The most frequent causes of weight gain are hypothyroidism, depression, insomnia, menopause, Cushing's disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome (POS), congestive heart failure, sleep apnoea, oedema, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, steroids, and common medications.

Despite doing everything you can, including eating less—maybe a lot less—you still not losing weight as you want. In fact, you might even be gaining. When a person goes on a very low-calorie diet for an extended period of time, their body goes into a type of “starvation mode.” If they lose more than two pounds per week, they can end up losing muscle mass in addition to the fat, which will negatively affect their metabolism. The body also sees this decrease in energy as a time to hold onto what it does have, decreasing the metabolism even more.

When you come back to old eating habits, after following the very low-calorie diet, you probably will gain your old weight back and more. Following diets, you decrease your metabolic rate. This is why so many people feel that they don’t eat that much but still gain weight. It’s true! To add insult to injury, some studies suggest when people go back to their original eating habits, they gain fat tissue rapidly instead of lean body mass.

There are a few steps you can take to get your metabolism fired up again. The main step is to stop following low-calorie diets. Many popular diet programmes will estimate your calories using a calculation. This often sets you up for a lower-calorie level than you may need.

As an expert on nutritional therapy in London, I help my clients to lose weight through hormonal balance, gut health and metabolic health. My approach to weight loss is by addressing the root cause of your weight loss issues, your diet, sleep, exercise, and stress levels.