can spend again.

Three balanced meals, same time. Breakfast, lunch and dinner at similar times, always with protein; at lunch and dinner, vegetables and a normal portion of carbs. Your body sets its hormones by when you eat, and regular meals improve blood sugar and insulin.

Build back up gradually. Put one thing back at a time: breakfast this week, lunch the next. Going straight back to how you ate before puts weight on fast.

Hold your steps steady. Check on your phone how many you do in a normal week, and don't drop below that. If you're short by evening, walk after dinner.

Write down what you eat. For three or four days, everything you eat and drink, with the time. You'll see the gaps in your day and the evening catch-up.

Weigh yourself once a week. Same day, before breakfast. In one day your weight can swing by two or three kilos from water and food alone. Read it daily and you end up cutting when there's no need.

Eating regularly when you'd rather cut back feels the wrong way round, I know. Start with tomorrow's breakfast, and give your body a few weeks of routine before you judge the scales.