It’s a story I hear time and time again.

Someone eats “well,” trains regularly, and considers themselves fairly health-conscious. Yet over the course of 12 to 18 months, the scales quietly inch upward. At first it’s half a kilo, then two, and eventually five or more. Nothing dramatic. Nothing obvious. Just a slow, sneaky increase that’s hard to pin down.

So what’s really going on?

The Subtle Art of Calorie Creep

Weight gain doesn’t usually happen in big, obvious leaps. Most of the time, it’s subtle — death (or in this case, gain) by a thousand paper cuts. It’s the extra splash of wine on the weekend. The brunch that turns into a mimosa-fuelled afternoon. A dinner out here, a birthday cake there, a slightly larger portion than last week… all things that feel insignificant in isolation, but stack up over time.

The human brain is brilliant at normalising what we do regularly. If you always add a bit more olive oil to your salad, or an extra handful of nuts to your afternoon snack, your perception adapts. It feels like you’re still eating the “same,” even though your total energy intake has crept up. And once it becomes habit, it’s invisible.

The Misleading “Bird’s-Eye View” of Our Habits

Here’s the trap: when we zoom out and look at our lifestyle from a high level, it’s easy to tell ourselves a reassuring story.

“I go to the gym 4 times a week.”
“I eat mostly whole foods.”
“I don’t binge. I eat like a normal person.”

All of which might be true.

But unless we zoom in — and I mean really zoom in — we can miss the daily and weekly details that are quietly tipping the energy balance in the wrong direction.

Things like:

• Restaurant meals that contain more calories than we think (even if they seem “healthy”)
• Liquid calories from cocktails, smoothies, lattes, and weekend drinks
• Mindless snacking while cooking, working, or watching Netflix
• Portion drift, where your idea of a “normal serve” slowly becomes oversized
• Increased energy availability (i.e., more time seated, less unintentional movement)

Movement Matters — and It’s More Than Just Training

Another commonly overlooked factor is non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) — all the movement we do outside the gym: walking, cleaning, standing, fidgeting, climbing stairs. NEAT plays a huge role in daily energy expenditure, and it often decreases without us noticing, especially as we get older, change jobs, or transition into more sedentary routines.

So even if your gym sessions are on point, if your general daily movement has dropped, your energy output has dropped too. Combine that with slightly higher energy intake, and you’ve got a recipe for gradual weight gain.

It’s Not About Being “Bad” — It’s About Being Aware

This isn’t about blame or guilt. It’s about awareness.

We live in an environment that makes it incredibly easy to overeat — and often in ways we don’t even realise. Food is abundant, social occasions are frequent, and portions are generous. Your weight gain isn’t a reflection of laziness or lack of willpower. It’s a reflection of an energy environment that you may not have fully accounted for yet.

The Solution? Get Curious, Not Critical

If you’ve noticed the scale creeping up, resist the urge to panic or jump into extreme dieting. Instead, get curious.

• Track your food for a few days with brutal honesty — not forever, just for awareness.
• Look at your week, not just your weekdays.
• Pay attention to “just a bite” or “just a taste” moments.
• Measure your portions occasionally to recalibrate your eyes.
• Reconsider your drinks — alcohol and liquid calories add up fast.
• Move more in daily life, even outside of formal workouts.

The goal isn’t to become obsessive. It’s to become aware. Small shifts in habits, accumulated over months, can lead to weight gain — but the good news is, they can also be reversed just as gradually and sustainably.

Because it’s rarely one big thing that causes the gain… and it doesn’t need to be one big thing that fixes it either.