Lockdown has played havoc with my weight. I blame having too much time on my hands and baking too much with little self-control, You know the drill, banana bread, pizza, lemon cake, all delicious and best eaten warm from the oven.  When you have nowhere to go it's hard to keep motivated and eat healthily and days in baking easily add a few extra pounds. So last year with the thought of lockdown coming to an end (little did I know) I thought I would lose weight. 

To start I had to check my BMI weight and compare it to the healthy weight. Standing on the scales was a bit of a shock, I had more than a stone to lose, much more, but I thought I would go with a stone first.  Then I had to take a long hard look at why my weight had been creeping up. It was not pretty. 

Some of the reasons I overeat are varied and the lockdown has exacerbated this. In fact, an article on the BBC website said 48 per cent of people have put on weight in lockdown, and I'm not surprised! Some of the reasons I have put on weight are below, do you identify?

• Portion control. I eat too much at one meal. Half a loaf of garlic bread can be easily polished off. 
• Stress eating. It's so easy to overeat when I am stressed. It's almost like it's filling a void, and there have been plenty of stressful situations in lockdown.
• Boredom and habit. I eat sometimes because I am bored and it's become a habit. Late at night is a hard time for me. It's so easy to eat my body weight in tortilla chips and salsa whilst watching my favourite shows on TV when I'm not hungry. Gogglebox has kept my spirits up as well as my weight!
• Not drinking enough. I don't drink enough fluids, especially water. This keeps you hydrated and helps to fill you up.
• Not eating enough healthy snacks. Instead of crisps and desserts, I need to have more healthy snacks in the house when I just need something to nibble on. 
• Drinking alcohol. I don't drink much but even drinking a couple of glasses of wine twice a week works out to about 600-800 calories you don't need and that can easily add an inch or two if you do it on a regular basis.

So as you can see there are lots of reasons why I put weight on gradually. As I feel weight loss can be so tied up to your psychological state I knew that I had to look at a way to lose weight that addressed psychological issues, so I signed up for the Noom app. This post isn't sponsored by Noom, but I was so delighted with my weight loss, that I happily paid for a subscription which worked out to around £20 a month. There are discounts out there though, but one thing that's not clear with Noom is the lack of transparent pricing. You have to go through the questionnaire on sign-up that asks you why you want to lose weight and how much you want to lose before it comes up with a price. Once you can get past that, it's definitely worth the money. 

There is a lot of support with Noom. You have a goal specialist who can help you if you have any questions and also you are assigned a group of others like you that are losing weight too, and this group is especially supportive.  However, the best Noom groups I found are on Facebook.  There is one especially called the Unofficial Noom UK Group, that is incredibly helpful, providing help and support when you need it.

With Noom I lost a stone in about 6 weeks which is the most I have lost in recent memory, and guess what, you need to be focused but it wasn't hard!

If you want to lose weight, I highly recommend trying the Noom app. You do have to commit to the Noom programme though, tracking your calories and exercise.  I really recommend exercising to help you with your weight loss, and the more you exercise the more you can eat which is great. Exercising doesn't have to be hard work though and can be something as simple as walking which I have been doing every day. It helps that I live by the sea so I have some beautiful coastline on my doorstep. Unfortunately, my weight is creeping back on after I stopped using the app. Perhaps it's time to go back on it and look at maintaining weight loss. if you cancel the Noom subscription you can still use the app for free but don't get the psychological articles sent to you or support from your goal specialist.

Let me know, have you put weight on during lockdown, what do you think of the Noom app? Would you give it a go?