Are you unhappily overweight? Do you despair of getting to the right size and shape for you? You may know all there is to know about dieting, but you still struggle to manage your weight and achieve the body you want. Is this because you’ve given away your power to lose weight?

Do you let others decide on your portion size?

When you eat in a restaurant, buy a ready meal, buy chocolate or an ice cream, do you let the producer decide what is the amount you should eat by finishing whatever the portion size happens to be? Next time you’re in a restaurant take back your power and decide for yourself when you’ve had enough.

Our food supply has been hijacked by junk foods and the drivers are those in the food industry making a motza from selling cheap-to-produce, nutrient-poor “foods” that we’re spending more than half our food budget on. via Supersize me: our portion sizes are getting bigger

Do you let inanimate objects decide whether or not you’re a good person that day?

Do you weigh yourself, and feel bad if you haven’t lost weight, letting the scales determine how you feel about yourself? You know your weight will fluctuate from day to day anyway. What’s important is the overall trend. What’s even more important is what type of person you are, not how much you weigh.

Do you let others decide what your weight should be?

Do you look in the magazines and on the TV, and accept what the media say is an ideal weight? Think about the cost of being that slim. Remember that many of the pictures are digitally enhanced and that the photos are taken by experts who know how to flatter.

Do you let your parents decide what you are now?

Did your parents show you love through food? Were you made to eat up all the food on your plate? Do you still behave in the same way around food, even though you’re a grown up and allowed so many other things to change? Think of all the things that have changed in your life since you were a child, and decide to write your own programme around food.

Do you let your age determine what you weigh?

Do you believe that all women put weight on when they have babies, or when they reach the menopause? Do you believe that “all men” get fatter as they get older? Weight gain as you get older is often because you do less. Get more exercise, take up a new sport – there’s lots of other benefits than simply weight-management.

Do you let science decide why you’re overweight?

Do you believe that it’s “genetic” and that there’s nothing you can do about it? If you believe that, then that is what will happen: you’ll come to look like the rest of your family. Remember that genes only set the framework of what you are – the rest is up to you.

Take back your power, and the control over your life.