When people have a problem then generally they think about the problem. They analyse it and try and find the big solution to the mess they are in. They spend so much time worrying, thinking and planning that they forget to actually take some action and procrastinate. In all my counselling procrastination is the biggest reason people never achieve their goals. Now with weight management people can be five stone overweight and be trying to find an immediate answer to being a perfect healthy weight. The reality is that a problem stops becoming a problem the minute you take an... Continue reading

It has now been some seven years since I lost 161 pounds in 20 weeks using the Cambridge Diet. Sure the diet kept my healthy along the way with vitamins and minerals, it gave me 450 calories a day and some calcium, it gave me something to drink and a hit of protein... But it didn't get me slim and it doesn't keep my slim... People think that somehow the answer to being slim long term is the diet they use, but a diet is purely a tool, it does a job, no different than using a hammer to put... Continue reading

I had a good friend E-Mail me yesterday asking me whether or not an E-Mail he received could help him lose weight. It said if he bought some lemon capsules that contained concentrated lemon juice and had them twice a day then he could eat normally and would lose loads of weight. He wanted to know if it was true ? I told him that although there had been studies on lemon juice that in reality the best way to reduce weight is just to cut down portions sizes, avoid junk food and eat healthy. His reply was that it... Continue reading

It's been seven years soon since I decided that I had enough sitting on the sofa and watching my life go past me. It is true that treading water in life isn't an option, trying to play safe and do nothing and just hope everything gets better doesn't work. If you want to really live the life you desire then you have you get up and get out there and make it happen. I was very good at sitting around moaning about my weight, my life and the fact everything was so tough for me, it took me to realise... Continue reading

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - that basically sums up my diet lifestyle from the age of 13 to 33. I started my first diet when I was 13, I lost 3 pounds in two weeks and put it back on within a month. Now the general rule of thumb in life is once bitten, twice shy but in the dieting community it is more like hundreds of times bitten, give it another whirl. And the reason is obvious ! We all know diets don't really work long term, we can argue all... Continue reading

Most people are very good at thinking about being slim, they plan to be slim, they work out how much they would need to lose to get to goal weight, they will research and get excited about every new diet on the market, they count calories, count points, get a pedometer, they will plan it down to such a degree that surely success is guaranteed. They plan to always start and stick to their new miracle diet from next week / next month / next year. But instead of thinking about reducing your weight then what are your actions saying... Continue reading

We live in a culture now of have now and pay later. If you drive past an electrical shop you will see them offering huge TV's that you don't need to starting paying for until next year, sofa shops doing finance that the sofa will be worn out before you actually own it and you can get a credit card from Tesco now and pay nothing for the first six months of having it. The culture in this country of work hard and get the benefits has now reversed to get the benefits and then eventually do the hard work... Continue reading

So today is the end of January, it's a month since all those New Years resolution were made. So how did yours go ? Do you remember what you resolutions were and are they still being adhered to ? I set a New Year's resolution of cutting back on caffeine as I drink a lot of coffee because I have a coffee machine near my desk and got into a routine of grabbing a coffee when I went to a meeting. The more meetings I had the more coffee I drank but I noticed last year that on Saturday's I... Continue reading

Well it has now been six years since I decided that I needed to trim some weight off and be slim forever. The last six years have been a real roller coaster for me, I have split with my wife, moved house, got a completely new career, climbed a mountain, won a gameshow, done a naked photo shoot and generally had loads of good times and bad times. But here I am six years on still at goal weight, the reason is that I no longer use food to celebrate the good times and I no longer use food to... Continue reading

I was chatting with someone last night about healthy eating, they were asking whether I ever allowed myself now to eat chocolate and cakes. It made me smile as apart from when I was dieting strictly back in 2005 I have eaten chocolate and cakes almost every day. A few months ago though I found a great site called Graze.Com They do healthy snacks delivered to your door every week, they are only a couple of pounds and are a great snack in the cupboard for when you are watching a film or just something to tide you over to... Continue reading

Are you a mother, daughter, son, or father? Are you a nurse, plumber, secretary or shop worker? Are you a dieter, maintainer, ex-dieter, counsellor? Are you a smoker, gambler, shopaholic, drinker or over eater? Are you male or female? Are you a Norwich City Fan or do you support some other football team... My point is that people accept labels very easily and then tend to live to the expectation of that label. I think the label of male works well for me, and I will even accept Norwich City fan, but some of the old labels I used to... Continue reading

I have just been away on holiday and unfortunately sustained a serious knee injury on the first day of my holiday and hence instead of looking around Europe I spent the whole holiday sitting and reading! But never one to dwell anymore on the bad stuff I used it as an opportunity to read some new material and found a fantastic study by David Schneider about not thinking about white bears. In the 1980's David Schneider did an experiment where he asked people to actively not think about a white polar bear but to ring a bell everytime they did,... Continue reading

It's The Key To Success The "Why do you want to be slim?" question is one of those questions where, as a counsellor, the answer will tell you an amazing amount about someone. Just the next ten seconds of their answer will give away whether or not it is a well formed goal, or whether or not it is likely to fail. I will always remember asking a question to someone at work a couple of years ago who was moaning his career was going nowhere, which was "What do you want to do with your life?" He replied that... Continue reading

Tough Love? This book recommendation is from a subscriber to my newsletter, her name is Helen Jay and she is a good friend of mine. Helen reduced her weight by an amazing eight stone some five years ago now and has totally got the mindset of just being slim! Helen is a diet counsellor in Bournemouth so if you are looking for a true inspiration to help you help yourself then mail me for her details! This book by Larry Winget is a "no nonsense" approach to having what you want in life, this book is certainly not for the... Continue reading

I was chatting to someone yesterday and they asked me the first time I can remember dieting, I thought back and I think I was around twelve years old, I can remember it was a summer holiday and I was staying with my gran. My mum had found a diet that was doing the rounds at work which involved eating spinach on one day and steak on the next day for a week to supposedly drop half a stone. I can remember seeing it as a prison sentence for a week and spent each day obsessing over when my next... Continue reading

Focus On What You Want And Not What You Don't Want Most dieters actually perceive themselves to be quite positive about their weight and their lives. They are taking action and moving on but what they say will very much dictate the results they will get. What they think is a positive mindset is actually based on fear and what they don't want, as opposed to optimism and what they do want. Let me give you some examples. How many times have you said or heard other people say 1. I don't want to die 2. I don't want to... Continue reading

People will always have a reason and a strategy for reducing their weight. The reason and hence the strategy is absolutely key to whether they are successful or not at getting to goal weight and more importantly being slim and healthy for the rest of their life. From working with thousands of clients now I have realised that the difference in the strategies people run will usually dictate the result that they get. A lady came to me back in 2008 with around 10 stone to lose (140 pounds), I asked her "Why she wanted to reduce her weight?" she... Continue reading

When I first got to goal weight back in 2005/2006 I had a lot of loose skin ! I particular had it around my tummy but also in my arms and the inside of my legs. I researched a lot of people recommended very expensive posh potions and lotions but most people seemed to say that actually creams and potions could help with stretch marks and blemishes but not actually help with the loose skin itself. And this proved to be very true! Don't fall for anyone telling you that if you buy creams that your skin will suddenly firm... Continue reading

Just imagine you were 10 percent better at dieting and managing your weight.... Most of the time I spend with people 1-2-1 I find they are stuck in a problem, or they perceive themselves as being "bad" at something. My job is to help and coach them to help themselves realise that actually they have other options and they can be and do so much more. A technique I use quite often is the "10 Percent" technique which I made up back in 2007. Let me give you an example. I worked with a lady who fantastically reduced her weight... Continue reading

I was recently asked to test and evaluate the new Diet Plate ! This is a plate that is basically broken down into sections and you put food types into each section. This set also comes with a bowl with lines that show your portion sizes. The ultimate gain of the diet plate/bowl is to basically limit calories by portion control. You have a section on the plate for meat, salad, vegetables, sauces etc and they say if you don't go over the lines then you cannot help to reduce your weight (they say between one and four pounds a... Continue reading

It is very common with dieters that they procrastinate, in other words they put off the high importance things such as reducing their weight before they have health problems for the low importance things such as going out for a meal with friends that night. Putting off dieting and other things in your life is a big problem in todays society and lots of research has been done into. The reasons dieters put off dieting are 1. Perfect Time - People want to wait until a perfect time to diet, a time when there are no distractions, no plans to... Continue reading

I was asked by Vapur to review their new anti-bottle which is shortly due to come to the UK. Now I am a great believer in the power of water, not only to help with losing weight but also general health I believe it is absolutely key. The art for me is to drink little and often during the day and the results are just a week or two away. I can remember when I was big I never drank water until I started my last ever diet. I used to have cracked elbows that used to bleed and I... Continue reading

I got an E-Mail this morning from a lady asking me which diet is the best one for losing weight. My reply was 'Hi L******* Firstly any diet you do should be safe and therefore you should always seek advice from your GP / Medical Practitioner for his/her advice as no two people's health is the same and what matters most is that you do a diet which helps you and doesn't harm you ! Once sorted then my advice is to pick a diet that fits in with your lifestyle, now I did a VLCD diet (Cambridge Diet /... Continue reading

I have for many years now been fascinated and commented many times on how in 2011 when we have more diets, more gyms, more exercise products, more healthy eating advice, more information and better healthcare than every before have we got more overweight and obese people than ever before. If all of this worked then surely we would have less overweight people ? The fact the diet and health industry does not create long term success is something we all know and we all know that most people regain all of their weight and more but somehow this seems to... Continue reading