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I’ve always had to fight to keep my weight at a reasonable level. I feared that as I reached middle age it would continue to get more difficult. And yet my story has turned our quite differently. Now, I never fear jumping on the scales, as I’m lighter than I was in my thirties.

It’s all about stabilising your blood-sugar level. Late afternoon used to be my low point. So I ate whatever I could find, which generally was highly calorific! All this did was to add to the fat that was already building around my waist.

What’s frightening is that fat also accumulates in the body’s organs like the brain and the heart. Now, I don’t get nearly as hungry or as tired. I also experience fewer flushes and my husband will tell you my moods are more stable too! Oh, and I have fewer sleepless nights.

This transformation has come through eating something small on a very regular basis. I used to miss meals during the day several times a week. Then I’d catch up in the evening, and gorge! This was the worst thing I could do.

I ought to have been taking in modest sized ‘meals’ several times a day. Our metabolic rate peaks around the middle of the day, and slows down rapidly after that. Our important meals then are those eaten before the end of the afternoon – later ones have a tendency to be laid down as fat.

Now each morning I always allow time for breakfast. I don’t keep an ultra close eye on every calorie, I just watch how much I eat at a time. The gut only has a limited capacity it can comfortably take, so I’ve learned not to overfill it.

I restrict the amount of grain I eat, and make lunch my most important meal. By late afternoon, a small snack is now all I need take me through to a small evening meal. Each meal has some protein, and some anti-oxidant rich vegetables.

A balanced diet needs fat, but I mainly eat certain ‘healthy’ fats. Olive oil, seeds, fish oil and a few nuts all give us our essential fatty acids.

Finally my weight has gone down because my alcohol consumption has gone down – I now just drink a glass of dry white wine a couple of times a week. Instead of wine and beer I drink iced tea and mineral water, which is very refreshing. Has it been hard, after all these years? It’s been a lot easier than I imagined actually. Not only has my weight dropped a couple of dress sizes, but I’m more energetic than I’ve been for years!

Losing weight can be as difficult psychologically as it is physically. It can become a struggle if we have to make family meals; eating our own meagre diet whilst still having to prepare tempting fare for the others. How can we improve our lot, and continue to please the family?

Let’s start with portion sizes – whatever’s on our plate, if we want to lose weight we should eat less. So find yourself a plate that’s about two-thirds the normal size. You won’t feel so deprived, because you can still fill the plate when you serve up. Wait until the rest of your family or friends have started eating before you start. Then slowly savour every mouthful you take. (Not only will this prevent you from finishing much sooner than the rest, it will also leave you feeling more replete.)

Most family meals can be eaten when you’re dieting, if you restrict the amount of fat and carbohydrate on your plate. Make up for it with lots of vegetables. And avoid the temptation of crusty bread! For seconds, think carefully before you indulge yourself. A small baked apple is fine – simply leave out the custard or cream.

But you can get much cannier than that. Serve reduced calorie meals a couple of times a week to everyone – if they’re done well they won’t have a clue! Add garlic and herbs to macaroni, and bulk it out with plenty of veg. Then use a tin of tomatoes to enrich the sauce. Leave out the oil, but maybe add a touch of Greek yoghurt for creaminess.

When you’re shopping for food, always pick out lean cuts of meat. Remember also that fish can be a lower fat alternative. Whatever the rest of your family weigh, it’s still advantageous for them as well to eat lean meat. Roast chicken is a good all-rounder, just make sure you remove any skin and eat breast meat where possible. Select potatoes that have a naturally creamier texture, such as Vivaldi or Maris Piper. Then you can feel fulfilled without loading them with butter.

Whole wheat or oats are the best cereals to buy – and choose ones that don’t have any additional sugar. Leave cereal bars alone too. Even these have far too many calories for the amount of food you’re eating. There are also many ‘hidden’ cals in a lot of drinks. If you drink cola or other sodas, always buy the diet varieties.

Alcohol contains a lot of calories, so when you’re socialising it’s good to find some alternatives. Try drinking tomato juice with ice or spring water. Watered down apple juice makes a passable wine lookalike if you don’t want to be different from the crowd.

It’s obvious that we’re not going to lose weight if we continue as we are. But it’s amazing how a small shift here and there can dramatically help along the way.

To lose pounds, spend more time at the dining table. Dieticians are agreeing that the rate we ingest food has a lot to do with how much we feel we need. Recent research suggests that the quicker we eat, the more we eat. When eating until replete, we get more down if we’re gobbling our food than if we take it at a steady pace.

You can personally empirically test this. At dinner tonight, eat as much as you want very quickly. When you have the same meal next time, slow down the rate that you take in each bite and masticate your food very thoroughly. It’s more than probable that you’ll eat less the second time around. Additionally you won’t feel so hungry a couple of hours on following the slower meal where you ate less food.

We often eat too much when we’re speed eating, because we haven’t given the food time to reach our stomach. The bloated feeling we can get is a consequence of this behaviour.

What’s more – digestion starts when we take the first bite and begin to break up our food. Weight loss is assisted when food is chewed well, as mastication promotes an efficient digestive process.

How we eat influences how much we eat. We should sit at the dining table and focus on what we’re eating. Then we can eat more graciously, and put our cutlery down when we’ve had enough.

Maybe it’s also because sitting at the table makes dining more of an occasion, so we don’t rush things so much. Certainly sitting on the sofa scoffing food in front of the TV is the least effective way to aid digestion.

If it’s been several hours since we last ate, we’re also vulnerable to speed eating! To avoid this eat frequent small meals, which consist of slow release nutritional food. Sugary drinks and chocolates give us a quick burst of energy, but it can be very short-lived. For many of us, eating more meals on weekdays isn’t practical. So plan ahead and take a piece of fruit, some mixed nuts or oatcakes to your workplace and have a snack every couple of hours.

To sum up, there definitely seems to be a link between the length of time we spend chewing our food, and how satisfying it is in the stomach. In other words by allowing our taste buds to enjoy food for longer, we inadvertently enhance our weight management.

When we want to lose weight, we should be careful not to rely on out-dated theories about dieting. For example – You might have always thought that a few snacks here and there are what lead to the slippery slope of weight gain. How true is this in reality?

We’ve been brought up to believe that three square meals is the most health conscious way to eat. However, more enlightened thinking now suggests that we should eat more than three meals if we want to lose weight. Is there any truth in this?

We would think more regular eating would mean weight gain, not loss. Leaving a big gap from one meal to the next makes us feel like we’re losing weight. In actual fact that’s not the case.

Our desire for food increases the longer we don’t eat. This means that when it does come round to meal time, our appetite is much bigger than normal. Then we end up eating greater amounts than is conducive to losing weight. It’s particularly likely to happen in the evening, when we’ve had all day to build up an appetite. This is inappropriate for our digestive system, as we retire with too much food left in the gut.

Conversely, if we were to consume proper food five times a day, we’d never have a huge appetite. This sends a signal to our body that food is delivered frequently. It can efficiently process and absorb the nutrients in the most optimal way.

If it’s not fed on a frequent basis, it has to retain fat in case it needs an energy reserve later on. Hence we can struggle to lose weight despite the fact that we’re starving ourselves.

We can get most of our calories much sooner in the day if we take five or six smaller meals. It’s then possible to process that food when we’re burning more of it up, which leaves less in our stomach later on. Getting too hungry also makes it tougher to stick to eating good food for weight loss.

We are not satisfied with a nice crispy salad. We want stodgy carbo-loading food such as breads and pastas. Which is a nightmare if you are struggling to control your calories! To conclude – for effective weight loss that does not leave you feeling ravenous, stick to small nutritious meal plans and eat several times a day.

A good weight loss programme can be put in place simply by keeping a food diary. Start a full week before you plan to commence dieting. Make a note of all the things you have, and be scrupulously honest! Look at what you’ve written down, and after a few days you should be in a position to see where adjustments could be made.

Obviously, if there are several take-aways and other high fat foods, cutting those out would be a start. If your diary only shows nutritious food, then perhaps smaller portions would be the answer. Whichever one is closest to your situation, what’s in the diary will reveal a lot.

Write down an Action Plan for the next week. Include an eating plan, and the exercise you will take. If some foods are to be forbidden or limited, write that down. And then write down the food you can eat in generous amounts.

If you can’t imagine going without any beer or wine, then decide which two days you will permit yourself to have a maximum of two small glasses. Forget any drinks with added sugar. You’ll need to commit to a fitness regime, so next write in your diary which days you plan to exercise and how.

Just before you get started, jump on the scales and weigh yourself. Assess your progress each week, and adjust where necessary. Don’t be tempted to weigh yourself too often – once every week at the same time is sufficient.

With a plan like this, you’re in complete control. Little illustrations of what’s gone well and what hasn’t will encourage and remind you once you’re several weeks in. Also enter the exercise you’re doing, to make sure this isn’t getting left out. It’s amazing how much easier it is to stick with something if it’s all written down.

It’s important not to expect too much too quickly. In the beginning, a few pounds off probably won’t look much difference. You should soon start to feel less pull on your clothes though. Remember patience is a virtue! Keeping up your motivation is sometimes tough, so try to dwell on the end result and the joy it will bring!

If you do get demoralised with your results, analyse what’s been happening. It could be that you should look at altering your diet. Adding more exercise might be the thing. A brisk walk several times a week can be done at any time of day.

Recognise your successes. Dieting is much more motivating when you quantify your results and reward yourself for your efforts. A lovely new suit should probably wait until your full weight loss is realised. However, you could go to a live concert to celebrate a victorious week or month.

Doctors talk about our body mass index when they refer to weight issues. A healthy index is anywhere between eighteen and a half and twenty five. Above twenty five, and we have a problem with our weight. Furthermore we’re defined as obese and morbidly obese respectively if we rise above first thirty and then forty.

Analysing your current number is quite straightforward. First of all measure how tall you are in metres. Then weigh yourself in kilos. Your height should be multiplied by itself, then divide that figure by your weight.

So your figures might look something like this: You’re 1.45m tall (1.45 x 1.45 = 2.10). Your weight is 68 kilograms (68 / 2.10 = 32.38). Clearly that result shows some different eating and exercise habits are needed, as a figure over 30 is categorised as obese.

If we persist with eating fatty and sugary calorie-laden food, we’ll never get a grip on our weight management. By making healthier choices and eating smaller quantities, our bodies can use up our existing stores of fat and hence we will lose weight.

However, it’s not advisable to go full out on the latest fad or crash diet that is likely to simply depress you. A crash diet is any eating programme with less than 1200 – 1500 calories a day. Such ‘instant remedies’ may produce some results, but it’s likely the weight will flood back on.

It takes re-education and time to achieve lasting results. Cut back your calorie consumption to 75 percent of what you eat now, and you should see a few pounds come off every month. So not the un-realistic promises fed to you from the instant remedy brigade, but a real solution to help you stay out of the danger zones.

It’s well understood that foods saturated in fat contain the highest calories. So the easiest way to drop the calories is by cutting out fatty food. Instead, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, and increase the amount of whole grains in your diet. It won’t take long before you notice you’re actually feeling better.

It may seem like a good idea to skip a meal, but it isn’t. You’ll probably end up snacking more when the hunger-pangs hit hard! The opposite is in fact more appropriate for weight loss. Starving yourself actually makes it more difficult to lose weight. Your metabolic rate (which affects your body’s ability to lose weight) is assisted when you nourish yourself little and often.

If you can reduce the stress in your life, and take more rest, you could just reduce your weight at the same time. Lots of us are vulnerable to stress. We take on far too many things and end up ‘chasing our tail’ every day. Tension increases as one thing after another piles up. And that’s when we develop an overwhelming desire for food.

As a result, scientists are now looking into why we reach out for calorific food when we feel fraught. Gaining weight because of stress does happen. Here’s the process that creates it: The stress hormone cortisol is secreted when the body undergoes long periods of stress.

As a result, this stimulates the release of insulin in an effort to make our blood-sugar level stable. This insulin release makes us feel hungry- particularly for carbohydrate and fat-rich foods. So we eat carbs and fats, and pretty quickly feel more energised.

Our stress levels stabilise and we feel more at one. But our energy level takes a nose dive a short time later. This is due to the insulin taking the glucose from the blood, and storing it in fatty parts of the body such as the waist and thighs.

Consequently we’d be well advised to de-stress our lifestyle before embarking on a new weight reduction program. In conjunction with this idea is a theory about sleep and weight management. Some years ago, the average night’s sleep was eight hours – now we’re lucky if we manage seven.

Respectively, the level of obesity in our society has risen. There could be a hormonal link to the two factors. If we’re not sleeping for long enough, we develop an appetite for more food. This is because our body thinks it must be daytime when we’re awake, so it’s time to eat.

Clearly the more tired we feel, the greater our desire to re-fuel. Yet again, this leads to a craving for high fat and carbohydrate food. Weight gain problems therefore could be helped by simply taking a full eight hours sleep.

In conclusion – a simpler life could be just the spur our weight loss program needs. Have a go at delegating some of your domestic chores, and organise more reasonable work schedules. Then whatever the day has brought, why not put a few minutes aside for reflection before easing yourself into a good night’s sleep?

Some folks appear to have it all – and everything they do seems to fall easily into place. Whereas there are also those who live at the other end of the spectrum, and make a mess of everything they do. So we have the victorious and the victimised – and they can generally be differentiated by their attitudes.

To realise your target weight on a diet program, you must assume the attitude of a victor. A piece-meal attempt at dieting without the belief is why the ‘victim’ will never win. And yet for a victor it’s all in the bag from the beginning.

Let’s envision we’re on court for a tennis finale. We listen to the players before the start – One player says the outcome is now in the lap of the gods, whereas his opponent states “I am destined to be the champion!” Guess who’ll win the tournament?

‘Oar’ can be used to describe a victor who paddles his way to the winning post. O is for ownership, A is for accountability and R is for responsibility. We can define the victim by the word BED (Blame, Excuses and Denial) – a person who stays in bed and gives up.

Taking ownership of an assignment is the hallmark of a victor. A victor likes to be accountable for everything he does – a problem solver not a problem maker. He doesn’t take excuses from himself and is responsible for the outcome of his activities.

On the other hand the victim will always have an explanation for his lack of achievement. It’s always someone else’s fault – he feels out of control so justifies it by blaming someone else. So he can always find an excuse for his lack of accomplishment. The victim is in complete denial after a while, assured that he has no option but to put up with this situation.

A mental overhaul is no bad thing for anyone looking to address weight management issues. To really embrace the health-enhancing program, any traces of the victim syndrome have to be wiped out.

Continual positive repetition will change a victim’s attitude to that of a victor. Take note of what you’re saying to yourself. If your internal voice sounds like a victim – cut it short immediately and change the tone. It’s not true that it’s much easier for some than others. Those who’ve achieved have just worked on their attitude.

People aren’t born with winning attitudes; they work on them throughout their lives. In order to maintain successful weight management, we first have to maintain a successful attitude.

A glance in any book shop today is bound to reveal a ton of autobiographies. Successful people explaining how they made it in life. From glamour models to empire builders, they all have a different story to tell. But each has a common thread – they overcame adversity by focusing on the positives. This is the only way to achieve anything we’re aiming for. We have to consume ourselves with positive beliefs, and not allow negative a foot-hold!

Adopting this focus whilst working on a slimming regime will make all the difference. You’ll reach your goal so much sooner with the right attitude. Holding positive thoughts in the forefront of our minds creates a way forward. But we get blocked if we allow unhelpful negatives to take over.

This is because we have a mechanism, called the Reticular Activation System. It tells the brain what to think about. We become familiar with many things over time that don’t continue to stay in the forefront of our minds – as we store all our previous experiences in the sub conscious bit, or the back so to speak.

When we attempt to do something, our RAS (Reticular Activation System) will search for anything of significance in the sub-conscious mind, and bring it to our attention. If we’re taking a walk for example, only the things that have meaning to us will be noticed.

Therefore, if our conscious mind has generally been transferring positive, upbeat messages to our sub-conscious mind, that’s what it will send back. But if our sub-conscious has been given loads of downbeat messages, then that’s equally what will be sent back.

Successful people seem to have developed the technique of ‘programming’ their subconscious with positive thoughts, thereby controlling their RAS. For achieving goals this makes the RAS an essential tool, because the sub-conscious mind doesn’t know what’s real or imaginary.

In other words, as it believes what it’s told, we need to create a very specific picture of our goal in our conscious mind. The RAS will then pass this on to our sub-conscious – which will then help us achieve the goal. It does this by bringing to our attention all the relevant information which otherwise might have remained as ‘background noise’.

Napoleon Hill once wrote that we can attain any reasonable goal if we keep it clearly in our mind. That’s as long as we don’t allow any negative thoughts about it. Of course, if we keep thinking that we can’t achieve a goal, our subconscious will help us not to achieve it.

When thinking about the changes we’d like to make in our lives, we usually have a picture of what that change looks like. We may visualise great trips away, having a large family home, a luxury car and perhaps a well respected position. It’s probable we’ll view our figure differently – with less body fat and a more toned physique.

Thinking of what we’d like to have can be the beginning of our goal-setting journey. Unless we have a vision of how things will look when we’ve reached the lofty heights of our personal success, we’ve little chance of ever getting there.

Positive visualisation alone won’t bring results though. We must accept that changes will be needed. “The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results.” In the words of Einstein. Put simply, we won’t move on if we stick to what we’ve always done.

We need to not only massively change the way we do things, but also massively change the way we think. Only then will we make big steps forward in what we have. Knowing that there’s going to be a deal of exertion to do to get the things we want to have isn’t a great revelation. We’re familiar with the elementary truth that to get, we first have to give. Interestingly though, the work itself isn’t the only criteria for achievement.

Those who achieve their life’s goals adopt and internalise those goals long before they become a reality. That means if our goal is to reduce our weight by thirty pounds in the next year, we have to become a diligent diet student and stick to a certain amount of work-out time every week.

Working out each day has to come before meeting up with friends. Accomplishment thinking tells the slimmer it’s the work-out first, and the play will come later. The right attitude to doing what it takes will reap the rewards that much quicker.

Achievement isn’t the luck of the draw! We have to build the attitude of an achiever to act as a deterrent against the hits, doubts and criticisms that may be aimed at us.

If we look at how others have reached their goals (in autobiographies and such-like) we can build some resilience. Almost all the stories tell the same tale. The winner visualised being a winner from the beginning and internalised the process. So the formula is apparent – to have what we want, and relish the tasks we need to do, we must first embrace who we have to be.