You're no dummy, you know that losing weight involves eating a healthy balanced diet and more exercise, so why aren't you losing weight?

It's because you're asking the wrong question!

The question should be ‘why are you gaining weight?'

What is it about your eating/cooking/exercise routine that piles on the pounds rather than you losing them?

Do you?

• Cook using oil – fried foods, chips etc
• Eat  take away foods several times a week
• Drink alcohol weekly or even daily
• Snack between meals – make a list and see how these little snacks add up!
• Enjoy chocolate, sugary treats and deserts daily, your reward for a hard days work
• Comfort eat on bad days
• Wake hungry at night time and make a large snack
• Drink several cups of tea/coffee with sugar
• Drink Cola/fizzy drinks daily
• Finish your children's meals – eat their left-overs
• Have little to no exercise
• Skip main meals in favour of frequent snacks
• Reduce the size of main meals to aid weight loss but then eat more snacks as you're hungry between meals.
• Rarely drink water on it's own.
  

All of these things can contribute to gaining more weight than desirable or necessary for a healthy life. Some of the foods will encourage your appetite to grow while others cause peeks and troughs in your mood, which can also encourage you to eat more for comfort etc.

To lose weight you need to lose those bad habits, and once you do that, things should improve.

When you do this, losing weight will be a happy side effect of losing those bad habits, rather than the sole motivation for changing your habits.

I never looked at the calorie content of foods until very recently. I figured I didn't eat too much as it was and so eating less was NOT an option in my weight loss plan. I was kidding myself! When I looked at the calories of various foods, I soon realized that the box of biscuits, bar of chocolate, bag of crisps (chips) I was eating in the evening as a treat to myself while I watched a good movie, was in itself my entire daily calorie content! In other words with my 3 daily meals on top and the odd snack between, I was eating more than twice what I should be in terms of calories.

As soon as I reduced my ‘treat' content and tried to eat within my calorie allowance, the weight started to come off. I still have treats, but less of them. I make sure my main meal is large enough to satisfy me so I don't binge on those high calorie treats later in the evening!

Drinking lots of water can also help. Sometimes we may eat thinking we're hungry when in reality we're thirsty. So if you feel hungry outside of meal time during the day, have a  glass of water.

More tips on keeping the weight off:

• Oven cook or grill foods instead of frying them.
• Eat fruit as a snack or a low calorie snack bar.
• Do not be tempted by mountains of goodies, don't buy them and you can't eat them!