Ok, here you are. You've reached that point. You might have been here a few times before, but this time it is different. You are going to lose weight and nothing, but nothing, is going to stop you.

So, it took you quite a while to get where you are today quite a while. Don't think that shedding those pounds is going to take any less time. It is going to take time and maybe a bit of exercise. It's not going to take a great deal else. In fact, you're going to be doing less than you are now, of one thing at least!

The reason you've been putting on weight? You've been taking in more fat than you've been using up. It pretty much is that simple. So, if you turn it round and decide to use up more fat than you take in, guess what? You'll lose weight. You and I both know that.

It's not rocket science is it? But how come it is so hard. Well, as human beings we are creatures of habit. We eat at the same times every day. We like to eat certain things time and again despite the fact that we know they will make us put on weight. We even eat when we aren't hungry. And then we wonder why we put on weight.

Losing weight then should be about changing habits. Yes, eat breakfast in the morning (would it still be called breakfast if you ate it lunchtime? - probably not!) but make changes to your habits. Not huge changes, because huge changes will make you revert to your old habits quicker than you can say "darn, I've out on another five pounds!". Make small changes. Eat a tiny bit less than you used to for starters.

You also need to have some fixed ideas about how much weight you want to lose and how you are going to go about it. Write yourself a plan. In that plan you need to include how much weight you are going to lose, you're going to identify the little things you want to change, you're going to write down the exercise you're going to do and you're going to set yourself some timescales.

You must remember however that it took you a while to put that weight on so you need to give yourself some time to lose it. That point is crucial to your weight loss. If you try to rush it you know what will happen. I'll spell it out just in case you need a reminder. "I've spent a whole week being good and I've just lost one pound, I'm going to have a lovely donut (where it says donut put in whatever you eat to cheer yourself up)". The day you decided to eat that donut was a Friday so you say to yourself "I'll start again Monday". By Monday, the pound you lost has been replaced by another two.

That's the way it works. You knew that already but a reminder about something so important never hurts. So anyway, get your plan with the goals, the new habits, the exercise and the timescales. You are going to start implementing your plan as soon as you finish it. It might take you an hour to do but as soon as it's finished that is it. There is no going back, ever.

I don't want to give you advice about what you should eat because you already know. Plus I'm not a dietician and you might sue me if your plan said that you should only ever eat oranges again for the rest of your life because they had lots of Vitamin C in them.

If you've tried to lose weight before, and I would guess that if you're reading this you probably have, you know the first few days and weeks are going to be difficult. But that's why the changes you make need to be tiny, almost un-noticeable. You will lose weight. I know it, you know it. You've lost weight before.

So, I hear you ask, "What's different this time?". You're not going to give in. When you write your plan you are making a commitment never to go back to your old ways. Your tiny changes will soon become normal and you will never want to go back.