Are you the kind of dieter who starts full of enthusiasm embracing a new plan on day one yet falling by the wayside a few weeks or months later?

Or are you a dabbler - someone who tries a bit of this plan a bit of that and never really gets anywhere?

Or are you someone who gets to your target weight, more or less keeping to your diet, and then ditches it with glee only to put all the weight back on again?

It doesn't matter what type of dieter you have been in the past, you can be successful from now on, but you will need a change in approach. After all, if the ways you've tried to lose weight and keep it off in previous attempts haven't worked for you, chances are they never will.

How do the people who succeed at losing weight actually do it?

Among my coaching clients I have established four factors that make a huge difference (and you don't even need a coach to put them in place). You become the type of dieter who loses weight permanently by:-

• making your mind up to succeed no matter what
• being ready to change your habits for the long term not just to meet your target weight
• having a simple plan to follow that fits in with your lifestyle and preferences
• arranging support by having the right routines and structure in place and having someone who you know will be there for you when the going gets tough

With these four elements in place the effort of losing weight is easier than you might imagine. For example, if you are absolutely determined to succeed you don't find it so difficult to choose healthy food options and to fit more movement into your life even if you don't want to take formal exercise. If you are happy to change your habits for life, you avoid the problem of losing weight and then putting it all straight back on when you go back to eating what made you overweight in the first place. If you have a simple plan, you don't get bored with counting and calculating, measuring and weighing food - you make changes which are easier to maintain. And getting support - from family, from friends, from the routines and structure you put in place, simply makes things go more easily, whatever system you're following.

Think about which of these elements are missing in the way you are going about losing weight. What do you need to change to become the type of dieter who reaches and maintains his or her target weight and stays there? Increase your chances of success by making sure these elements are present in your next weight loss program whatever way you choose to lose weight.

Copyright 2006, Janice Elizabeth Small

Janice Elizabeth Small

"As a weight loss coach, I love helping people lose the diet mentality and get slim for life by making tiny changes to their habits. New habits are adopted, step by step and weight loss becomes automatic as a result"

What I wish for you....

* that you finally understand you don't have to starve yourself or kill yourself at the gym to be slim
* that you learn that being slim can mean eating delicious food
* that you value your health and well-being enough to take action - small steps but action nonetheless

And what I wish for me?

* that I help make the world a healthier and happier place - one person at a time - through my articles, website and ezine
* that I can teach my boys to love salad too...