Leaving aside all the issues about what food is healthy and how it should be cooked, the first and most important step everyone has to take if they are to lose weight is to eat less. Portion control is the name of the game. But this means breaking the social conditioning that has shaped most people as they were growing up. Go into any fast food outlet or restaurant and the standard portion that arrives is more than 50% larger than the equivalent portion you will receive in Europe. As a result, the US has a significantly worse problem with obesity than Europe. The rule is that you are what you eat and, if you eat too much, you end up overweight. So your strategy has to be to eat less. Curiously, the most important decision is how often to eat at home. If you cook for yourself, you have a better control over the quantity of food you eat. Go out with family or friends and, when the food arrives, there is that expectation that everyone will clear their plates. In such circumstances, you must keep control, eat only half and pack the rest home — that is one less meal you will have to cook for yourself.

One tip for your own kitchen. Buy a set of smaller plates. The eyes often deceive the stomach. If you put a small portion on to a large plate, it looks unsatisfying. You are more likely to feel hungry and want a second helping. Put the same portion on a small plate and it looks more generous and you will often feel more satisfied. For those of you who are more lazy and prefer to cook less often, cook a large batch. Take a number of small boxes, portion it out and store separately in the refrigerator or freezer depending on how quickly you will eat the batch. You should also add a side salad to each lunch and dinner. This should not be a simple serving of lettuce. It’s better to mix salad with vegetables. The fibre content helps you feel fuller more quickly. In all of this, you should avoid snacking. There are enormous amounts of calories in snack foods. Hopefully, you can stick with a three-meal-a-day routine of smaller quantity without feeling hungry. If hunger does become a problem, go for mini meals more often. That way, you eat the same amount of food, but spread out differently over the day.

In all this, the assumption has been you will cope well with the hunger. Sadly, this is not always possible. Even with the help of family and friends, hunger gnaws away inside you and tempts you to break the diet before you have started. The answer is phentermine which suppresses the hunger messages coming from the stomach and allows you to go through to your scheduled meal times without distractions. However, you cannot take phentermine for more than a few weeks at a time. So the strategy is to start without the help of drugs. As and when hunger proves a problem, use the phentermine for a few weeks. All this time, your stomach is slowly contracting and growing more comfortable with smaller portions. You will be surprised how quickly you stop feeling so hungry.