Weight management: think yourself slim

Sports psychologist, Pete Cohen, of the Lighten Up slimming programme explains how losing weight could be all in the mind

People often ask me why I run a slimming programme when I’ve never had a weight problem. My answer is that I know how to be slim without subscribing to a popular diet and I can teach you how to be slim too.

When I first started working as a personal trainer 12 years ago, I noticed that a lot of my clients didn’t care very much about being fit and healthy and they certainly weren’t exercising for fun. All they wanted to do was lose weight. I’d start by designing the perfect exercise programme for them and, when they failed to stick to it, I’d turn my attention to nutrition and give them diet sheets. Of course, they didn’t stick to those either and that was when I realised that the answer must be somewhere else.

I began to study the habits of all the slim and healthy people I knew. After all, if you want to find out how to do something it’s best to learn from people who do it best.

In my opinion dieting doesn’t work. All it does is make you more anxious about food and disrupt your metabolism. So, let’s assume that you’re ready to suspend your belief in dieting for a while and think like a slim person. How do you go about it?