Vital signs: Work together, sleep well and lose weight

So I cannot stress enough the importance of setting realistic, achievable targets, and reaching them by making small changes rather than drastic sweeping ones.

If I were going to target one area that we would probably all benefit from doing something about, it would be weight. If you haven't had basic parameters such as blood glucose and cholesterol levels measured in an age, then visit your GP, get them done and make a start. The key is not cutting foods out but cutting down. Instead of worrying about what you shouldn't be eating, think about what you can eat instead. If I had to distil my weight-loss advice into five key points, they would be these:

1. You don't have to go it alone. Getting friends on board, or joining weight-loss groups, can be more fun and far more successful. You can even download apps to your phone or computer that help you out. Research clearly showed that women who received daily, personalised text messages with tips and information on nutrition and exercise lost more weight than those who had no extra support.

2. Key to managing your weight is sleep. Make sure you are getting enough. It has been suggested that those who struggle to manage their weight might find it easier if they got one extra hour of sleep each night.

3. Don't get hung up on whether you should be low carb, or low fat, or any other diet regime. It is change in general that makes the difference, not so much the diet in particular.

4. Take it easy. A loss of around 2lb per week is about right to stop your body from panicking and going into starvation mode. It is also a far more sustainable rate.

5. Get everyone in the family involved. Struggling to eat healthily while those around you don't is doomed to fail. Everyone will benefit from
improving their diet, especially children, as managing to keep to a healthy weight in childhood makes having weight problems as an adult far less likely.

Twitter @DoctorChristian