Well, the simple answer is, when we are feeling good, when things are generally going well. When the ducks are in a row.

That gives you the greatest chance, because you will be willing to accept changing your eating behaviour as a process rather than demanding that your weight gets lower NOW!

When we decide to lose weight, it is usually because we think our body is not satisfactory. The trouble is that body dissatisfaction is related to lower levels of self-esteem. The relationship is significantly stronger for women than for men, and, curiously, about the same for both traditional and feminist women.

For both sexes, more negative attitudes towards one's body are related to greater proneness to depression.  You can read more of this research here.

Women have so accepted the new norms about body shape (these are social constructs, made-up ideas, and have nothing to do with the actual shape of human bodies) that body dissatisfaction is the norm too. Women are likely to perceive themselves as overweight or slightly overweight, regardless of their actual weight, and most want to lose weight. Men get dissatisfied with their bodies, too, and the number is increasing. Men perceive themselves as underweight and want to gain weight - so they can meet the social construct that men are muscly and strong.

Keeping records is an important part of any job - selling clothes, dealing with patients, running an airline. Obviously.

It is just as important and effective when we are trying to manage our weight. It helps you to check whether you are making the progress you want, allows you to spot when you need to take some further or different action. This will include the behaviour you are wanting to change and the impact. (For me at the moment, it is eating just one slice of toast at breakfast and trying to achieve 10,000 steps with the pedomenter. So I write this down in my notebook. Did I or didn't I?) And then write down the waist measurement and scales once a week at the same time of day.

Research has shown that self‐monitoring like this is not just a document of the effectiveness of the things you are doing, but is part of the treatment. The very act of keeping a record leads to behaviour change.

As with any chronic disease, when intervention stops, the disease comes back. So when we stop keeping a record, experience shows that more often than not, the weight comes back.

Remember, keeping a food journal or activity log and wearing a pedometer is not just to measure your progress - it is actually part of the  treatment!

Researchers have studied the explanations we give for gaining weight, and it shows that men and women give different causes.

The most frequent explanation for men is life‐course transitions, such as starting work, changing job, getting married, becoming a father. These changes in routine put obstacles in the way of physical activity. Where men ate for comfort this was related to work, unemployment or money worries.

For women, 4 themes presented.

1. Overeating related to intimate social relationships (e.g. I did not receive adequate love in my childhood, I feel insecure in this relationship etc.).
2. Psychological transitions such as puberty, pregnancy, menopause
3. Changes in social relationships (e.g. when I met my husband, when we moved in together, etc.).
4. Psychological drugs, such as anti‐depressants.

Women are more likely to relate the beginning of their weight problems to their biology (which is more complex than men's with more transitions) and to problems in their intimate and personal relationships.

In contrast, men see both changes in their work and financial situation and the associated stresses as the reasons for eating more. And they blame injury or other external circumstances for reduced activity levels.

When it comes to overeating, women typically invoke family obligations, whereas men allude to obligations outside the family.

The authors suggest that the fact that the use of drugs came up as a distinct theme in women but not in men, may be related to the fact that these drugs are far more commonly used by women than men.

Where your emotions are involved, hypnotherapy will help. Contact me and give it a try

Well, average weight has been going up for the past 30 years or so, and research links this with the industrialisation of food production. In the past, if we wanted to eat, we had to make a significant effort. Now, our fridges are constantly full of delicious food cooked by someone else. So easy to eat without effort.

And a lot of the food we eat is handfood. Biscuits, burgers, crisps. This sort of food tends to be eaten automatically, without thought. Hand mouth hand mouth, and you look in the packet and  to your surprise you discover it is all gone. For most of us, this is the risky stuff.

This easy access to attractive calorie dense food means it is harder than in previous generations to control our weight. And new research in the Lancet shows that between 1980 and 2008, mean BMI worldwide increased by 0·4 kg/m² per decade for men and 0·5 kg/m² per decade for women. Click here to get your BMI. These averages are for the whole world. The trend is ever upwards.

This is the impact of the obsogenic environment, where it the world that we are living in that actively contributes to overweight.  But we can beat this. By becoming aware of the daily risks, spotting the eating habits that make us put on weight,  we can learn to manage our weight effectively. Hypnosis helps.

It is normally just a few pounds, and getting back to our normal routines will shift some of them. But we can do a few things to speed the process along, so that we don't enter 2011 with 2009 Christmas bulges.

What has caused those extra pounds? For most of us, we said Oh Heck, and bought  mince pies, sweets and biscuits, mostly for family and visitors,  and just to be sociable, we tucked into them. Hunt them out now, all those beltbusters, and remove them from the home. Take them round as welcome gift to people with growing children, feed them to the ducks, or steel yourself and bin them. The Christmas self-indulgence is over. New Year, New You!

Avoid eating out and takeaways for a month or so. You have had the Great Feast, now is the time for a bit of famine. Meals eaten at home tend to have fewer calories and fewer courses.

Practice eating smaller portions. After the Great Stuffing, most of us will welcome a bit less food. Use a smaller plate, or fill more than half the half the plate with veg, which is less calorie dense than meat. Practice leaving some of the food on the plate. Use a paper napkin, and when you have finished, screw up the napkin and put it into the plate. That will make it harder for you to continue eating.

Just these few changes will help. Making a few small changes every month means that by the end of 2011 you will have developed eating habits that will help you manage your weight.