Sharing My Wedding Diet Plan & Weight Loss Tips for brides to be

This month marks one year until my wedding day! As a weight loss dietitian, this has sparked a lot of questions about my personal wedding diet plan (& if I even have one in preparation for the big day).

So today, I wanted to share my thoughts on whether you should try to lose weight for your wedding. I have ten bits of advice for brides-to-be, and I’m going to reveal what I’ll be doing, too, in the lead-up to the big day.

This post is all about weight loss tips for brides and sharing my wedding diet plan.

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In my last "At home with a dietitian" update, I revealed that I got engaged earlier this year, and it has been a whirlwind of planning ever since. As I live abroad (Bermuda) and will be getting married at home (Ireland), planning a wedding from overseas is going to be challenging. But I've always been up for a challenge!

Since getting engaged, there has been a lot of curiosity about our wedding plans, particularly about my dress, shoes, and wedding prep diet! This inspired me to make a full YouTube video on this topic and write this post. Weight loss is always in and out of fashion, but losing weight for a wedding seems to always be at the forefront of many people's minds.

Jump to:

• 🎥Watch this content on YouTube
• Should you lose weight for your wedding?
• Yin & Yang Weight Loss
• Who shouldn't try to lose weight?
• 10 pieces of advice for brides to be
• My Personal Wedding Prep Plan
• FAQ
• Related

Should you lose weight for your wedding?

So, my thoughts. Your wedding is a big day; many will say that it is the happiest day of your life, and understandably, you want to feel your very best on your wedding day. No matter how impressive the venue, how great the weather, or how experienced the photographer is, ultimately, the enjoyment of the day depends on how you feel in yourself, how calm, content, and at ease you are in your own skin.

But there can be a lot of pressure in the lead-up—I’m only realizing half of it now—pressure to have everything organized, and a lot of brides can put themselves under pressure to look a certain way. And it’s not just in terms of weight; it’s also your skin and your hair, and you’re probably paying a pretty penny for videographers and photographers, and they are photos that you want to be looking at for years to come.

And I do think what you do for yourself between now and your wedding will have a direct effect on how you feel on the day. Making positive changes will pay dividends in how relaxed and upbeat you feel on the day, on your honeymoon, and into your new married life.

Now whether or not you should lose weight for your wedding or try to lose weight in general these days has become very controversial. And the answer is highly individual.

I find the narrative online is very much you are either:

A: Anti-diet & diets don’t work. You should never go on a diet, and you should love your body, accept you for who you are & eat intuitively.

Or...

B. Extreme diets with intense exercise regimens..

But the approach I like to take and, from my experience, the approach that works is what I like to call the YING and YANG approach of weight loss. This approach runs true for any self-development in life for that matter, not just weight loss.

Yin & Yang Weight Loss

So, at its core, the principle of Ying and Yang is about balance

Ying is self-compassion, accepting your body, respecting your body, and being kind to yourself, and then YANG is growth; it’s wanting to push yourself to be a little better, and going out of your comfort zone. However, you still and will always need some yin to balance it out. The aim is to approach weight loss from a place of self-acceptance.

Who shouldn't try to lose weight?

There is always a conversation that needs to be had; for some people, it's not healthy for them to lose weight. Also, some people believe getting to a certain weight will make them happy and solve all their problems. Unfortunately, that is not often the case, and there can be deeper issues going on here. But if someone wants to improve their health, lose some weight, and believes this will help their confidence and quality of life, then as a dietitian, it is my role to support them.

10 pieces of advice for brides to be

1. Set realistic expectations of what you can achieve between now and your wedding day. Don’t put yourself under excessive pressure trying to lose weight in an impossible time frame. It will lead to disappointment and unnecessary stress! You don't want your whole wedding build up to be about transforming your body, it’s a really special time with so much more meaning than that.
2. Long-term plan: If you have weight to lose and you want to lose weight for your wedding, the goal should also be keeping it off long-term. It's not about losing weight, then going on honeymoon and putting it all back on. If you are overweight, it's actually worse for your health to lose weight and then put it all back on. You’ll also probably end up at a higher weight than you were initially if you do rebound, and that's not good for your overall metabolic health. You will make all future attempts at weight loss even harder. On the opposite side of the scale (no pun intended), if you push yourself too hard with a really restrictive diet and exercise regimen, this can really offset your body, and many women can lose their period from this. If your next goal is to have a baby after your wedding, you’re not making life easier for yourself by doing this.
3. Give yourself loads of time, ideally, a year. Don't start a crazy diet 12 weeks before your wedding. The lead-up to the big day is meant to be fun and exciting. You might have menu tastings or hen parties, and you want to be able to enjoy these moments without feeling restricted. If you start really, really early, you can make tiny changes that will slowly accumulate and be better for metabolic health, too.
4. Do not starve yourself or skip meals. To maintain energy, mood, and concentration, you need to include three meals daily at minimum to meet your basic needs. Also, if you restrict yourself, you are much more likely to overeat or binge later, and this can end up being a very dangerous binge-restrict cycle. You can also damage your relationship with food and your body. It's a slippery slope that's hard to get out of.
5. Make small changes & focus on behavioral goals, not just numbers on the scale. For long-term weight management, you want to develop a set of rock-solid habits. There are two habits that can be started now, with little or no preparation. Sleep and water. We require approx. 7-8 hours of sleep a night in order to function to our full capacity both physically and mentally. 2 liters of water is needed to ensure hydration and assist the skin in looking its best. This may seem like a lot for those of you who don’t drink much water. Break it down into glasses. Keep a bottle at hand and sip throughout the day.
6. Stay away from fads: Diet pills and meal replacement shakes can lead to bad skin, hair, and nails, constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, and fatigue.
7. Prioritize your mental health at this time. As exciting as this time is, it can be emotional, too. It's a big life change, and there is a lot happening. Many people report feeling anxious and stressed in the lead-up. But how you eat can impact your mental health. Your mental health can impact how you eat, too; it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Some people turn to food for comfort and overeat when they are stressed, and some people stop eating altogether if they get too anxious. Schedule time every week to check in with yourself and manage your stress levels.
8. Diet & Exercise: It's not one without the other. They complement each other. Diet is more important for being in a calorie deficit, but exercise will energize you, lift your mood, and help you hold onto your muscle mass, which is important to keep your metabolism firing and help you maintain weight loss. If you need some accountability, maybe start group classes with your bridesmaid or encourage your fiance to join the gym with you. You could even take up dance lessons for the big day.
9. What type of diet is best? There is no one diet better than the other. The best diet for you is the one that is the most sustainable, you enjoy the most, and you don't even feel like you're dieting. I wouldn’t remove your favorite foods; I would keep them in there and just practice portion control. But one thing I would universally promote is making sure you get enough protein.
10. Gut Issues: If you have any underlying gut issues, now might be a good time to try to get to the bottom of them, like really bad bloating. Working with a dietitian can help you figure out what the culprit is. Nobody wants to feel bloated on their big day, and bloating can be really painful.

My Personal Wedding Prep Plan

Firstly, I don’t need to lose weight. In fact, I purposefully put on weight last year to help with my hemochromatosis diagnosis. That said, I still want to look and feel my best on my wedding day. I want to feel fit, strong and toned, and I want my skin and hair to all look great.

The two biggest barriers to me achieving this will be time and stress.

Between working a full clinical caseload as a dietitian, running a YouTube channel, and maintaining a social life I constantly feel behind on tasks. When this happens, the first thing that begins to slip is my diet and exercise regimen. I often push them to a lower priority when trying to get everything else done.

So, the biggest thing I'm going to work on, which isn't specifically diet-related but I know will have the biggest knock-on effect on my diet, is time management and organisation.

1. Time Management & Organization. I'm going to work on this by taking some time every Sunday evening to plan my meals for the week ahead & plan out my work schedule. Also It may seem obvious but in terms of he wedding Im going to try not to leave things until the last minute so I wont get stressed close to the big day.
2. The next thing I really want to work on is eating mindfully. When I'm busy, I often eat at my desk or while watching a YouTube video, and that isn't a healthy habit. It can make you feel bloated because you often swallow air when you do this. You often overeat, too, because you don't give your body enough time to recognize that you have had enough.
3. Lastly, I want to get back to being more consistent in the gym. I'd love to build a bit more muscle in my legs and maybe run a ½ marathon in under 2 hours. To do this, I’m going to make a proper running plan, get back into a good strength training routine, and make sure I’m fueling my body well to see improvements in my training.

FAQ

Thank you for reading!

This post was all about weight loss tips for brides-to-be and sharing my wedding diet plan. If you have any questions or requests for future posts, please let me know in the comments below or reach out to me on social media!

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