Weight loss, medical diets, eating disorders, teenagers and partners

The rule holds for everyone it's written for. A few readers need a paragraph.

Wanting to lose weight. Chapter 16 said it and I'll repeat the route. Half a kilogram to a kilogram a week, not more. Don't skip meals. Move for a hundred and fifty minutes a week, in pieces. Swap the sugary drinks. Tell someone. Refer yourself to NHS weight management if you'd like help, which in England you can do without a GP. All of that is the ordinary week with a slow direction on it, and none of it is a fresh start. The cycle is the thing to stop first, and the direction can come after.

A diet from a clinician. If a doctor, dietitian or nurse has given you an eating plan for a medical reason, follow it, and take the parts of this book that apply. A plan from someone who knows your health, with follow-up, isn't the cycle. The cycle is a plan from a website, alone, with a Monday.

Weight-loss medication. The same. If you're prescribed it, take it as prescribed and talk to the prescriber about eating. Don't stop on the strength of a book.

Eating disorders. I said it in the preface and it bears repeating, because the cycle and an eating disorder can look alike from inside. If your eating includes large amounts with loss of control, making yourself sick, going long stretches without eating on purpose, or if food and your body are most of what you think about, please talk to a GP or to Beat. The ordinary week may be part of recovery, but it needs to be part of a recovery that someone qualified is helping with.

Teenagers. Neumark-Sztainer's teenagers who dieted were heavier and far more likely to be binge eating five years on. If there's a teenager in your house talking about a fresh start, the most useful thing you can do is model the ordinary week and not the cycle, and talk to the GP if what you're seeing looks like the paragraph above. This book isn't written for them to read. It's written for the adult they're watching.

Partners. If you live with someone in the cycle, you can't stop their fresh starts. What you can do is not join them, keep three meals happening in the house, and be the person who says "it's a biscuit" and means it. The most useful thing a partner does is eat ordinary meals in front of someone who's forgotten what they look like.

Pregnancy. Talk to your midwife about eating. The ordinary week is close to what they'll say, but they'll say it for your circumstances.

Snacking from the packet. Some readers' first break is always the same, the crisps or the sweets, eaten to the bottom of the bag. That's a habit with its own book in this series, and the ordinary meal still applies after it.