Everyone likes to think they are unique individuals, but there are a number of common traits which most share. All are the sum of their life experiences, habits and choices. Many from a young age have been in a peer group that eats large quantities of food and exercises little. The majority of these people may now be overweight. Why should this matter? Ask any doctor in the US or the World Health Organization, and the answer is that the overweight have a significantly increased risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. The more overweight, the shorter the expected life span. So the first step in losing weight is to want to change the habit patterns built up over the years. Distant threats of illness and disease are poor motivators when it comes to deciding not to eat all the food put on the plate in the local diner or restaurant. People have been conditioned to think it normal to eat large quantities of food. Grandparents and parents were full of sayings encouraging their children to leave an empty plate. Such mottos are acceptable when the quantities on each plate are small. The results ten years down the line are less impressive when plates are piled high with food.

Step One is therefore to come up with a way of motivating yourself to eat less. Smaller portions of more healthy food reduce the calorie intake. You burn off surplus calories through an exercise regime. But changing habits is always a challenge. You need to come up with specific incentives to make the changes. Vague hopes of improving health or "feeling better" will not do. Equally poor are promises to others. You have to own the choices and want to make them work. So fix targets for yourself and a reward program if you hit the mark on the due dates.

Step Two is finding a way of dealing with the hunger. Keeping this real, you may well have gone through life always having more than enough to eat. This means you may never have known what it’s like to go hungry - a sensation that can come as an unpleasant shock and quickly undermine all your best intentions. Face it, your genes have programmed you to eat when your stomach is empty. So the trick is to eat regular meals at fixed times. Get your body used to expecting food at predictable intervals. Do not snack between meals. If you find this difficult, look at one of the appetite suppressants. The longest-running in the market is phentermine and it can offer you support while you train your body to accept less food. Phentermine works by making you less aware of the hunger pangs. But it should only be taken over relatively short periods of time. If you prefer not to rely on a drug like phentermine, you need to find help from family and friends to keep up your morale. Eating less is easy is you have encouragement from those around you. Now add in the physical exercise and your weight loss regime is working really well.