We are all really suggestible - surprisingly so - click here to see how when students are told that chocolate flavoured yoghurt is strawberry, they really believe it! This is based on research by Brian Wansink, of Cornell University.

This is very helpful. It means when your eyes see your meal served on a small plate, you will feel satisfied when you finish the plate. Likewise, when you see a huge plate filled to the brim, you eat it as well. Somehow, being served a large full plate gives you permission to overeat. On the other hand, when your portion is placed in the centre of a huge plate, you feel rather done down. You can harness your suggestibility to your own benefit!

Hypnosis is all about suggestion. If you have decided to give up puddings, that decision will be reinforced by suggestions that you no longer wish to eat a pudding, that it is unnecessary and that indeed you prefer not to.

Now that you realise just how suggestible we all are, you can be confident that hypnosis for weight control is going to help!
 
 
Research from Auburn University in the States suggests that sitting for hours in front of the telly will get you fat. Men who watch more than 3 hours of TV a day are twice as likely to become obese as those who watched less than one hour per day. Read it! This isn't a gender thing, just that the research was done on men. (Does this research from US relate to us in Scotland. Yes it does. Scots are second in the world in the obesity stakes. US is number one.)

In part, this is because you are sitting down doing nothing, so your metabolism slows down to be similar to sleeping. Even talking on the phone uses more calories than watching the box! Do something! Being active reduces your risk of low mood and depression too (a lot of eat more when we are depressed.)

We also tend to eat snacks while watching the TV. And at peak times (and in childrens tv time as well) we are watching adverts for chocolates and drinks, and a whole range of snack food. Advertising wouldn't be done if it didn't work. Recent research shows that from only half an hour of telly a day, the increased snacks triggered by advertising could lead to 10 pounds weight gain in a year.

If you are engrossed in the telly, then you are not fully mindful of the food you are eating. You could eat a whole meal's value of calories without even noticing.

So if you are concerned about your weight, here are some tips.

1. Watch less telly.
2. Measure out a portion of snack, so that you are more aware of how much you are eating. Research shows that if you eat from a large package, you will eat more than if you eat from a small package. Store the remainder out of easy reach, so that if you refill your portion, you are aware of what you are doing.
3. Work on being aware of what you are eating.

Try to make a few small changes every week. If you are in or near Glasgow and want to lose weight, try hypnotherapy with me.
 
 
Researchers Brian Wansink and his team show that if you put a jar of sweets on your desk then you eat more than if you have to walk just a few paces to get them. If the sweets are in a glass jar, so you can see them, then you will eat more than if they are in a tin.

Is that obvious? Maybe. If you are one of those people who eat it if they see it (health professionals label you an "external eater") then keep the risky foods out of sight. Ideally, keep them out of the house. In the house is in the hand, in the hand is in the mouth.

External eaters respond to food cues rather than hunger pangs. That is, the smell of freshly baked bread makes you hungry, or the sight of a creamy cake. Or the display in the supermarket (whose clever people know exactly what you will respond to). Or the ads on the telly.

If you are one of those whose urges to eat are triggered by the sight or smell of food, then don't go shopping when you are hungry. Become a guerrilla shopper, rushing in with your list and swooping onto your target before getting out at speed. That will help you avoid the temptations the supermarkets have put in a deliberate attempt to catch YOU.

 
 
Well, what I really mean is Look at your food as you eat it. Keep as much of the evidence in front of you.

If it is chocolate bars you are eating, keep the wrappers to remind yourself that you are on the 3rd. Just a little nudge to tell you that you have had enough, for our stomachs don't measure calories in.

We eat with our eyes. If we use a small plate, and it is filled to the brim, then we eat happily. The same portion on a giant trencher makes us feel disappointed and neglected. And same again, in the eat all you can stuff your face with buffets, the vision is so exciting we fill our plates time and time again. And until 20 minutes is up, our stomachs don't signal that we are full. And if we are eating fast, by that time we are tightly bagged up. (I like this expression very much, I heard it first from my rather posh sister-in-law.)

Brian Wansink (what a hero) did some research on students. inviting them to a chicken wings supper. Those whose plates were cleared away ate more than those where the bone heap grew before them as they munched they ate 28% less). As Brian says, "If you could look back and see all of the handfuls of potato chips you’ve already gobbled before shoveling in another, you’d likely hestitate before reaching back into the bag".
 
 
Estimating portion size is difficult for all of us, but developing rules of thumb will be handy. Because we have got used to larger portions in restaurants, our estimate of calorie content of a meal gets confused.

Research by Brian Wansink and colleagues shows that everyone (normal weight, underweight and overweight, men and women) has difficulty in estimating the calorie content of a large plate of food, whereas they accurately assess the calories in a more normal portion.

If we are overweight, we tend to have larger portions. That means that those of us who are overweight are making these wrong estimates frequently. As a result, we are underestimating the calorie content of most of our meals and so we put on weight. What to do?

These researchers suggest that you should estimate the calories and then double them. A normal meal might be 500 calories. If you are overweight and you know that you are eating a large portion, then advise yourself that this meal probably contains 1,000 calories - half your day's allowance.

Counting calories is dull, but having a fair idea of the calorie content of your meals is handy. It allows you to develop useful rules of thumb when you are seriously trying to control your eating.