How many people can get through life without ever being on, or considering a diet? We are bombarded with information from the so-called experts about what foods are good for us and what aren't, just to have it all change the following week. There are daily TV programmes about how to be healthy and how to lose weight and for those of us who have accepted the inevitable 'norm', there is a programme on how to look good naked and accept what we are - now there's a novelty!

According to some diet guru's, we are what we eat. So, today I'm a bowl of cornflakes (started the day with good intentions) but by lunch time I'll probably be a cream cake or bag of chips. I just know inside me somewhere is a skinny person trying to get out but I always manage to shut her up with chocolate.

Diets have come and gone with fashions. We've had the cabbage soup diet, the Atkins diet, a phase of slimming clubs enjoying popularity and endless miracle diet pills if you still want to eat junk.

Always, always beware the miracle diet pills. There is no substitute for eating in moderation and anything that tells you otherwise is probably a marketing scam. You cannot pop a pill, eat that chocolate and have the work done for you. On the market at any given time is a plethora of pills that will promise you instant weight loss often accompanied with anything from increased libido and increased breast size to weight that literally melts off.

A doctor can prescribe diet pills for the obese but these have some horrible side effects, such as turning everything you eat to waste and making that waste come out of orifices unannounced. During research for this article I found diet pills that promise to make you lose 12lb in 3 days! Surely, you would be disappearing before your very eyes? How is this possible I hear you ask?

Basically, it isn't. You will lose water and this will be replaced as soon as you stop the pills. There really is no quick fix and the longer route has to be taken to stay healthy and lose weight that can stay off.

Sensible eating and a moderate exercise plan will work and the weight will stay off as long as you want it to. You cannot buy will power.

However, for those desperate to see that their diet is working, here are some tips.

Stepping on the scales should not be undertaken more than once a week. This is because weight fluctuates with hormone levels, water retention and many other factors so not seeing what you want on the scales does not necessarily mean that is your true weight.

Before your weekly weighing ritual, try removing all unnecessary clothing, remove contact lens, have a wee, have a haircut and exhale all spare air. Then, in a process that quickly becomes second nature, step on the scales one foot at a time whilst supporting your weight on a nearby prop and sucking in your stomach. When you get to the number you want, quickly step off again.

This will leave you feeling happy for the rest of the day, secure in the knowledge that your diet is working well and you can treat yourself to that cream cake or bar of chocolate without feeling guilty.

There are, of course, many other diet tricks to make yourself feel better. And feeling good is what it's all about. All those who have ever tried to diet will know that a depressive mood is the worst possible thing that will have you reaching for all the high fat, high sugar foods. So, how to eat without the guilt?

Eat low fat healthy meals three times a day. After that, apply the following: Other people's food does not contain calories. Only intentional calories count. If you steal a chip or twelve from your mates plate, the calories will go on her hips, not yours, as she ordered the food. It also tastes so much better than when you order it for yourself and this is because of the free calories.

Cleaning up leftovers on your children's plates will not count as they were not meant for you. There are many starving people in the world who would appreciate these leftovers but as you can't get it to them you should ease the guilt by eating it for them and not committing the cardinal sin of wasting food.

Squaring food off is a chore, it is not greedy. Sandwiches and snacks should be neatened up before serving as a matter of good manners and etiquette. Of course, these calories will not count.

Of course, when you are on a diet you will do well to remember that there is a reason specific diet foods taste bad. This is because bad tasting food does not contain calories. This also goes for food cut into small pieces, such as small pieces of cheese. When a bar of chocolate is the only thing that will do it, ensure it is broken into small pieces and sucked. This removes all calories.

Food that other people make 'just for you' has to be eaten - diet or no diet. This is because you will deeply offend if you refuse it. The calories in this cannot be counted as you didn't intend to eat it.
I can guarantee that all these diet tips will work. I have spent many years perfecting them and I am proof that they work as I am only two stone overweight when it might have been four!