Layer upon layer of habits form and lock your behaviour in place They all nestle and support each other. One habit leads inexorably to the next, which triggers the next, and the next. Psychologists call these interlinked behaviours “habit chains”, and these become entangled into a web of habits, known as a “habit web”. In practice, this means that doing something as simple as choosing and eating your lunch comes with decades of psychological baggage.Habits make up much of this baggage These slowly accrue as the years pass. But hunger can be driven by so much more than simply the natural desire to eat.

Habits, emotions, expectations, social conditioning and a wide collection of psychological baggage can all act together to create a form of “false hunger”. We have all been honed by millions of years of evolution to seek out and consume food – that’s why nature gave us hunger. This simplistic observation has underpinned the diet industry for decades.In reality, it’s almost impossible to stick to a diet for more than a few weeks or months It’s not a question of willpower, but one of biology. It stands to reason that if you consume fewer calories you’ll dig deep into your body’s fat reserves and lose weight. And, bizarre as it seems, this is done by doing such simple things as taking a different route to work or switching off the TV for a day.Diets are superficially seductive. In most cases they continued losing weight until their body’s ideal healthy figure emerged.

Some people in the clinical trials lost over 40 pounds and virtually everyone kept the weight off.It turns out that the key to the no-diet diet lies in breaking the core habits that force people to overeat. Remarkably, this weight loss continued long after the patients had completed the initial 28-day programme. When they tested their theory on obese volunteers, they discovered that you could lose weight simply by breaking these habits A diet wasn’t needed at all. It was instantly dubbed “The No-Diet Diet”.In clinical trials their programme helped people lose around two pounds a week. Over-eating was a side-issue, a symptom of something deeper.They theorised that if you could break these hidden habits then people would naturally slim down to their ideal weight. I’ve always put it down to good luck, genes or a fast metabolism.Last year I learnt the truth when I met Professor Ben Fletcher and Dr Karen Pine, two scientists researching the psychology of obesity Professor Fletcher had discovered something remarkable.