To understand these tips to reduce weight you should view keeping slim as a game with yourself. The trick is to recognize the danger signals and fool yourself into doing what’s right to maintain a reasonable weight. The over-eater in you is just like a small child that wants its own way.

Firstly you need to watch and understand your habits so that you can get the upper hand in achieving your aim.

Here are some tips to reduce weight to help you. Some of them will probably be very helpful – others won’t work at all for you. Each of us is different, but the tips serve as a guide to understanding the kinds of things you can do to establish good eating habits.

There’s really only one rule, and it’s very simple:

Eat when you’re hungry and stop eating when your hunger is satisfied.

But as it turns out we’re not simple creatures, so we might need some extra principles to help us understand the simple rule.

Too much food is what makes us overweight and the (somewhat sad) fact is, that we need less and less food as we get older. This can be tough, because we view food more as a pleasure as we get older, and therein lies our problem. We don’t eat because we’re hungry, we eat to have fun. The western idea that more of everything is always better also doesn’t help.

1. Share meals when you eat at restaurants with your girlfriends

The average restaurant meal is large enough for 2 or 3 mature ladies. Restaurants feel obliged to offer large meals because that’s what people think is “value for money”. Eating everything on your plate to get “value for money” just doesn’t make sense when you consider the days of discipline you’ll need afterward just to lose what that huge meal caused you to gain in weight.

1. If you eat alone, leave something on your plate

You do this to prove to yourself that you are not a slave to food. Pause between segments of the meal to see if your appetite is already satisfied. If it is, stop eating.

1. Delay a while before snacking

Tell yourself that you can have a snack in a little while. Drink a glass of water instead. Think about what is the least fattening snack you can get away with before you finally give in. To win this round of the game you would wait the longest time and choose the smallest or least fattening snack or no snack at all!

1. Prepare snacks in advance

If you love pastries or cheesecake, or whatever it is, cut up very small sections of these delicacies and freeze them. When you have to give in to your craving, microwave one of these small sections and eat it slowly with a cup of tea (no sugar). If you’re out, cut the delicacy into 3 and give the rest away, or throw it away. Yep, be ruthless, there’s no shortage of food in the west. Eventually, food manufacturers will respond by making smaller portions available.

1. In time!

As a general rule, don’t eat anything after 7 pm until 8 or 9 am the next morning. Don’t have breakfast at all if you can avoid it. The longer you can go without eating at all, the more weight you shed. Drink water or fruit juice instead.

1. Avoid sweets and sugar

If you must, just have one chocolate or sweet out of the box when the craving gets too intense.

1. Healthy alternative

Find other things in life that satisfy you more than food and do them instead. Try to wean yourself off viewing eating as your main pleasure.

1. Reward yourself in other ways than eating

Find out what rewards make you happy (other than eating) and reward yourself that way instead.

1. Not all at once!

We don’t lose weight evenly hour by hour, so don’t lose heart. You might be checking your weight on the scales every few hours to see if you’ve lost the offending 1 kg or whatever and even though you’re not eating, you find you haven’t lost the weight. Don’t throw in the towel. Suddenly, after 8 hours or 1 or 2 days of discipline, you’ll register a “quantum loss”. Try not to mess it up by losing your heart too early.

1. You don’t need it

If you’ve been “good” for days, try not to reward yourself by having a huge meal. A small or medium one will do. It’s just your mind playing tricks trying to reward you for a few days of moderate eating.

1. Eat slowly and savor the food

If we eat fast it’s often that we’re thinking of dessert or the next thing we’re going to eat, instead of registering whether we’re already satisfied.

1. Not the same

Not all registered weight is the same when you hop on the scales. 500 grams put on due to drinking water is not the same as 500 grams due to French fries. The water weight fluctuates very quickly, the French fry weight doesn’t.

1. Don’t beat yourself up if you mess up

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Just renew your intention and start afresh. Eventually, the “thin you” will win out.

It’s well within your power to reduce weight if you truly see the benefits of a “trim you” as greater than the pleasure of overeating. The above tips to reduce weight can assist you, but by far the most helpful thing is to have a clear picture in your mind of how the trim you will have more fun in life, get more positive attention, and look great in clothes, including swimsuits!