FROMTHE BOOK HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT WELL

I lost six stone quite easily on a mixture of my one-meal-a- day and two-meals-a-day plans, and I’ve kept that weight off for four years by juggling the plans from one day to the next depending on my weight and whatever else I’ve got going on (see box overleaf for the diet plan outline).

This means you really can stick to it. If you fall off the wagon, simply switch back to the onemeal-a- day plan until you get back to where you were. And don’t beat yourself up about it.

Here are my other tips to keep you on track:

INVEST in a fitness tracker. For as little as £20 you can have a device on your wrist to monitor how many steps you take and how many calories you burn.

Many devices team up with apps for your phone that allow you to track your calorie intake at the same time. This is a great way to motivate you to work out and walk more. Team up with family and friends to use the same devices so you can share challenges and motivate each other.

IF YOU’VE never exercised before (and statistics show one in four Brits are inactive and two-thirds don’t exercise enough), check out nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/Pages/Get fitwithoutgym.aspx for simple, getting started guides to walking, swimming, dancing, cycling and badminton plus easy, ten-minute home exercise routines.

LACK of exercise is twice as deadly as obesity — and obesity is a real killer. But the latest studies show even a little bit of activity is better than nothing, so make sure you do something — anything — that raises your heart rate every single day.

WE’VE always been told women need 2,000 calories a day to survive and men need 2,500, but those figures were based on old statistics from the days when you had to walk to work and to the shops, and before labour-saving devices (such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners). The real figure is likely to be 300 to 400 calories less. So unless you exercise every day to boost your calorie needs, your diet won’t work.

SWEEP the floor rather than let your robot vacuum cleaner do it for you. If everyone did more manual labour and made daily trips to the shops on foot instead of by car, we’d be much slimmer.

JUICING won’t get you slim — the nutritional benefits of juice are vastly outweighed by the sugar, lack of fibre and expense. It won’t make you thin and it will make someone else rich.

STICK to my plan and you won’t get cravings. Processed food and junk food are designed to induce cravings because the chemical composition is designed to affect parts of your brain (those involved in gambling and sex) that other foods don’t. I like broccoli and salmon, but I don’t crave them the way I crave more ice cream once I’ve opened the tub.

DON’T waste your money on

vitamin pills. Eat healthily and you’ll get all the vitamins you need. There’s no need to top up your levels to the max. After all, your car runs just as well when the petrol tank is half-full as when it is full.

STEER clear of fizzy drinks. The bubbles help deliver that liquid sugar straight into your bloodstream in a way that tantalises your taste buds, but which circumnavigates the usual ‘Stop, I’m full!’ triggers.

This means you can slurp 13 tsp dissolved sugar without noticing and still have room for food. It’s a genius concept, which has made drinks companies very wealthy. But it is extremely bad for your weight.

Diet drinks are little better. The latest research indicates our body gets confused by fake sugar and that’s not a good thing. Stick to water instead. Fizzy if you like. Go crazy — add a slice of lemon.

THESE are the legions of intelligent, hard-working people out there whose lives are devoted to making you eat more: food merchants, food scientists, pub owners, the office ‘feeder’, your mother and anyone managing a petrol station or a cinema. These are your diet saboteurs and you are at war with them.