Already you know how diet failure goes. Full of hope, you clear out the cupboards, buy the healthy foods, dig out the exercise gear, blow the dust off the treadmill, and you are ready to go.

But then three weeks into your new lifestyle you've slipped back into old habits and you feel you'll never get control of your eating.

Think back to previous diets (yes, I know it's painful) and work out why you didn't stick to the plan. Why did you start out with such high hopes but end up back on the junk food and the ready meals? What led you astray?

If you can identify your problem areas you will be able to set up systems to prevent or deal with these problems.

So here are some practical tips to help you get control of your eating, stay on a healthy eating plan and reach your weight loss goals.

Did you just give up on healthy eating? Diets don't have to be all lettuce leaves and cottage cheese. I call my newsletter "No more Rabbit Food - weight loss tips for people who love food" because I don't want my clients living off lettuce! Start off with a few fruit or veg that you do like and that you could eat more of. Put more of them on your plate and have less of the other stuff.

Improving your diet is as easy as that. Of course you'll have to do a lot more than that but it is a start. And if you go onto the internet and search for salad or stir fry recipes you'll find more dishes that you can try, so you don't get bored with the same thing all the time. But the starting point is to change the food you eat now, having more of the healthy stuff and less of the unhealthy stuff. It's dieting by stealth as you are essentially eating the same foods but with a better balance in your diet.

Did you have difficulty preparing meals for yourself and your family? Get them to eat what you eat but give them more bulk. Everyone benefits from eating lean meat and fish with vegetables and fruit. They may also choose to load their plates up with pasta and have the heavy sauce. See these foods as "extras" rather than the main part of the meal. The meals we eat are often the other way round with a lot of pasta and sauce with a few veg on the side but the whole family can benefit if you rebalance the plate in favour of the vegetables.

Do you have difficulty preparing any sort of meal? There are several ways to deal with this (without choosing the option of eating out or having takeaway!). Learn to cook one or two basic meals, then make larger quantities so you can save some for later. When we make bolognaise sauce some is frozen and can be used with a baked potato on the nights we can't face cooking.

Homemade soups are infinitely flexible as whatever soup base you have in the freezer you can add any fresh veg to hand. Finish off by adding a few fresh herbs to give it that just-made taste (the herbs can be grown on your kitchen windowsill so they'll be there when you need them).

Stir fries can be cooked in a larger quantity and the next day can contribute to a salad or be warmed up to make a ratatouille.

Of course there may be times when even dragging a previously-made something out the freezer is too much effort, but if you have one or two recipes that can extend over more than one meal you'll be able to eat healthy, nutritious home-made food more often than you think.

And weight loss occurs when we make regular, consistent changes to our diet and lifestyle, not from a three week regime of rabbit food!