Trying to limit your food intake by dieting produces a tendency to overeat or even binge when restrictions are lifted (e.g. social disinhibition). The end result, paradoxically, is weight gain or re-gain.

This has been well described by Janet Polivy (Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto) who researches into the area of eating. She shows that food deprivation amongst dieters (achieved with intentional dietary restriction and restraint) produces a tendency to overeat, explaining why long-term dieting does not work.

Dr. Polivy's main interests have been and continue to be the influence of restrained eating and long-term dieting on behaviour. The discovery of the 'what the hell!' effect whereby dieting leads to binge eating has continued to foster further questions about the effects of trying to eat less than one would really like to. This includes studies of eating behaviour, cognitive and emotional reactions - contributing to and in reaction to food-related events. She has also been investigating the 'False Hope Syndrome' which characterises many of us who attempt self-change efforts such as dieting, identifying the factors that contribute to and maintain unrealistic expectations that lead to failure, and attributions and cognitions that promote repeated unsuccessful attempts. All very relevant.

My approach in this Weight Loss Clinic similarly focuses on the thought processes that contribute to unhelpful eating behaviours and the ways in which we can manage our environment to minimise the risks of unhelpful eating. Supported with hypnosis, this approach allows you to manage your eating in a sustainable and healthy way, without the constant worry of Diet, Deny and Deprive. Give me a call!

Well, I think that most of us know this.

When we are on diets, we are actively restraining ourselves from eating. Research has shown that this leads to attentional bias towards food cues. That is, we are more alert to things that make us think of eating, such as advertisements, cakes on display in a shop, the smell of cooking. And the more we think about food, the more likely we are to overeat.

If in addition, you are someone who already has a tendency to want to eat when you see food, then this attentional bias is increased.

One more reason why diets fail.

Hypnotherapy can help you to think less about food instead of obsessing, and to develop healthier eating habits.

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, we overeat 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.