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Did you know there’s a strong correlation between our habits, and who we spend time with? Researchers tell us that if we are regularly around someone, we start to become like them. This is usually thought to reflect in people’s opinions and attitudes; having a mutual regard for certain things, like the law or education for example.

It’s now becoming apparent as well that this common theme might extend to weight. We will eat more when in the company of good friends who eat more. A small study undertaken in America found that overweight kids and teenagers ate more when they were eating with a friend who was also overweight, than when they ate with a normal weight child.

Everyone in the group actually devoured more when they were in the company of friends, regardless of their size. But pairing up overweight friends led to the biggest consumption of all. The study was undertaken by researchers from the State University of New York at Buffalo. It highlighted the role friends play in influencing how much youngsters eat.

Frankly, having more relaxed habits when with friends is not a big surprise. Adults would no doubt have demonstrated the same characteristics. It’s possible however that in addition, we assume friends will give their consent. We’re inclined to unconsciously monitor our behaviour in relation to their reaction to it.

The researchers observed a whole mix of young people for this study. They were split into groups of two friends, or groups of two strangers. All were furnished with nibbles, fruit and vegetables. They also had various games to keep them occupied.

All the ones who teamed up with a friend ate a larger amount than the rest. However it was the pairs who were both overweight who consumed the most in total. And the variations were considerable, as shown below.

An average of seven hundred and thirty eight calories was eaten by overweight teens who paired with a friend. But the overweight youngsters with slimmer friends ate nearly three hundred calories less. The slimmer ones ate a fairly stable five hundred calories whatever the size of their friends. This ties in with the commonly held view that in early teens many kids’ decisions to smoke or drink alcohol are strongly influenced by what their friends do.

The research team looking at food consumption had to conclude that peers played an influential role in a young person’s dietary habits. This sounds very negative, but of course it means that if youngsters were to associate more with friends who eat a balanced diet, then they too are likely to adjust their habits over time. A good argument for teaching sound nutrition!

(C) Scott Edwards. Pop over to WeightLossDietWar.com for quality diet tips on weight slimming and weight management programs.

Managing our weight often means avoiding temptation. But this isn’t always possible in daily life. It’s especially bad if we’re the one who cooks for the family - with one meal for ourselves and another for everyone else! What can we do to improve on this?

No matter what meals we eat, as dieters we should start by reducing the amount we consume. It’s much more gratifying to start a meal with a full plate, so find a smaller than average plate and keep that one for yourself. Don’t rush to be the first to start eating. Take your time and chew your food well. Eating slowly will leave you more satisfied with your smaller portion for longer.

Try most days to eat the same family meal as everyone else - just big up the (steamed) vegetables and restrict fats, pastries and heavy sauces. Just don’t be tempted to fill up on bread rolls! If the family like their puddings, prepare ones that you can have a taste of. Try to stick with fruit and low fat yoghurt, although sugar-free jellies can be nice.

And yet some days you can pop in a weight loss meal for everyone. Just because a meal is low in calories doesn’t mean it isn’t flavoursome - and the family need never know… Try using fresh herbs to add a burst of flavour to pasta meals. Canned chopped tomatoes are a good base for a sauce, and don’t forget lots of black pepper.

When buying food, go for reduced fat dairy products and lean meat. No matter whether your partner or kids could do with losing weight, this will still do them good. Everyone likes lean white meat - just make sure the skin’s been taken off yours before eating. Potatoes can be nice and filling for slimmers - just buy ones with a creamy texture. You won’t need to add butter before serving then.

Check the ingredients on cereal packets - many are full of sugar and should be left on the shelf! Healthy looking cereal bars should be given a wide berth too - they’re often just as fattening as chocolate bars. We also probably consume a load of hidden calories in our drinks. Always go for sugar-free juices and sodas (note ‘fruit drinks’ have added sugar whereas ‘fruit juices’ just contain the natural sugars).

Attempt to limit your alcoholic intake as that can really boost the calories. What about carbonated water or diet ginger ale? Watered down apple juice makes a passable wine lookalike if you don’t want to be different from the crowd.

Obviously, to lose any weight we have to make a few sacrifices. However, a few cunning adjustments can sometimes make all the difference.

(C) Scott Edwards. Browse WeightLossDietWar.com for in-depth diet tips on losing fat and lose 20 pounds.

Slower eating can assist weight loss. Because it’s currently been shown that how fast we eat affects how much we eat. Under test conditions, individuals who ate quickly were found to eat more than those who ate slowly. This was proved when diners were asked to eat until they felt satiated.

Test it out today to prove it by eating your evening meal very fast. Keep going until you’re satisfied. On another occasion, take your time over exactly the same meal, really working every mouthful until it’s completely chewed up. There’s a very good chance that your first dinner will be bigger than your second. Additionally you won’t feel so hungry a couple of hours on following the slower meal where you ate less food.

Quite often we take in too much if we eat quickly because we haven’t allowed the food time to digest. That’s why we can feel bloated shortly after eating, because we’ve put too much food in at one sitting.

Another reason to take more time to chew food is because the digestive process begins in the mouth. We salivate more when chewing, which promotes effective digestion and dispersal of waste products. This means we retain less fat and carbohydrate in our system.

How much we eat can be strongly influenced by how we actually eat. The best way to dine is sitting at the table and concentrating on our food. Then we can eat more graciously, and put our cutlery down when we’ve had enough.

It could also be that sitting at the table with others encourages us to eat slower, perhaps because we’re conversing in between eating as we catch up on each other’s day. Whatever the reason, it’s far more beneficial than eating slumped in front of the TV.

It’s also the case that we eat faster if we’ve allowed ourselves to get too hungry. Aim to prevent this by planning meals in advance, and eat smaller meals more frequently. Sweets and chocolate give instant gratification, but the effect doesn’t last. But five or six mini-meals aren’t always possible when we’re at work. That’s when we need to take pieces of fruit, packets of seeds or nuts or perhaps some oatcakes to have throughout the day.

In summary, evidence is building to suggest that there’s a direct correlation between the time we take to eat a meal and how well satiated we feel. So delighting in each mouthful may well be an easy bonus that every dieter can benefit from.

(C) Scott Edwards. Navigate to WeightLossDietWar.com for clear diet tips on tips for losing weight and belly fat loss.

Serial dieters can often get locked in the same way of thinking about weight loss, even if they constantly try new diets. Take this concept for example: There’s a belief in society that if we succumb to temptation and snack throughout the day, we’ll just get heavier and heavier! But is this strictly true?

We’ve been brought up to believe that three square meals is the most health conscious way to eat. Recent research though might indicate that we get better weight loss when we eat more often. How much confidence can we have that this will work?

Won’t sitting down to eat more often lead to a weight increase? Long spaces between meals make us feel as though we’re getting somewhere with our diet. In actual fact that’s not the case.

Our desire for food increases the longer we don’t eat. This means that when it does come round to meal time, our appetite is much bigger than normal. This can result in greater consumption than is good for us. This predominantly occurs with our last meal of the day. Then we end up with more food in our stomach at completely the wrong time - shortly before we go to bed!

Alternatively, by consuming a meal 6 times at frequent intervals, we always feel satiated. Over time, our body ‘knows’ that food intake can be relied upon. It can then process food through our digestive system more effectively.

If food delivery is uncertain, the body holds on to fat that it might need to convert to energy later. And so we find ourselves suffering AND stagnating instead of experiencing the weight loss we want.

We can get most of our calories much sooner in the day if we take five or six smaller meals. We avoid too much food being left in our system overnight if we’ve eaten in this way. If we start a meal feeling starving, we are also tempted to eat the wrong things.

It makes it more challenging to eat salads and vegetables. What we really desire are pies, pizzas and pasta. They provide an instant gratification, but are counter-productive as far as losing weight is concerned! To sum up, we are much more likely to feel satisfied AND lose weight if we eat small regular meals and avoid starvation tactics.

(C) Scott Edwards. Check out WeightLossDietWar.com for excellent ideas on weight loss programs and loose weight fast.

A good weight loss programme can be put in place simply by keeping a food diary. You’ll need to keep to your normal habits for seven days prior to starting to slim. Jot down all the food and drink you get through, and don’t miss anything out. Then you’ll have a good idea of what needs modifying and by how much.

Clearly if you’re eating too much fried or processed food, or drinking several glasses of wine or beer, you could start by cutting down on those. But if that’s not the case, and what you’re eating looks OK, then just reduce the amount. Either way, use your food diary as the basis for the changes you wish to make.

Create a regime for the following week. Take account of what you’ll eat, drink and the exercise you’ll be taking. Write down different food categories to list what’s banned and what’s restricted. And then write down the food you can eat in generous amounts.

Under your drink heading, restrict alcohol to limited amounts on special days only. Forget any drinks with added sugar. When it comes to exercising, commit to paper your intended regime, noting which days of the week you will be doing it.

Early in the morning on the first day of your diet, take an accurate reading of your weight. Assess your progress each week, and adjust where necessary. Make a note of your weight in your diary once a week.

You have absolute control when you record everything you do. Useful observations jotted in the diary will help to make the following weeks more enjoyable. Mark down which days you completed your proposed exercises. Monitoring your weight and health is so much more manageable with a personal record.

It won’t happen overnight though. At first, it seems to be all effort and no reward! Try to exercise patience, and do persevere. Staying motivated can be difficult, so it’s important to focus on the rewards and not the effort.

If you do get demoralised with your results, analyse what’s been happening. Could your diet do with a bit of modification? Additional physical activity can help you catch up. Are there any fitness classes you could attend in the evening?

Celebrate your achievements along the way. An extended diet can be too demanding if you don’t. Clothes shopping isn’t appropriate ’til you’ve reached your target weight. However, there’s nothing wrong with a theatre trip to celebrate a milestone.

(C) Scott Edwards. Browse WeightLossDietWar.com for the best advice on the diet and weight loss diets.

When assessing weight problems, the medical profession refer to our Body Mass Index. A healthy index is anywhere between eighteen and a half and twenty five. If it’s any higher, then we’re too heavy for our height. Furthermore we’re defined as obese and morbidly obese respectively if we rise above first thirty and then forty.

A simple calculation can be done to work out your BMI. Make a note of how heavy you are in kilograms and how tall you are in metres. Your BMI calculation is then done by taking your height and squaring it, and dividing that by your weight.

For example if your height is 1.6 metres and your weight is 78 kilos, your BMI is 30.47 (1.6 x 1.6 = 2.56 then 78 / 2.56 = 30.47). As a BMI of more than thirty has been classified as obese, action would definitely be required in the above example.

We can’t lose weight if we continue to consume foods highly saturated in fats and sugars (save for the odd treat now and again!). The fat that’s already stored in our bodies will only be used up if we put less fuel (food) into our system. By eating healthy food we will make that system more efficient.

You should avoid crash diets which usually end up with you either feeling ill or giving up in desperation. Crash diets are those that limit your intake to below a thousand calories for women and fifteen hundred calories for men. Programs like this tend to have a yo-yo effect on weight - it comes off quickly, then goes straight back on again when you inevitably stop.

Manageable healthy fat loss can’t be done in a couple of weeks. If you consume around five hundred calories less each day than you normally eat, you can expect to lose up to two pounds a week in weight. This isn’t high-speed dieting, but over twelve months it could add up to a great deal.

Fat-laden food tends to contain the highest calories. So the easiest way to drop the calories is by cutting out fatty food. Instead, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, and increase the amount of whole grains in your diet. You’ll soon start to notice the health benefits associated with this change.

Avoid skipping meals - this really doesn’t help with calorie reduction. By the afternoon, you’ll be so hungry you might be tempted by chocolate or crisps. A number of lighter meals throughout the day is better in reality. Leaving yourself constantly hungry makes weight loss less likely. But eating frequent nutritious small amounts is the best way to fuel an efficient weight loss process.

(C) Scott Edwards. Pop over to WeightLossDietWar.com for clear ideas on slimming food and weight management food.

To make a change to your life you have to plan to make the change or it won’t happen. Nothing great ever happens by accident. Nobody realises their ambitions without commitment to a strategy.

The most successful people on any diet programme are those who set themselves realistic, achievable goals to get them from A to B. Targets that take a bit of effort, but certainly can be done will keep you on track. To have a chance of reaching your goals, they should always be S.M.A.R.T. - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Targeted.

Five D’s can form the outline of a contract that you should write down - to get a more emotional tie to reaching your goal: Try to define exactly what you expect to get from your efforts, in terms of lifestyle, fitness, weight etc. Make a collage of pictures that reflects these things, and look at them regularly (e.g. before your exercise sessions). The more specifically you define what you want, the better.

Desire (why you’re doing it). This needs to be something that stirs an emotion within you. For example personal challenge, get out from where you are, you owe it to yourself to have better health, to prove to someone you’ve got what it takes, to take control of your destiny.

Commitment or Dedication: Plan your time each week so you know exactly when you’re dedicated to exercising. Have it written on a calendar planner that you can cross off once you’ve completed it.

When your friends see how committed you are, they won’t expect anything else from you. Establishing your timetable helps you cope better mentally. You’ll exercise all the better for it.

A contract illustrates your Determination to see this thing through. Having a written document about the positive direction of your life makes it harder to bottle out of it. Having a plan and targets to work towards gives you a Discipline that helps you to power through the tough times that will occasionally strike you.

Keep your contract close by, and take time to look at it regularly. Write down your goals in a specific and realistic manner, then work diligently and consistently to achieve them. This has been proven by the world’s most successful people.

(C) Scott Edwards. Browse WeightLossDietWar.com for quality information on how to loose fat and lose pounds days.

Some people just seem to find life easy, and bounce from one accomplishment to another. Whereas there are also those who live at the other end of the spectrum, and make a mess of everything they do. So we have the victorious and the victimised - and they can generally be differentiated by their attitudes.

It’s essential when working on a weight loss program to adopt the habits of the victor to accomplish the right outcome. Feebly attempting a weight-loss plan without taking responsibility for the outcome will put you in the ‘victim’ camp. And yet for a victor it’s all in the bag from the beginning.

Visualise the finale of a tennis championship, where the player’s attitudes are as follows: The first says “It’s my final chance - I’ll give it what I can,” but the second says “It is my Destiny to WIN.” Guess who’ll win the tournament?

The victor is characterised by the word oar- a figure paddling on to victory. (OAR stands for Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility). On the other hand the victim is characterised by ‘BED’ - he/she stays in bed and is defeated. (BED stands for Blame, Excuses and Denial).

The victor doesn’t expect someone else to lead the way - and takes ownership of his or her tasks. He’s accountable for his actions, and so takes them seriously, seeing things through by tackling problems not creating them. He takes responsibility for the consequences of his actions, and doesn’t allow himself to make excuses.

In the victim’s eyes, there’s always a reason why he doesn’t achieve, and it’s seldom to do with himself. It’s always someone else’s fault - he feels out of control so justifies it by blaming someone else. He always makes excuse for his lack of performance, but the only person he’s persuading is himself. After repeating this pattern of blame and excuses for long enough, the victim lives a life of denial, convinced that there’s absolutely nothing he can do about his situation.

A person about to start a new slimming program should stack the odds of success in their favour by giving themselves a mental check-over. Anyone who’s a fully paid up member of the victim society will have to address their issues before they start, to truly embrace the concept of losing weight.

Attitudes (both good and bad) are simply habits, and with constant repetition they can be altered. When you’re alone with your thoughts, are you thinking like a victim? If the answer is yes, then take control right away. Don’t think others are better than you - it’s just that some people have fought their demons and come out on top.

“There is no such thing as a hero,” as Churchill said, “only those who rise to the occasion.” We need to have a winning outlook on life in order to become a winner in the weight-loss arena.

(C) Scott Edwards. Navigate to WeightLossDietWar.com for the best diet advice on not losing weight and loss fat diet.

Mental mind pictures spring into our head when we think of our ideal life scenario. We may visualise great trips away, having a large family home, a luxury car and perhaps a well respected position. It’s probable we’ll view our figure differently - with less body fat and a more toned physique.

Honing in on the new things we want to have is a good starting base when thinking of which goals we want to reach. If we don’t have an idea of how things will be when we’ve made it, the chances are we’ll never get there.

But before we can have all these great things, we have to be prepared to make some changes. As Albert Einstein said, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.” Or put another way, we’ll carry on having what we’ve always had if we carry on doing what we’ve always done.

Significant achievements only come about when we alter both what we do and the way we think. It’s not rocket science to know that there’s going to be a tad of work to do to achieve the things we want to have. It’s a basic law of life that we have to give in order to receive. Yet simply doing the work won’t automatically give us the lifestyle we’re after.

To realise the things we want in our lives, we have to behave in a manner that suggests our goals are a done deal! For instance, if our aim is to slim down and lose twenty five pounds in weight, then we must work-out and eat in the same way a lighter, healthier person would do.

Hanging out with friends comes after the work-out’s been completed. Success dictates that reward will follow effort. Results come all the sooner when slimming and good health are pursued with enthusiasm.

Success doesn’t happen on its own. We have to build the attitude of an achiever to act as a deterrent against the hits, doubts and criticisms that may be aimed at us.

Associating with successful thinkers helps. We can do this by reading biographies and watching interviews of others who’ve emerged victorious after conquering their difficulties. The same message runs through each - that what they’ve achieved can mainly be attributed to the person they became and the work they did before the money started to come in. And so to sum up - If we do our tasks with relish, and be a winner in our minds, we can be assured to have the things we’re working for.

(C) Scott Edwards. Visit WeightLossDietWar.com for excellent ideas on fast diet and weightloss diet.

Katie, my wife, and I badly wanted to lose weight. So we thought carefully about what it was we wanted and why. We were surprised to realise that our goals were fairly simple. My wife’s dearest wish was to have more energy when playing with the kids. And she wished for greater confidence in her beach clothes and lingerie.

My main wish was to be able to purchase clothes that fit properly! Also, as our home is on 3 levels, I just longed to be able to reach the top floor and not feel my heart pounding violently!

Whilst going through this introspection, we discovered that it wasn’t just about how we look, but also about how much we valued ourselves. We have much less respect for ourselves when we increase in weight. It’s very common to see weight reduction as the solution to a happy life. We wholeheartedly acknowledge these feelings, and want to share some findings with you.

Psychologists understand that we have a subconscious mind, which doesn’t recognise the difference between a real thing and an imaginary thing. And therefore our subconscious transfers its most vividly perceived information into our conscious - imaginary or otherwise! Repeat a concept often enough and that surfaces as the overriding idea.

Just how long have we been re-affirming the concept of how fat we are? A re-programming of our sub-conscious is what’s needed - so it works for us and not against us.

It makes sense to zone in on the happy things we’ll be able to do when we’ve lost the weight. The difficulties seem more worthwhile then. We started off with all the things we’d like to do or have more of: Things like dancing, flirting, swimming, having fun, soccer, running with the kids, volley ball, cycling, sun-bathing and feeling relaxed sitting in a hot tub.

Next we conjured up visions of ourselves on vacation, looking fantastic in our new summer gear. We got the respect and esteem of people as we confidently mingled with others. Life became a breeze.

Accordingly, both of us are a lot lighter and fitter - though not as thin as rakes! We’re feeling great and can honestly say the fun is back!

(C) Scott Edwards. Go to WeightLossDietWar.com for logical ideas on slimming food and weight management food.