Weight Loss: The Essential Guide is the ultimate self-help guide to losing and maintaining weight effectively and healthily. Written by a practising nutritional therapist, this book offers practical tips on how to set and achieve weight loss goals, how to eat a healthy, nutritious diet, and support weight loss with an exercise programme. Research shows that we are more likely to achieve and maintain dietary changes if we understand how a change will benefit us and if we are provided with the tools to make the changes. Sara Kirkham explains in an easy-to-understand way the physiology behind weight gain and weight loss, the Energy Balance Equation and why it is so important, and how to calculate your metabolic rate. Alongside the information on the science of weight loss, there are recipes and shopping lists to help the reader get started and practical tips on using food diaries, cutting calories and setting SMART weight loss goals.