6.If you must have a taste of chips and other 'dry' snack foods, alternate with fresh vegetable crudités. It is quite difficult to mix tastes, so you are likely to eat more slowly and eventually give up. When that happens stick to fresh food choices.

7.Choose between an alcoholic beverage, a dessert or a 'sinful' main course, rather than indulging in all three. Rotate your choice when you have several events to attend.

8.Choose almonds, pecans and walnuts, eating individually and slowly. This way you can avoid handfuls of salted peanuts or cashews.

9.Alternate alcoholic drinks with a glass of sparkling mineral water with a dash of lime, or a vegetable juice dashed with a chili sauce.

(c) Kim Beardsmore

Overweight people tend to have higher blood pressure and higher blood cholesterol, which are major risk factors for heart attack and other blood vessel disease. Being overweight can contribute to problems in joints, and is also associated with other serious diseases such as diabetes.

How you tell if you are overweight

As we are all different shapes and sizes, there is not one recommended weight for your height. Instead there is a range of weights that are healthy for your height. One way to check your weight is to calculate your Body Mass Index or BMI.

Your BMI is a ratio or comparison of your height and weight expressed in a number. To find out your BMI you need to divide your weight (measured in kg) by your height (measured in m) squared. If you do not know your measurements in metric system you can find any number of BMI calculators online that will do conversion for you into empirical measures. One such calculator is at website listed below.

The accepted definitions of weight categories by BMI are:

Underweight - BMI less than 18.5 Healthy weight - BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 Overweight - BMI equal to or greater than 25 and up to 29.9 Obese - BMI equal to or greater than 30

These BMI values only apply to adults aged 18 years and over and are based on studies of Caucasian populations. Therefore, they are not applicable to children and adolescents and they may not be appropriate for people of other cultural backgrounds.

Another way to check your weight is to measure your waist circumference, using a tape measure. This gives you an idea of whether you have a lot of fat stored around your middle. Waist circumferences associated with increased health risk are:

For men Waist circumference greater than 94cm For women Waist circumference greater than 80cm

Being a healthy weight can help:

- improve blood cholesterol levels, blood pressure and blood glucose levels - reduce your risk of other health related problems - improve self confidence and self esteem - make it easier to be physically active.

If you are obese or overweight…try not to gain additional weight. This will help you in years to come as people tend to increase weight with age. Better still look after your body and follow a healthy lifestyle incorporating a nutritious, delicious, health enhancing weight loss program. Just by losing 10 pounds you can significantly improve your overall health.

(c) Copyright Kim Beardsmore