The next steps

Well done you've reached the final session in our 12 week programme. You have committed to your weight loss journey for the past 77 days.

Before you do anything else give yourself a big pat on the back for making those changes.

You'll hopefully have found that you've started to establish new routines, and those changes which you felt were challenging earlier in the programme have become easier over time.

Weekly check-in

How did you get on last week? Are you eating mindfully on a regular basis?

Successful outcomes

Think back to week 1 and look at your long-term wellbeing target. We asked you to concentrate on changing your behaviours and consider the impact this would have on your weight and wellbeing.

It's important that at the end of the programme you consider what you've achieved over the past 12 weeks. Is this a change in your weight, being able to walk further or a reduction in clothes size?

The average weight loss an adult can expect is 1 to 2lbs (0.5-1kg) per week. Other positive changes you may have considered include:

• reduction in waist measurement
• reduction in collar size
• better sleep pattern
• skin improvement
• feeling better about yourself
• being able to walk further without being breathless such as walking 3 bus stops instead of one or going up a local hill

Retake these measurements including weighing yourself now. Compare them to you first measurements and consider your achievements on this programme.

Did you complete all parts?

It's now time to be open with yourself and identify if there are any parts of this programme that you didn't quite follow, tweaked a little or just skipped over. We would encourage you to return to those sessions and redo them until you feel comfortable.

Some people find that it's helpful to restart the programme and do it for another 12 weeks. This will allow you to gain confidence in your own ability to manage your weight. It may help you to develop better understanding of the topics we've covered during the programme.

The future

Last week we started asking you to consider how you would maintain the healthy and positive lifestyle changes you've made over the last 11 weeks. Take out that piece of paper or turn to the page in your journal and give consideration to the changes you've made. 

It's time for you to make a plan that includes these long-term changes in your daily life. You need to make sure:

• you can keep up your increased physical activity all through the year
• the changes to your eating plan are now part of your everyday routine
• you're planning for those tricky situations.
• those around you're aware of how well you've done and will keep supporting the changes you have made.
• you are able to find support from local weight management.
• you are able to find support from your local leisure organisations.
• you keep reviewing your progress against your own wellbeing target by taking measurements

Recording your lifestyle

Recording your lifestyle using our diary, your journal, app or taking photos, is important. We recommend that you keep this going.

If you stop doing it every week then that is ok but when you feel you need it, go back and use it again.

Keep setting yourself goals

Each week we've asked you to set goals for your behaviour change. We know that after the programme ends it can be hard to keep this going.

Remember to come back and use it as a way of helping you with your changes. If you need help with this in the future come back to the programme, use our goal setting sets and follow the steps.

Setting your goals

It's time to set new goals for next week. When setting your weekly goals you should:

• decide which day next week you will be coming back to this programme, this will be the day you can review your goals
• consider the areas for change we have discussed this week
• look at your lifestyle diary/journal/app/photos and choose areas where you feel you could make a small change over the next week
• ask yourself what you can do more of, what you can do less of and what would help you me make these changes
• add 1 or 2 new goals - we recommend 3 to 4 weekly changes goals are the most you should ever set yourself

If you don’t meet your goals every day, that’s ok. It’s important to keep returning to what you've written down. We’ll review them next week.

Your can use our goal-setting tool to record your goals for the week, or print out our blank weekly journal (PDF, 42KB) to fill in yourself.