Losing weight is a battle, a struggle, a pain, right? That's most people's experience whatever diet they follow.

And nearly everyone finds keeping the weight off is even harder.

There's no doubt about it, the majority of diet and fitness regimes are hardly a bed of roses. And those pills, patches and potions, which are supposed to make it easy, are either dangerous or don't do what they promise.

So how CAN you make this easier?

The answer lies in your routines.

What you habitually do shapes you - quite literally. If you habitually go without breakfast and stuff your face at 11am with cookies because you're starving, you'll end up with one kind of body. If you habitually have a yogurt and fruit on waking and take an apple to eat at 11am (when you'll still be starving) you end up with another kind.

If you habitually walk everywhere your shape is likely to be different than if you jump in the car to go a mile down the road.

Routines are just patterns of behaviour. Things we feel comfortable doing once we get used to them. We don't even have to think about them. They're easy for us - automatic.

The answer to easier weight loss AND KEEPING IT OFF then , is in adopting the right routines and habits so that we don't even have to think - we just do whatever is good for our shape - automatically.

The skill is in moving from one set of routines (the kind that keep you overweight) to another - the kind that will result in weight loss and then weight maintenance for the rest of your life.

An all-out drastic lifestyle change rarely works, but if you gently change your habits and build them gradually, taking on changes that you are happy to live with for life, then you WILL find a permanent automatic solution to your weight problems.

What routines are you following today? What small changes could you make which would be your first steps to permanent natural weight loss?

Now it's time to take action and change your habits step by step to lose that weight!

Copyright 2005, Janice Elizabeth Small