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Taught by Tara Schmidt, M.Ed., RDN, LD

Weight Loss for Life, by Mayo Clinic

£149 £126.65 Sale
Level: Peer






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Level: Peer

Course overview

Ready to make lasting changes to your weight and health?

This isn’t another quick fix. This is a comprehensive, evidence-based programme in collaboration with Mayo Clinic, created to help you lose weight sustainably and maintain your progress for life.

Led by Tara Schmidt, M.Ed., RDN, LD, a registered dietitian at Mayo Clinic, you’ll learn the science of what truly drives effective weight loss. You’ll build a personalised eating plan that adapts to your lifestyle, create an exercise routine you can stick to, and develop the core habits that research links to long-term success.

Through practical tools and real-world guidance, you’ll learn to:
• Understand what shapes your eating patterns
• Navigate social situations and meals out with confidence
• Build habits that support long-term health rather than short-term restriction

This programme values progress over perfection. It’s designed to empower you with understanding, not rules, giving you the confidence to make decisions that support your health now and in the years ahead.

Taking weight-loss medication?
If you’re using GLP-1s or other weight-loss treatments, this programme provides the essential nutritional and lifestyle foundation to optimise your results and help prevent weight regain.

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Lesson summary

Introduction
Begin your journey by discovering how personalised health insights can guide sustainable, long-term weight loss. In this introduction, you'll meet the clinical experts behind the programme and learn how digital tools, combined with trusted NHS care, can support your goals. You'll hear how evidence-based guidance from Mayo Clinic specialists has helped many people achieve meaningful weight loss—and why simple, sustainable changes to eating habits, activity, and daily routines can make a powerful difference, even if past attempts have felt challenging.
Creating a Diet Plan
Discover why traditional diets fail and learn how to select an eating plan you can sustain for life. This module helps you understand the difference between fad diets and healthful lifestyles, exploring common mistakes like expecting results too quickly or choosing overly restrictive programmes. You'll learn to evaluate diets based on nutritional balance, family compatibility, and long-term viability. Rather than eliminating entire food groups, you'll discover how to incorporate nutrition from grains, fruits, vegetables, proteins, and fats in a way that supports both weight loss and your lifestyle. Through reflection exercises, you'll identify what's truly sustainable for you, because the best diet is one you can stick with forever.
Understanding Calories
Unravel the science behind calories and learn how to make them work for you, not against you. This module demystifies the calories in versus calories out equation, explaining metabolism and how to genuinely increase it through muscle building. You'll discover the crucial concepts of calorie density and nutrient density, learning which foods keep you fuller for longer through volume, fibre, and protein. With practical guidance on reading food labels and identifying hidden calories in beverages, you'll gain the awareness needed to make informed choices. By understanding how different macronutrients affect satiety, you'll learn to eat less whilst potentially consuming more food, the key to losing weight without constant hunger.
Meal Planning Strategies
Master the plate method, a simple, visual approach to balanced nutrition that works for the whole family. This module introduces a practical framework where half your plate is fruits and vegetables, a quarter is protein, and a quarter is whole grains. You'll learn handson portion control techniques, time-saving strategies like batch cooking and cross-utilisation, and how to plan meals around your schedule rather than the other way round. Discover how to reduce food waste with frozen produce, make healthier versions of takeaway favourites, and overcome the common barrier of time through strategic planning. By moving from relying on willpower to following a roadmap, you'll transform meal planning from overwhelming to routine.
Exercise for Weight Loss
Build a sustainable exercise routine that supports your weight loss goals and boosts your overall health. This module breaks down the national guidelines of 150 minutes per week into manageable chunks that fit your life. You'll understand the two essential components,cardio and strength training,and learn why strength training is crucial for maintaining your metabolism as you lose weight. Through inspiring real-life stories and expert insights from Professor Scarlett McNally on exercise as "the miracle cure," you'll discover how to overcome common barriers and find activities you genuinely enjoy. Whether you're starting with a lap around your kitchen island or training for a marathon, you'll learn to set SMART goals and use the FIT principle to build an exercise habit that lasts.
Self-Monitoring for Success
Unlock the power of self-awareness through self-monitoring,one of the strongest predictors of long-term weight loss success. This module shows you how to track your habits in a way that brings awareness without guilt or shame. You'll learn various methods of monitoring food intake, exercise, and other lifestyle factors, discovering what works best for you. Understanding that tracking doesn't have to be tedious or daily,research shows three days a week is equally effective,you'll find a sustainable approach. Through practical examples, you'll see how self-monitoring reveals surprising patterns, from hidden calories in coffee to the power of mindless snacking, giving you the information needed to make meaningful changes.
Understanding Food Triggers
Explore the psychology behind eating habits and learn to identify and modify your food triggers. This module introduces the stimulus-response-reward pathway, helping you understand why you eat when you're not hungry. You'll discover how to work backwards from the reward you're seeking,whether comfort, relaxation, or socialisation,to create new responses that don't involve food. Learn about behaviour chains and how to break patterns of "all or nothing" thinking that sabotage progress. With insights into how our obesogenic environment and highly palatable foods influence eating behaviours, you'll gain compassion for yourself whilst developing practical strategies to adapt habits. This isn't about perfection; it's about progress and building confidence in lifestyle changes that last forever.
Eating Out Successfully
Navigate restaurants, takeaways, and social eating whilst maintaining your health goals. This module provides practical strategies for controlling portions and making healthier choices when eating away from home, where meals can contain thousands of calories. You'll learn to scan menus in advance, use the plate method even with restaurant food, and practice mindful eating to recognise fullness cues. Discover how to adapt your frequency of eating out, make smart substitutions, and handle communal eating during festivals and celebrations without feeling deprived. With techniques for managing proximity to food and addressing beverages, you'll gain the confidence to enjoy social occasions whilst staying committed to your health journey.
Maintaining Weight Loss and Building Support
Learn the six key strategies that weight loss maintainers use to keep weight off for years, based on extensive research. This module reveals that 98% of successful maintainers modified their diet sustainably, 94% increased exercise, and 90% exercise at least one hour daily,double the standard guidelines. You'll understand the crucial difference between a lapse and a relapse, discovering how to keep moving forward even after setbacks. Learn whether you're a solo or group changer and how to communicate your needs to those around you. By identifying your support system and building accountability, you'll create the foundation for lasting success. This final module empowers you to take everything you've learned and transform it into lifelong habits that support your health and wellbeing.

Choose how you want to learn

meet the expert

Tara Schmidt, M.Ed., RDN, LD

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This course can be purchased for individuals or groups (up to 20) through your business or organisation. Please speak to us to learn more.

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Why choose Learning with Experts?

Start whenever it suits you, and immerse yourself in motivational lesson tutorials with expert guidance.
Enhance your learning and personal growth with lesson assignments. Each course includes an optional assignment at the end of every lesson.
Drop a friendly message or respond to your assignment feedback. Our world-class experts are just a click away, ready to help you!
Stay informed about your own progress and those of your peers, and take joy in celebrating achievements along the way.
Chat and share ideas with passionate communities of learners from around the world.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between PEER and EXPERT options?

At Peer and Expert level, you get access to the same core content and features:

  • Video lesson tutorials led by your expert tutor
  • Downloadable lesson notes
  • Option to practise what you learn with lesson assignments
  • Group learning within an online interactive classroom of up to 20 classmates
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes and classroom

If you choose Expert level, you get all of the above plus the following:

  • Personalised assignment feedback and coaching from your expert tutor
  • Opportunity to interact with your expert tutor through a private messaging system
  • Certificate of completion.
What is an online classroom?

Our online classroom has been developed to allow you to learn from our experts in a sociable environment alongside up to 20 other students. After each video tutorial led by your expert, you will be encouraged to practice what you have learned with optional assignments - these can be seen by the other students in your class, who are free to share their own thoughts and questions with you.

You will be encouraged to take part in an ongoing class discussion where you can discuss ideas, post images or work, and comment on each other’s assignments. It’s a great way to learn from other like-minded people who share your passion from all over the world.

This means not only do you benefit from people who are outstanding in their field, but also from a close-knit group of like-minded people whom you can learn alongside. Group learning has shown to greatly improve not just the experience of studying, but also how well you retain the knowledge, and we have built our classroom experience around this fact.
When can I start my course and how long will it take?

You can start your course any time within 12 months after receipt of your purchase confirmation email. Once you start, you’ll have lifetime access — meaning you can revisit the lesson videos and notes whenever you want.

Our courses are designed so that you can study at your own pace, some prefer to binge learn while others like to spread their studying over a longer period of time - it’s completely up to you. To give you a rough time frame, each lesson video is approximately 30-40 minutes long, and we recommend that you spend around an hour on each assignment.
How often can I speak with the Expert?

If you opt for the Expert version of your course, the time you have to interact with your tutor is limited to course length. You will have one week per lesson to chat to your tutor and to have your assignments marked, and during this period you can ask them as many questions as you would like.

To find out the length of each course, head to the product page and look at the Course outline to see how many lessons it contains. e.g. a four lesson course assumes that you will have completed the assignments within four weeks.

Your tutor interaction period will start as soon as you enter the classroom. If you find that you are struggling to complete the assignments in the allocated time or you wish to put this function on hold, just get in contact with one of the team via the support button and we will help you out.
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