The diet industry is growing fatter and fatter

The diet industry is vast - about $70billion a year. Huge food companies, like Kraft, have diet product businesses - fattening us up on the one hand and then selling us stuff when we want to lose weight. And the reason Big Business are in the diet industry, is because we keep failing at maintaining our diets. We put the weight back on again and again. Pretty much everyone does. None of us can keep up a lifestyle of diet, deny and deprive for long.

I bang on about changing behaviour and habits rather than going on diets. Diets are fine in the short term, if you want to go on the beach in the summer, then a crash diet will help.

I think Julia Roberts was speaking the truth in Notting Hill when she said she had been hungry for 10 years. And in an interview with Jenny Murray on Radio 4, Joan Collins said that it was her job to keep looking good, so she spent up to 8 hours a day primping, preening and exercising, before she went out to face her public. What are they telling us here? Well, it is that they have made a lifestyle choice. They have habits that help them to achieve the goals they have set for themselves (pretty tough goals, but the rewards of obviously huge for them!)

So let me bang on again. If you feel you are heavier than you want to be, look at your lifestyle. What habits do you have that encourage weight gain?

Most of us do not get fat by eating 3 meals a day. Research has shown that the calorie content of our 3 meals has been flatlining. It is the hidden 4th meal that puts on the pounds. Getting out of established habits is not easy, but you will have done it lots of times. When you change job, you change habits. When you get a new partner, you change your habits too.

Think about these new habits, making one or two changes each week. Don't do it all at once.

1. No more fizzy drinks. Even diet ones. You are training your taste buds to want sweet stuff. And they don't refresh thirst. Train yourself to drink water when you are thirsty.
2. Cut down the takeaways. You really don't know what they contain. Just look at the orange fat floating on the surface.
3. Don't watch the telly when you eat (you don't notice your food and you eat much more). Eat at a table whenever you can.

Start to notice what you are eating between meals. Just being aware will help you avoid snacks.


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