We also need to take full responsibility for making these changes, and doing all we can to make them work for us.

Incremental changes to our diets and lifestyles mean that our new habits have a chance to become second nature. If you follow the newest ‘fad’ approach you will have some success while your willpower is involved, but these approaches do not stand the test of time as the minute you stop focusing on the diet you will slip up, going back to old habits.

This highlights another problem with relying on willpower, especially while following some faddy or extreme approach. By definition you are thinking about your diet a lot more than you would otherwise – so you are essentially tormenting yourself with your deprivation! Being aware of ‘being on a diet’ all the time, which is needed if you are going to succeed with willpower, means that your chances of success are immediately lowered – it is much easier if you are not constantly focussed on what you can and can’t eat, and if you can just get on with your life and keep yourself busy.

So, how can you avoid this all-too-common pitfall?

Well, firstly, a long term approach is vital. You can force foods you dislike down you in the short-term in order to achieve a short-term goal, but where does this leave you in the long run? Still reaching for the old favourites, that’s where.

Instead, think about finding foods you actually do like and incorporating these into your life – this takes a bit of trial and error to get right, but means that the healthy foods you are eating are ones you really enjoy.

Then, who needs willpower? Over time you will proabably also find your tastes change and eventually the foods you used to eat or even crave no longer have the same appeal. Once you realise how good you feel when you eat healthier foods, junk really does lose its appeal.

We need to enjoy the changes we make to our lifestyle, although I would also add that change can be hard and uncomfortable. We need to persevere with certain things even if we aren’t that excited about them immediately, adapting our approach to find ways to make the changes as enjoyable as possible.

For example, we all need to up our vegetable and fruit intake to 5 – 10 portions a day, but for many this is extremely hard. At first you may resist, insisting that this nutritional programme cannot work as you absolutely hate vegetables. But there are universal laws of good nutrition, of which vegetables are one! The solution is, again, in the long term approach. So try out several different methods to find something that works for you. When it comes to eating your veggies you may realise that while you hate boiled broccoli you love it when it’s added to a stir-fry with herbs, spices and garlic, for example. If you struggle with this side of things, you will need to begin experimenting with new foods and methods of preparation: you can try stir-fries, mashes or purees (mashed cauliflower and / or butternut squash is a fab alternative to regular white potato mash for example!), roast veggies (roasting sweet potato or celeriac ‘chips’ instead of regular chips!), various salads, exotic foods, new combinations, spices and herbs.

You can always find healthier alternatives to your favourites and all these small replacements can add up to big improvements to your diet as a whole – which will be evident in both your energy levels and your waistline!

For any plan to succeed for you in the long term you need to have the freedom to make choices. It is freedom to choose that empowers you, and as you learn which choices are going to support your goals and which are going to take you further away from achieving them. Rather than focusing on deprivation and willpower, focus instead on how you can make yourself feel great, while eating foods you enjoy and that take you a step closer to your achieving goals.

If you can take this a step further and imagine how it will actually feel to achieve your goal you are even closer to achieving your dreams.

Be as detailed as possible, get truly involved in your visualisation of the experience you will have when your goals and dreams have become reality. The aim is to take a few minutes each day to think about what life will be like when your goals are realised.

So, if you plan to embark on a 12 week fat loss programme, make sure you spend a bit of time each day visualising how fantastic you will look and feel in that new dress you’re going to buy, when you go out for dinner with your partner to celebrate your new body.

Or, if you have a holiday planned in a few months time, imagine how you will feel when you step onto the beach, feeling confident in that bikini you bought last year but couldn’t quite pluck up the courage to wear.

If you struggle with visualising unaided you should consider creating a ‘vision board’. You simply create a collage of images that you associate with success in your goals, and place it somewhere that you can refer to it regularly. Include a picture of a person who has the figure you aspire to sculpt, or it a photo of you when you were at your ideal weight. You can even add visuals of the deadline you have set – if your goal is to be super-fit for a trip to the slopes then an image of someone skiing, or if you want to look great in your bikini on the beach, get a picture of the resort you are actually going to and use that on your vision board.

You can take it a step further still and create a ‘mind movie’. It’s basically a movie version of a vision board where images that you relate to how you want your life to be are interspersed with positive mantras and statements. Watching this daily, especially before going to bed, can be extremely motivating as it resonates on an emotional and subconscious level. You wake up feeling inspired and empowered.

Visualisation works so effectively as we need to be emotional about our goals in order to truly make long term changes. The power of our subconscious mind is such that it can help us achieve our goals when we aren’t really thinking about them – meaning we rely less on willpower so challenges become far easier to overcome.

Caroline Radway’s Top Tip of the Day! For more fitness and nutrition advice & support join the FREE member site: http://carolineradway.ning.com

weight? But does your ongoing dissatisfaction with your body linger on, despite all these efforts?

Well, perhaps your ‘perfect’ diet is to blame!

I recently had a client who was so committed to eating perfectly, she wouldn’t dream of polluting her body with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and on the surface you would think her diet was perfect. But she was struggling to see the results she wanted.

On the other hand, I had another client who was equally dedicated and committed, but who also gave herself some slack. She’d allow the occasional treat then simply move on and be extra good for a while to balance things out.

She lost 20lb in 6 weeks, despite it being the end of her university year, involving a few parties. She even lost another pound while enjoying her holiday the next week!

So, what’s going on?

Firstly, the ‘perfect’ client actually looks fantastic. But she has not always had that body and is still mentally and emotionally stuck in fear of regaining her previous, somewhat larger, physique. Her self-image is shockingly low and totally inaccurate! She is living in a state of fear and to her, ‘imperfect’ food is the enemy.

As in life, if you can’t be happy where you are now, you are unlikely to be happy when you reach whatever destination you are going to, unless you address the root of the problem. If you are like this client, you may get to your goal weight, celebrate momentarily, then immediately get right back to square one, dissatisfied with where you are at now, looking for a new goal. I’m sure you know of people who’ve decided that living in a different city or even country will make everything better – but we take our issues with us. It’s the issues that need resolution first.

The second client did not suffer from that lingering low self-esteem. She could have a cocktail or two at the weekend and it wouldn’t send her into a guilt-fuelled pit of self-hatred. She managed her nights out by not drinking too much and not having sugary drinks or mixers, made sure she had as much fun as possible and danced as much as possible, and didn’t succumb to temptations the next morning, instead squeezing a workout in. Her positive mindset made all the difference to her experience of life, her stress levels, and her results.

The other problem for the first client was that by focussing on ‘clean’ and ‘perfect’ foods, she often overlooked other aspects of her behaviour. She would make up for the fact that she couldn’t indulge in her favourite things by over-doing the so-called ‘good’ stuff.

Despite what many diet books insist, calories do count, and you can very easily overeat (especially as a woman), even when your diet is only ‘healthy’ foods. If you are hungry, and choices limited, the body and mind will find a way to satisfy!

On the other hand, you can be over vigilant on counting every calorie which can then send you into a rebellious mode, resulting in giant binges that are triggered by such excessive restriction and control.

If you stick to the nutritious, healthy foods we should all be focussing on, but also allow yourself the odd treat, you will still get great results, so long as the overall calorie level is right.

Rather than externally controlling either quality or quantity, why not make every calorie count? By being eating slowly and mindfully, enjoying every morsel, you’re less likely to overeat.

Another reason for being more forgiving: we actually benefit from occasional higher calorie days, as you boost the hormone leptin. Low levels of leptin, as seen in those who diet excessively, mean you are constantly hungry which makes sticking to your diet even harder. Your less restrictive meals or your odd indulgence is not only psychologically helpful, it is advantageous on a hormonal level too!

There is another hormone that is relevant here: cortisol. It’s the stress hormone, and who isn’t a little stressed these days? But unmanaged stress is one of the biggest blocking factors when it comes to fat loss. Some degree of ‘stress’ is necessary, but when our cortisol levels become chronically elevated, the body is unable to function optimally.

The first client is stressed about her body and her diet and stressed if she ‘breaks’ her perfect diet…. If she lightened up a little, enjoyed the odd indulgence and relaxed about it (without going overboard) then she would notice a significant difference in her overall wellbeing, as well as her results.

Over-restricting calories or types of foods leads to an ‘all or nothing’ mindset which is actually the enemy of long term results, as it can result in ‘blow outs’ or binges. Rather than being able to indulge sensibly, these ‘off-diet’ moments become a license to splurge on everything you’ve been missing.

If the first client does ever let herself go a little, she’s in fear that she’ll let herself go a lot, which will hinder her results (and ironically she will use this to prove her point that imperfect foods are the enemy!). By being more permissive all the time, the fear of totally overdoing it is lost, and you can begin to indulge sensibly.

Are you stuck in the neverending cycle of perfectionism and self-hatred? Are you chronically dissatisfied with your body? Are you suffering from ongoing low self-esteem and sabotaging self talk? If so, this will be blocking your progress as well as meaning that when you reach your goals you are likely to be no better off. So you must address these things now!

What can you do? Some mindful techniques such as meditation or yoga can help. Yoga is especially helpful as it enables you to see just how incredible your body truly is! You accept your body whilst also seeing that you want a healthy, slim body out of respect for your body and you want it to be as fit and healthy as possible! This helps you make positive choices all the time.

Also, try writing some positive affirmations. Write down the things you are grateful for: by celebrating what we have to be thankful for, we realise just how much there is to be thankful for. Write your goals positively too: you want to be healthy so you can enjoy life more and have more energy. When our mindset and our goals are positive, and we focus on things in a positive way, miracles can happen.

For a new way of thinking and behaving to become automatic takes time, which is why writing things down really helps. Use index cards and make sure they are to hand at all times. Whenever you ‘catch’ a self-sabotaging thought pop into your head, make sure you notice it, and then consciously replace it with one of your affirmations. Trust yourself to make the right choices, believe in yourself, and give yourself a little slack.

Diet-wise, make sure you are building in some flexibility and are not aiming to be perfect. This is certainly not an invitation not to take diet and nutrition seriously, but being a little less stressed and rigid about it all will help you get things into balance. You are eating healthy food out of self-respect, not out of self-hatred, and when there are occasions that invite you to make less-than-perfect choices, you can enjoy these indulgences too! In fact, the more you enjoy the treats the more they will be worth – and without the added guilt you are less likely to go into a binge spiral. You will enjoy every calorie even more, and find that compulsive negative eating patterns dissolve.

So, get writing those positive affirmations now! And take stock of your diet rules – what are you feeling like you are missing? Plan it in, and work around it, so your overall picture is one of health and happiness!

It really is possible to break the diet cycle. As the Buddist proverb goes: If we are facing the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. If you feel like you are running round in diet circles then this is one thing you need to work on, right now.

I pledge to create a DAILY top tip! Fire me over some questions and I will answer them in person with a short but sweet clip…

So, here’s the first couple of tips: Easy way to get ‘motivated’ and Easy way to get energised!