Seven tips for diet success

 Melbourne: You need more than planning and organisation to win the weight-loss battle.

Nutritionist Susie Burrell`s new book, The Monday to Friday Diet, is offering practical tips on how to plan your week and make your diet work for you.

Each day is allocated a chapter that`s loaded with tips, menus and planning ideas to make your objectives clear.

Looking at the week gives you structure and gives you control of your working week and your food, said Burrell.

Prepare for the week ahead by making a meal plan and doing your shopping for the week. Buy enough for lunch and dinner and healthy snacks for the next five days, she suggested.

Cook at least two meals from your plan and freeze them on Sunday, she added.

"I call them sacred Sundays. Use this day to reset and nourish yourself and that way you will find the week doesn`t pile up on you and you are more rested and in control. This prevents you from running on empty," she explained.

Burrell suggests writing down an exercise plan for every day of the week.

Prioritise Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for exercise so that if things get busy later in the week you have at least three sessions done, Burrell said.

"Given our sedentary lives and jobs we also need to include half-an-hour to one-hour of walking to make up for how much we don`t move during the day. This could be walking to the station, or taking a half hour walk at lunchtime," she said.

Burrell recommends drinking only one milk coffee a day, eating breakfast before 8am, making vegetables the focus of your snacks and having one, low calorie day per week.

Bring lunch to work four days a week and avoid eating at your desk, she suggests.

Take a good combination of protein, carbohydrate and vegetables, followed by a cup of herbal tea and try for at least a 20-minute walk after you eat to aid digestion and up your movement quota.

Get up early and don`t sleeping too late, as it can set your day back and can lead to problems spiralling out of control, she said.

Eat the majority of your food by 3pm. Breakfast by 8am, lunch by 1pm and dinner by 7pm, she recommends.

Learn how to compensate, she said.

For example if you overindulge for one meal make sure the next one is as light as possible, like a replacement-meal shake or a salad.