And we all know that a little bit of sunshine, particularly at the weekend, means the Brits get the BBQ out. Out come all the burgers, sausages, buns and sauces all washed down with bottles of beer or a glass or three of wine.  Well, it is the weekend!

No. If you are serious about your goals and have got the right mind set to achieve them then BBQ temptation won’t even feature on your radar. You will be focusing on the fish, salad and vegetables that you know are going to be good for you and help you get to where you want to be.

So, if you have been to a BBQ recently have a think about what you ate and why. Then ask yourself, are you really in the right frame of mind, do you really have the right attitude to achieve your weight, size and shape goals?

Without fail you will spot families queuing up for burgers and chips and there is usually a common denominator – they are all large.  They have by passed the salad bar and fresh fruit and have chosen to stuff themselves with rubbish.

Just the sort of thing the driver needs to stay awake and alert on the journey.

‘M’ is for ‘maintenance’

Let’s say you do a fantastic job of staying on your diet of choice and losing weight.  What’s going to happen when you reach your target weight?  I hope it will be time for a celebration, but will you have got there by sheer determination with a specific date, size, event in mind?  If so, what happens after the event?

If you achieved your weight goals because you’ve decided it’s ok to do so then maintaining your new shape, size and weight will be very straight forward and will involve little or no effort.  However, if it’s a real slog sticking to your diet and you resent being on it, or are not 100% committed then you are simply attempting to put a sticking plaster over a symptom of the real problem (the reason you over eat, binge eat or yo-yo diet to begin with).  Unfortunately all that will happen IF you achieve your goals is a return to your old eating habits and therefore a return to your previous (if not bigger) size.

In order to succeed it is vital you understand why you binge eat, over eat, under eat or yo-yo diet in the first place.  When you understand that your weight, size and shape goals will be so much easier to achieve and maintenance is not a word you’ll need to worry about as it will happen naturally.

For help getting to the bottom of the problem check out the How Many Calories Toolkit

Think about the use of the expression ‘treat yourself‘ in this context. It’s unlikely to involve carrot sticks and apples now is it? So how can eating fatty, sugar and salt laden food that will only serve to increase your waistline and cause potential health problems be a ‘treat’?

What would it be like if you could treat yourself with something other than food?

Food for thought (so to speak).

One friend really made me shake my head in puzzlement at his posts recently. He posted at least ten posts on the Valentines meal he was preparing for his wife. This included recipes, cooking tips and a blow by blow of the meal as it progressed. And apparently it went very well.

But then over the next few days he was telling everyone how he needed to get into the gym.

His writing about the food was way more enthusiastic and passionate than his comments about the gym so it’s not difficult work out what he enjoys more.  Funnily enough both his and his wife’s waistlines tend to agree.

Don’t get me wrong, I love food, but I love being slim and healthy more, what about you?

Posted by Stephen

They talk about it all the time, they read books on diets and dieting, they buy magazines on dieting and they buy all sorts of dieting paraphernalia over the years. The only thing is …  I thought you were meant to enjoy your hobbies.

Time for a different one?

Posted by Stephen

Now whether they’re doing it for religious reasons or because it’s a way of helping them diet I don’t know, but what strikes me is that they often follow the public declaration with a moan about how much they don’t really want to, or with a comment about how hard it will be.

Either way it shows how much power they give to this food and how much it will be in their thoughts right up to the time they allow themselves to eat it again.

No food should have that much control over anyone.

Posted by Stephen

What will it take before you accept that being slim has nothing to do with the latest diet you decide to temporarily go on?

Recently I was working with a client who insisted that all they needed was to be able to stick on a diet and they would get to their goal. What they really did not want to recognise was that they were the one who did not stick to the diet.

I asked them how the diet was meant to do it for them as they seemed to want to think that it was the diet’s fault.

Owning up to the fact that we are responsible can be tough but it is the only way to change anything.

Shall I ask the same questions next Monday?

Posted by Stephen

Rows and rows of sweets and crisps lined the route to the till, which you would expect because they make so much money from them.

So we are fair game but as usual I was paying attention to who picked some of it up.

One guy picked up a sandwich and a drink so he was probably hungry and guess what he was a good weight.

Another lady picked up a chocolate bar and she was slim too.

Another lady went to pick something up but then changed her mind, so I guess she is on a diet and is prone to yo-yoing.

And one young lady walked out with two packets of crisps, a bag of sweets and two bars of chocolate. Guess whether she was overweight or not?

So is it the supermarkets fault that the UK is getting fatter? No, of course not, because those few minutes showed we all have a choice.

The supermarkets are good at tempting you, but you have to pick the stuff up, pay for it and eat it.

Posted by Stephen

She had been over weight for a while because she was in a very controlling relationship and her partner, although loved how she looked, could not handle her being attractive to anyone else. So in fact he was a massively jealous guy who would give her food to show her ‘how much he loved her’.

So after leaving him in a traumatic break up she dropped a pile of weight but then got caught up in the stress of the change and stopped eating with an “if I’m slim I’ll be happy” belief. So she dropped too much weight too quickly and fainted on more than one occasion.

She finally got the point that this was not good and, as she sorted her life out, put a little weight back on then stayed there for quite a while. Life was good but the weight very slowly crept back on and this is when she asked for my help.

To cut a long story short it was guilt that was doing it. She had dealt with all the other things to do with the break up but what she did not realise was she was putting weight back on to be a good mother. In doing her best to look after her children she would give them treats and nice meals to compensate for the turmoil they had gone through.

So in an effort to feel better about herself because of the guilt from the stress of the relationship break up and not always being able to do everything that she wanted to do for her children she used her own favourite tool of food to make them feel better. And she ate these treats too as a way of bonding with her kids.

Luckily the kids had never learnt to use food in this way and so enjoyed the treats but always stopped when they had had enough and are all slim and fit. She on the other hand became a victim of her own desire to be nice.

So whether you use food to feed someone up because you are consumed by jealousy, or as a way of showing love, it doesn’t actually work for either.

But now she understands what she was doing she has found another way of being the best mum she can be and she can be slim as well for her own self esteem.

Posted by Stephen