Birthday parties are not meant to be a threat. If you eat too much it’s not the end of the world.

Do the best you can - no doubt you’ll not be perfect. None of us are.

If it helps, see the party as an experiment with control and have fun with that. Make a game of it. Give yourself points every time you negotiate a tricky area (but only if that feels like a fun thing to do) You know the kind of thing (Had a mineral water instead of another buck’s fizz. (1 point) Asked for a small piece of cake. (1 point) Stopped eating when I’d had enough (1 point) Said “No” twice to Auntie Jessie insisting I had seconds (20 points)

Try visualizing how you want to act at the party before you go and make sure you’re not too hungry when you get there. Focus on the conversation rather than on the food - and try a little of the food you love to mark the occasion without going overboard.

Fat does not happen at a party in my experience - after all you have to eat 3500 calories too much to make so much as a pound of fat. Fat (or slim) happens with the food you eat day after day after day.

Enjoy the party and try and show yourself that the presence or absence of food (or the amount you eat of what is available) is not a factor in having a good time.

It really depends what the certain weight is and whether you are trying to get below a weight which is a healthy weight for you.

If you have reached a plateau but you are well above your goal weight then take a look at How to break through a weight loss plateau.

If, on the other hand you are now a healthy weight but you want to get lower then you have more of an issue because your body is not going to starve itself without a fight - diet or no diet!

Sometimes we are trying to reach the impossible for the make up of our individual body spurred on by air-brushed pictures of anorexic role models in the media and you need to examine your goal carefully to see if that’s what you trying to do - it neither realistic nor healthy to have that kind of aim.

But I think there’s often a point which lies somewhere above that which most of us could aim for and be healthy - that’s often below the kind of weight quoted by insurance companies as a healthy weight (i.e. not obese) - it’s the weight at which we look our (healthy) best.

At that level we sometimes have to contend with the “set point” our body seems to have which is somewhere above where we’d like it to be.

The set point theory is that the body has some kind of automatic weight regulating mechanism -  mainly determined by genetics. Once you reach this set point in your weight loss efforts, theory has it that the body will do everything it can to stop you losing more weight.

If you feel this is the problem then you do have to make more effort to lose weight than you did in the early stages of your weight loss campaign and you will have to be extra vigilant in making sure that you don’t put the weight back on quickly once you reach your target weight.

To lose a bit more weight follow the guidelines for a plateau in the link above until you reach your target weight. And once you get there be sure and weigh yourself regularly and take action immediately if the scales creep up more than a pound or two.

Common advice you’ll find around is that you need about 6 to 8 glasses a day but this does vary depending on how active you are and where you live (you’ll need more if you work out or live in a warm climate).

The main guideline to follow is that if you are properly hydrated your urine will be pale yellow in color and you won’t feel physically thirsty. If you’re getting dehydrated on the other hand you may experience the following

• thirst
• dark-colored urine
• not passing much urine when you go to the toilet
• headaches
• confusion and irritability
• lack of concentration

There is a very helpful article by the Mayo clinic outlining the facts about drinking water so I won’t repeat everything here. See this article on healthy water consumption.

Do remember that too much water can be dangerous - something you can forget if you constantly try and keep yourself hydrated by drinking from a water bottle all day long.

If you drink so much that you kidneys can’t cope then you can become very ill and even die. For more information on drinking TOO MUCH water see this article on drinking too much water from the BBC.

The trouble is that most of them are pretty tough to manage especially if you have any sort of social or family life!

If you live alone and never go out or have work commitments then you would probably manage much better but then no one would ever notice your new shape except you!

To increase your chances of success…

1. Choose the Right Program

Choose a weight loss program or diet which is going to be as easy as possible to fit into your current lifestyle and which offers some flexibility to cope with the type of situations you can’t avoid.

If you choose one with a meal plan - make sure you like the food. If you choose one with an exercise requirement make sure you’re not going to hate it within a week and that you have time to fit in the necessary workouts.

If possible choose one (like my own weight loss program) which has guidelines rather than rigid rules and meal plans.

2. Have the Right Attitude

Have an attitude that you are in this for the long haul - that you are not going on a diet but adopting a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life.

That way you are less likely to choose a plan that you can’t keep up for two weeks never mind a few months.

What changes are you prepared to make to your diet and you activity levels that will help you lose weight and keep it off forever?

3. Work on Your Motivation

Make sure that your motivation is solid before you begin and keep working on it every day.

We are all highly motivated the first day of a new weight loss program or diet - it’s the day after and the day after that which count most and make the difference between success and failure.

Take my free weight loss motivation course if you need some help with this area .

4. Mental Rehearsal

Think about where you have gone wrong in the past and work out strategies to cope with those same situations when they occur again (which no doubt they will).

Imagine yourself dealing with each situation in a different way and keep repeating this mental picture until new ways of coping with this type of scenario are fixed in your mind.

When the situation occurs in real life you are then much more likely to behave in a way which supports your weight loss goals than you have in the past.

1. it burns calories
2. it boosts your metabolism - even when you’re not exercising
3. it strengthens and firms your body making you look slimmer
4. it helps maintain skin tone and avoid loose skin problems
5. it makes you feel good - at least once you’ve finished your exercise for the day
6. it keeps you busy and away from the fridge!

and they are only the reasons that help with weight loss. There are of course many other reasons to exercise such as keeping you healthy, helping you sleep, boosting your energy levels etc.

All in all exercise is a GOOD THING.

Having said that it’s not ESSENTIAL in order to lose weight - it just helps. You CAN lose weight by diet alone. I don’t recommend it but you can.

What I will say is that if you are not keen on huffing and puffing away at the gym, vary what you think of as exercise. Find an activity (or activities) you enjoy instead such as dancing or swimming or ice skating and don’t let the dreaded exercise word cross your lips. Have fun instead of “exercising” while burning calories and losing weight

That’s a question I often get asked - “How do I lose weight permanently”. Many people manage to lose weight  but so few keep it off.

There may be a number of factors working against you here, separately or in combination.

1. There is the feeling of deprivation after “being good” for so long and the feeling that you deserve a reward
2. Boredom with whatever diet you have chosen
3. Rebellion against rules (even though they are self-imposed)
4. Seeing a diet as a temporary measure needed to reach a target weight rather than a lifestyle change
5. Self-sabotage where a person finds it a bit uncomfortable to experience the attention being more attractive brings.
6. Just slipping back into what you are comfortable with - your habits, how you look etc

It’s no wonder that more than 95% of dieters fail to keep off the weight they worked so hard to lose - you’re in good company.

To become one of the few who succeed, you need to

1. Choose changes to your eating and exercise habits which are you happy to live with forever. This generally means making small changes and getting used to them one at a time.
2. See weight control as a lifetime project not as a one-off goal
3. Continue to monitor your weight weekly (or even daily) and take action if you see you are slipping
4. Don’t set rules - make choices based on your own best (long-term) interests
5. Allow yourself to get comfortable with changes by going slowly and work on improving your confidence at the same time as you improve your shape

This type of hunger is quite a common problem if you are trying to cut down on food. You see we are programmed to want to eat - it is part of our survival and if we don’t get enough food (or feel we are depriving ourselves) we just want to eat and eat.

So more often than not this kind of hunger is generally not physical but psychological.

You are fighting your natural instincts to want to eat as much as you can.

In fact even if you are not trying to cut down on food, the causes may be psychological - you may be trying to fill some kind of “gap” that exists in you or in your life. You are eating for comfort - and as food can never offer more than temporary solace you can never quite fill the space in you.

This “gap” can be caused by loneliness, boredom, unhappiness, stress, anger - any emotion which you would like to get rid of, you may try and mask with food.

The answer, of course, is to tackle the root of the problem and not the symptoms - often easier said than done - but until you do something about the root cause of your emotion, you are likely to continue to try and plug the comfort gap with food and remain hungry all the time.

If you feel you can’t tackle the root cause and just have to live with the situation then it’s important to work out how to identify difficult situations and patterns when these emotions will occur and look for other ways to feel better.

See also this 7 part series Hungry all the Time on my Think Slim blog as this may help you too.

The best exercise for losing weight is one that you will actually do. You see I could prescribe a whole fat-burning program but if you hate it you will never do it (or at least you won’t do it more than a couple of weeks).

So just do more of the exercise and sports you love and you won’t go far wrong.

Changing your eating habits is by far more effective in losing weight in any case - you have to run more than a marathon to lose a pound of fat just with exercise!

If you are still at the stages of exploring what you like to do however, here are some pointers.

Losing weight by exercising basically boils down to this:-

• burn as many calories as possible with strenuous aerobic training
• keep burning calories after you finish your workout by using metabolism boosting activities such as interval training as part of your workout
• keep as active as possible during the course of the day outside formal exercise sessions - the more you’re on your feet the better
• include strength training in your routine as muscle burns fat even at rest and it will mean that you lose fat rather than muscle when you are dieting

To keep your skin as taut as possible as you lose, ensure you keep the underlying muscles strong - strength training will help here - and lose weight slowly to give your skin a chance to keep up with your body as it shrinks - especially if you have a lot to lose. For more about keeping skin firm see how to avoid loose skin after weight loss.

By the way, you’ll also find there’s no shortage of information out there on the web about exercising to lose weight.

But take care, some of it is plain misleading. See my article about the fat burning myth for more information on that.

This is a fairly common problem which can lead to massive weight gain if you don’t learn to control it.

That’s because the essence of weight maintenance (never mind weight loss) is to eat only when you are hungry and stop when you have eaten just enough - well before you have stuffed the last cookie in the packet in your mouth.

So how can you control this problem?

1. First of all you need to reduce your opportunities to overindulge. This starts at the store. Buy just enough food for proper meals for those in your household and absolutely stay away from giant packs of anything or two-for-one offers. Let others grab those “bargains”. They are no bargain for your figure.
2. Do not buy snack type foods unless they are super healthy such as raw vegetables or fruit - the less you have to indulge with the better.
3. Cook just enough for the people you are serving and if you “miscalculate” and there is any left over, offer it to others rather than taking it yourself. If there’s still any left put it straight in the trash - better wasted and in the trash than on your hips. Remember to cook less next time.
4. Don’t keep food in sight where you will be tempted.
5. Get involved in other activities and get so busy and so engrossed that you don’t have time to hear the food calling from your name from the kitchen.
6. When you think you are about to indulge, use the strategies for stopping a snack attack I just put on my Think Slim blog 3 Simple Steps to Stop a Snack Attack

If you do any sort of damage to yourself, it’s wise to consult a physiotherapist to get some exercises that will

• build up the injured part of your body once (or while) it heals
• allow you to work on the rest of your body without further putting pressure on your injury.

Apart from that, my general view on exercise is just to be sensible.

If something hurts then it’s not doing you any good. (And I don’t just mean if something is hard work - I mean if it hurts!)

So I would look at all the traditional forms of stomach exercise such as crunches and sit ups as well as the free course you can get from me of easy stomach exercises to do standing up and see what works best for you.

If traditional crunches AND standing exercises are both unsuitable for one reason or another, do as much as you can of the standing exercises seated in a chair. You won’t get the full benefit but you will get some.