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Keeping a food diary is a very accurate way to establish your current eating habits. Start a full week before you plan to commence dieting. Write down everything you eat and drink (be honest!) throughout the day. 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.

You may be surprised at how many snacks and sweets you’re getting through, or how many glasses of wine. If that’s the case, they should be minimised first. If your diary only shows nutritious food, then perhaps smaller portions would be the answer. Whether it’s the first or the second situation, you’ll be able to see how to adjust your intake from the entries in the diary.

Produce a programme that you will follow for the next week. Put everything down relating to exercise, food and drink. As far as food is concerned, make sure you note down what you’re not allowed, or maybe what you’ll restrict to the weekend. Also write down the alternative food that you do plan to eat.

If you enjoy alcohol, decide on a small quantity that you will allow yourself at the weekend, and write it down. Forget any drinks with added sugar. Next comes physical exercise, and whether it’s a walk in the park, or visits to the gym - write it down.

Accurately weigh yourself the morning your regime starts. Repeat this procedure every week, and make adjustments if appropriate. And write down how heavy you are at the beginning of each week.

You have absolute control when you record everything you do. Useful observations jotted in the diary will help to make the following weeks more enjoyable. Also enter the exercise you’re doing, to make sure this isn’t getting left out. Monitoring your weight and health is so much more manageable with a personal record.

It’s important not to expect too much too quickly. Although you may not be able to see evidence of weight loss in the first couple of weeks, you should be starting to feel fitter. A little perseverance and patience will count for a lot. Motivate yourself by concentrating on the lifestyle you’ll enjoy as a fitter person, not the effort it’s taking to get there.

Don’t beat yourself up if you get off-track - it can be easily reversed with a bit of focus. Could your diet do with a bit of modification? Try to catch up by taking more exercise. Following a fitness DVD a few times a week can be very effective.

Feel good about every pound you lose. Your efforts will be much more sustainable if you do. A whole new wardrobe isn’t a good idea until your desired weight is achieved. But you could spoil yourself with a pamper session when you reach a mini-goal.

Modern lifestyles that pile on the stress, and shrink down the sleep might just be making us fat! Most of us would put our hand up and admit that we really need a thirty six hour day to fit everything we do into twenty four hours. We become anxious and overwrought sorting through all of our challenges. And so we turn to eating, to counteract the pressure.

But now it seems there’s a scientific reason why we reach for the most fattening foods at times high stress and exhaustion. This is the thinking behind weight gain that is stress related: When the human body undergoes enduring tension, it exudes the stress-hormone cortisol.

The presence of cortisol encourages a release of insulin (attempting to level out the blood sugar). This in turn leads to a desire to eat more food high in fat and carbohydrate. So we eat carbs and fats, and pretty quickly feel more energised.

For a while the stress settles down and we feel satiated. Yet shortly after that, we feel drained again. An explanation for this is as follows: the insulin removes the glucose from the blood, and then allocates it to areas of the body that store fat, e.g. the waist.

Therefore we should aim to simplify our lives first if we’re planning a weight loss program. Weight loss might also be related to getting enough sleep. In the past, people tended to sleep for a third of every 24 hours. It’s now considerably less than that.

Respectively, the level of obesity in our society has risen. There could be a hormonal link to the two factors. Poor sleep patterns stimulate an increase in our appetite hormones. Since we have a longer ‘day time’, the body’s logic is that it needs more food.

Obviously, when we’re tired, we feel the need for more fuel to energise ourselves, and once again we crave high fats and carbs. Sleeping for an additional hour a night could well re-program our appetite.

And so to our conclusion. If we aim to reduce the tension in our lives, we might just find it easier to reduce our weight as well. Try saying ‘No’ sometimes to other people’s requests. And when the chores of the day come to a close, what better than to treat ourselves to a long relaxing bath before heading off to the land of nod…