If you’re having problems losing those extra pounds or finding it hard to get motivated you may want to experiment with one or more of the four natural techniques below. They aren’t miracle cures but they can help you get to the root cause of why you aren’t losing weight or eating healthily and by so doing help you find ways to get back on track.

If you eat when you’re not hungry try hypnotherapy:

Most people with weight issues don’t need reminding that the way to lose weight is to eat less junk, more healthy, nutritious food and to be more physically active. They know exactly what they need to do to achieve their weight loss goal but for some reason they find it hard to actually make the changes they need to.

This is because for the great majority of people food is not the problem; the problem is stress, low self- esteem, and low willpower and until the real reason for overeating is taken into account they will continue to over eat or make poor food choices. In short, they eat not because they are hungry but to relieve boredom or to protect themselves from feeling lonely, angry, guilty or unfulfilled and this unhealthy relationship with food becomes a habit so they are eating without thinking about it.

Habits are stored in the unconscious area of your mind and the benefit of hypnotherapy is that it enables communication with the unconscious mind to make the needed behavioural and emotional changes. Hypnotherapy can also help change negative thinking habits which can trigger depression, low self-esteem and low willpower and give you the motivation you need to begin to love your own body and take care of it.

For instance, it can help give you the willpower to eat healthy and exercise and to turn away foods high in sugar, saturated fat and refined carbohydrates. It can help you feel full quicker, eat slower, and eat less than ever before.

You have to remember that it took years to put on the weight and it won’t come off over night and hypnotherapy isn’t a cure all for everyone but it can work for some people, especially those who for years have been reaching for food when they know they aren’t hungry.

If you’ve never had hypnotherapy before or are worried that it might be dangerous hypnotherapy remember that it is safe when practised by properly trained practitioners. It is usually carried out one-to-one with a trained and trusted hypnotherapist in a therapeutic setting. After taking a medical history and discussing how hypnotherapy may be of use, the therapist will ask you to sit in a comfortable chair or lie on a couch. Your attention will be shifted away from external events or mental stresses and you will be asked to focus on your breathing and increasingly relaxed state.

Once you’re relaxed, therapeutic suggestions will be made such as, ‘you will no longer feel the desire to eat when you are bored’. You’ll then gradually be brought out of your relaxed state and back into the present.

If you find it difficult to maintain a healthy weight pay attention to your digestive health:

Paying attention to your digestive health if you have weight problems is absolutely crucial because if your digestive health is poor you won’t be getting the nutrients you need to burn fat efficiently and lose weight. So take the following small steps to boost your digestion;

• Eat a small piece of fresh ginger before a meal to activate the saliva glands and stimulate digestion before you eat
• Drink a glass of lemon juice diluted with water first thing in the morning before you eat breakfast to give your digestive system a boost
• Try to increase your intake of green leafy vegetables because these ultra nutritious foods are packed full of important vitamins, minerals and antioxidants for good digestion
• Mindful eating: Eat in a peaceful relaxing environment (stress can have a negative impact on digestive health) and chew your food thoroughly. Put your knife and fork down between mouthfuls and savour every bite; digestion starts in the mouth with your saliva.
• Increase your intake of fibre by eating dried fruit such as dates, figs and prunes, beans and legumes, snacking on apples, sprinkling ground flaxseeds (linseeds) on rice, grains, salads or any other meal of your choice.
• Probiotics: The bacteria Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium bifidum are considered good “probiotic” bacteria because they can help to maintain digestive and intestinal health. Although good bacteria can be found in some yogurts, there is a wide variation in the quantity and quality so look for good quality organic yogurt that add the active cultures after pasteurisation, because this heat process destroys both good and bad bacteria. Or alternatively you can add in a probiotic supplement like BioKult.

If you can’t get motivated to exercise and lose weight try yoga:

If you want to lose weight healthy eating needs to be combined with regular exercise but if the idea of spending an hour sweating away calories is not an appealing option yoga is a brilliant alternative way to get fit and flexible.

Although most kinds of yoga help tone muscle and build flexibility the one that significantly helps you burn calories is ashtanga. If you are overweight but fit this kind, also known as power yoga, is a great alternative cardiovascular work out that can help you lose weight and build fitness. If, however, you aren’t as fit as you know you can be you may want to begin with a less vigorous form such as silvanada which will help you build up your calories burning muscles but will also increase your strength and stamina so you can eventually move on to more aerobic activities.

If you can’t stop comfort eating try cognitive behavioural therapy (CBF):

Losing weight and keeping it off isn’t just about watching what you eat it involves addressing why you have an issue with food and why it may have become a way to avoid dealing with emotional problems, such as guilt and fear, which can lead to comfort eating.

Like hypnotherapy, CBF explores the psychological reason for negative eating patterns to get to the core of the problem and help you resolve underlying issues. Unlike hypnotherapy, however, practitioners don’t use the power of suggestion but instead teach you how to recognise the negative thinking patterns that are triggering your comfort eating and then give you powerful tools to stop those negative thoughts and habits.

The real power of the system is that it can help calm your mind and body, so you think more uplifting thoughts, make healthier food choices and don’t feel the need to use food as a substitute for emotional insecurity or hurt anymore. Again, CBF isn’t a cure all for everyone but for some people it can provide the incentive they need to eat healthily, lose weight and keep it off.

As you get older there is a steady, gradual drop in your basal metabolic rate (BMR). This drops by two per cent for every decade of your life. Therefore, over the years you may need to change what you do to stay fit slim and toned.

In your early twenties you naturally have more lean muscle and less fat, so your metabolic rate will be high. Staying in shape is also likely to be easier as the chances are you have more time to get active and to spend on yourself. Bear in mind though that by your mid-twenties, if you’re not exercising regularly – concentrated exercise, such as power walking, cycling or aerobics, say three times a week – muscle mass gradually starts to decline, slowing your metabolic rate and increasing your fat stores. It’s also crucial to make sure you eat breakfast because if you don’t, you slow down your metabolism and send the body into “hoard mode,” thinking it’s starving because you’re going a long period of time frequently 8 to 10 hours or more, without food.

The thirties, like the forties, can be a busy decade for most women jugging career and family life but extra weight tends to head for the hips on women and most of us try to work it off with running or aerobic exercise but what we really need is to do more toning – not only because toning helps you to control your shape, but crucially because toning also helps to protect against osteoporosis.

Dinner should be your lightest meal, and some experts recommend you don’t anything after 8 p.m., or any later than 3 to 4 hours before bedtime. This helps your body process and burn the food when you’re awake and moving around and burning more calories per hour. It’s also not a good idea to drop your calorie intake below 1,000 calories a day during this decade (or any decade) because this will signal to your body that you are in starvation mode, and will slow down your metabolism.

During your forties your BMR starts to slow down as hormone fluctuations occur and weight starts to settle around the stomach and waist. It is absolutely crucial during these years to do toning weight resistance exercises two to three times a week to build up your metabolism boosting muscle and to help prevent osteoporosis. Also instead of three to five aerobic sessions every week you need to do at least 30- 40 minutes of aerobic exercise a day to keep your metabolism boosted.

Smaller, more frequent meals and snacks keeps your blood sugar stable and provides a steady source of energy to fuel metabolism so don’t go for more than three hours without eating. You’ve heard it before, but drink those 8 glasses of water every day. The energy burning process of metabolism needs water to work effectively.

The average age for the onset of the menopause is 51. During the menopause the body produces less oestrogen, which can cause the rapid loss of bone density. For some women, the hormonal changes can trigger weight gain. Given that the metabolic rate continues to slow with age unless it’s speeded up by regular exercise and weight training exercises to build metabolism boosting muscle, menopause weight gain can be difficult to lose. Make sure you get some good quality muscle building protein with every meal you eat, such as eggs, fish, pulses, nuts, seeds and especially hormone balancing soya.

During the sixties and beyond, weight generally stabilises but this is the time when you need to keep a very close eye on your cholesterol levels to protect the health of your heart. Once again aerobic exercise is vital because it helps to lower high cholesterol and eating a diet naturally high in fibre, not adding bran, is also sound advice.

Q: Recently, I’ve heard that eating whole eggs is healthier than eating egg whites or fat-free substitutes. I’ve also heard that eggs can help you lose weight but, traditional wisdom seems to suggest that eggs are bad, so I’m confused. Can you explain?

A: Eggs are one of nature’s near-perfect foods. They contain an easily digestible form of protein, plus loads of other valuable compounds and nutrients that can even help you lose weight. With rare exceptions, such as an allergy, there isn’t any reason to avoid them, despite what you may have heard. The reasons traditional medical experts have recommended avoiding eggs in the past is because of its reputation as a high cholesterol food.

Cholesterol is crucial for every cell in the body, and around 80 percent of cholesterol in the body is produced by the body itself in the liver, regardless of how much of it you eat or don’t eat. Most of your body’s cholesterol is found within the cells, where it has all kinds of positive effects. Only about 7 percent of the body’s store of cholesterol is in the blood, and even then it doesn’t do any real damage until it oxidises and begins to stick to our arterial walls.

Nature, in her infinite wisdom, also created the egg complete with its own built-in antioxidant. It’s called lecithin, and it helps prevent egg cholesterol from becoming a problem. Interestingly, lecithin is found in the yolk, which many people mistakenly discard because it contains cholesterol.

As for weight loss, you are right, recent research has shown that eggs can be an excellent food for weight loss because they make us feel fuller for longer than other foods. Researchers from Louisiana State University in the U.S. looked at the eating habits of a group of overweight women. The women, who were following a low-fat diet, were asked to eat either two eggs a day for breakfast, or have a bagel. These two meals contained the same number of calories and yet the weight loss effect was very different. After eight weeks, the women who had eaten eggs for breakfast instead of bagels had lost the most weight and also felt as if they had more energy.

Eggs are a first class protein and it is the protein effect which can help us to feel fuller longer. According to the World Health Organisation most people can have up to ten eggs a week and buy organic where possible.