How are we doing over there? Have you managed to make a dent on the mountain of snacks and nibbles that made your cupboard look like a post-apocalyptic food store (who knew the shops would only be closed for just one day, right?)

If you’re like most of the country, you’re probably wedged into an armchair watching The Sound of Music (which, by the way, you hate), ploughing through a tin of Quality Street you don’t need or want – because, well, it’s Christmas, dammit! – and muttering darkly about losing weight.

Over the past few weeks there’s been a lot of online chat about exactly this subject. How to rid yourself of the extra pounds that pile on while you digest the ap...

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Rachel Watson, the girl on the train in Paula Hawkins’ searing bestseller published two years ago, is a woman living on the precipice of her own sanity. She stares into the black abyss of total emotional loss on an almost daily basis.

In the novel, Rachel is a functioning alcoholic divorcee who is kept from being engulfed by the hollowness of her own existence only through an irrational preoccupation with the lives of a couple whose house her train passes every day on its way into London.

It is this thread alone that barely tethers her to the here and now and the reality of who she is and what she stands for.

‘I want to drag knives over my skin, just ...

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Many of you will have made New Year’s Resolutions, and I’m sure you were determined and steadfast in your absolute conviction that you would carry them through. But as the weeks pass, you can feel yourself waning with a never ending stream of justification as to why you are unable to keep on track, with exercise, healthy eating, reducing alcohol intake or all three.

You may well feel that sense of despair, disappointment and frustration, because there is a part of you that was absolutely convinced that you meant business this time. You declared it to all those around you, because you felt in that moment that you could trust yourself that nothing would get in your way. But it has, and you may well be wondering what went wrong. Well, let me explain about your ‘saboteur’.  There are di...

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“There is no diet that can do what healthy eating does”.

This is a very true statement, and one that has been my mantra for my weight loss clients as far back as I can remember. I have seen many clients here at Zoë Clews & Associates, who initially arrive disillusioned after years of one disappointing diet after another.  What I call the ‘The Great Diet Delusion’ is sold in such a way that many people spend decades caught in the loop, believing that the latest new fad is the answer to their weight loss prayers, only to return to their previous habits after realising that it’s simply not sustainable.

The problem with dieting is that your subconscious often has another agenda: to t...

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