Lose the Christmas weight

Cut down on booze

If you're trying to lose weight, remember to count the booze. A single gin and tonic has about 140 calories.

Don't believe us? Check out the alcohol calorie counter

Avoid man-sized meals

When cooking for two, don't just split meals into two equal portions. You don't need to eat as much as your partner.

Avoid the scales

Scales aren't necessarily a true measure of what is going on with the body.

If exercise levels are good (5-7 days a week), you may be putting on muscle but losing fat, so you may actually weigh more.

To get a true reflection of your progress it's best to use a tape measure.

The bin is not a sin

Don't treat your body as a bin. Try not to cook more food than you need or more than you should eat.

However, if you do have leftover food, try to freeze it, store it safely, or just throw it away if you can't be trusted not to eat it.

Cut down on juice

Vegetable and fruit juices provide healthy nutrients, but they also contain far more calories than you would get from fresh produce.

One apple has about 80 calories, yet an eight-ounce glass of apple juice contains 120 calories.

Eating fruits or vegetables satisfies our hunger much more effectively than drinking juice because the fibre in fresh produce makes us feel full.

Don't go nuts

Nuts and seeds play a big role in a vegetarian diet because they are great sources of protein, and the fat they contain is the healthy unsaturated type.

Nuts have even been shown to help prevent heart disease, but because of their high fat content, if you overeat you gain weight.

Too much chocolate

'Every time you eat a chocolate biscuit instead of an apple you are choosing to be fat.

'One biscuit won't make you fat but it will certainly influence what you eat later and it reinforces for you, the choice is always the chocolate rather than the apple.'

Lee Janogly, author of Only Fat People Skip Breakfast (£5.99 Thorsons)

Eating cafe-style

If your typical breakfast is a croissant and cappuccino, you might want to re-think your strategy.

An average-size croissant contains around 120 calories and seven grammes of fat and your standard cappuccino has around 150 calories and three grammes of fat.

Not only does this breakfast tip the scales in calories and fat, but it also doesn't provide the significant amounts of vitamins and minerals you need.

If you prefer to drink your breakfast, try whipping up a smoothie at home.

To save time, put everything into the blender the night before and store in the fridge. Then, in the morning, blend for one minute and pour.

Take the half-hour challenge

Exercise burns calories. A daily 30-minute brisk walk will burn around 1,500 calories every week.

Over six months this totals a staggering 39,000 calories, the equivalent of over 11lb of fat.