Most of us put weight on very slowly, just a few calories too much every day. So if you eat a bag of crisps (130cal) and a Flake (170cal) or their equivalent every day you can expect to put on a pound in under a fortnight. To use up 300 cals, you need half an hour of high impact aerobics so walking to the shop won't burn it off.

So it means that if you want to lose weight, exercise is the second thing to do. The first is to eat less, and the indulgent foods are easier to give up than meals.

Ravussin has found that a sustained 10% excess caloric intake results in a 7% weight gain. His calculations clearly imply (and are consistent with the observational evidence from population studies) that the obesity epidemic is primarily driven by increased food intake and not by decreased physical activity.

Exercise is important for general health reasons. It doesn't work as the prime weight reducer for most of us, not least, because after jogging for half an hour, we might reward ourselves with a bar of chocolate. Instant weight gain.

I looked at the label on a cheesecake in the supermarket today. Over 1400 calories per 100g. That is all right then, I will only eat a slice. But then it read Normal 70g slice (1/6 of the cheesecake) over 1,000 calories.

Half a day's calories in one slice. And if it were me, one slice would not be enough. Truly shocking. It is these indulgent treats, on the whole, that make us fat. Hypnotherapy can help you give up the need for a treat every day.

Treating ourselves once in a while is nice. Having a food treat every day heaps on the weight. Check the label and prepare to be shocked.

So why do we want to lose weight? We can be healthy and fit even when we are on the round side. Look at this great clip of the Roly Polys who used to dance for Les Dawson in the 80s!

There is a lot of social pressure on us to be thin, and as a result we tend to have very negative attitudes towards our bodies, and go on the road of Diet, Deprive and Deny. As a result of this, some people get eating disorders, others binge, others feel self-disgust and generally feel bad about their apparent lack of control.

Dieting does not have a good track record of helping us to lose weight. You will recognise a number of the problems that comes with dieting. One is that you end up focusing on food when this is the last thing you should be doing. You eat according to tight rules and regulations, rather than responding to your body's hunger signals. In the end, you lose touch with this important sensory information and you don't know anymore when you are hungry, or worse, when you are full. The pleasure of eating disappears as we count out the number of points we are allowed or the number of calories in an item. And we end up eating bad things anyway, and then we have broken the rules, are a complete failure and we may as well stuff ourselves as we are going to be a fatso forever anyway.

This self talk is not helpful. What really is the goal? If you set a goal to lose 1 stone, and you then lose that stone, will you set yourself another target, and get yourself back on the treadmill?

So what is your real goal? Would you like to be in control of your eating again? Feel healthier? Eat better food? Be happier? Identify your real goal. And hypnotherapy will help you achieve it.

Can it really be that easy? Well, how quickly do you eat your food?

It takes about 20 minutes for the stretch receptors to signal your brain to say that your stomach is full. So if you are eating really quickly, you might have gone past Full before your brain has caught up. Here are 4 suggestions.

1. Take smaller bites.
   
2. Chew thoroughly without gulping.
3. Enjoy the taste and texture of food.
4. Put your hands in your lap between mouthfuls

This  gives you time to trigger the body's satiety response, so fewer calories are consumed to feel satisfied.

Hypnosis helps you to embed changes like these, so that they become automatic. So if you are near Glasgow, contact me.

What is a portion? Well, portions have certainly got bigger over the last decade or so. A Beefeater restaurant steak plate from the 1960s (seen in an antiques shop recently) looked really small to me. We have got used to eating off huge plates. We eat out much more than a generation ago, and we load our plates at the buffet to get our money's worth. All this makes it harder for us to assess a portion so we find it hard to manage our weight.

And when we buy a pre-pack meal from the supermarket, what looks like a meal for one, on close reading of the package, is a meal for two. On the plate it looks like a portion for one, (or maybe 1 and a tiny visitor). I am starting to think that it is calories for two but quantity for one. Look at an interesting portion control discussion here.

The King Size 84g Mars Bar was phased out following a House of Commons report, which showed that a Snickers bar had more calories than a full steak meal. It was replaced by the Mars Duo - two bars now at 91g (about 400 calories - equivalent to a plate of chicken, potatoes and veg). Research shows that once a pack is opened we eat it, so the unintended consequence of the House of Commons report is that we eat even more! For those with a sweet tooth and a desire to lose weight, buy fun packs. One little bar is a portion.

If you hold onto the idea that one formal meal is round about 500 calories, then when you read the calorie content of a sweetie bar or other snack, you can get an idea of the relative benefit of eating it. I was once given a delicious slice of chocolate cake - and was horrified to see that it contained 1,500 calories. A belt buster to be sure!