I've just dug up some research regarding New Year's Resolutions. It was from 2004, but seeing as we are creatures of habit, I'm sure it holds true today.

Apparently, nine million Brits make New Year's Resolutions every year - with financial resolutions the most popular followed by giving up smoking, going on a diet (six times as many women as men plump for this one), exercising more and drinking less.

The problem is by the end of January, nearly half of us who make New Year's Resolutions will have broken them. And rather embarrassingly, a third of us don't even keep them for a week.

And I think it's pretty obvious why we fail so easily.

It's because we try too hard.

We try to go from a 40 cigarettes a day habit to no cigarettes when Big Ben strikes midnight. We swap crisps for carrots, biscuits for broccoli and sugar for salads. We go from couch potato to beasting our body to within an inch of its life at the gym.

Unvbelievable really because we know from watching others that it doesn't work. And we know from our own experience that it doesn't work.

So my advice for anyone who wants to lose weight - and lose weight for good - is to keep eating the crisps, keep eating the chocolate. If you don't, chances are you will fail.

The trick of course is to eat less crisps and less chocolate.

Here's what to do.

Supposing you love crisps and you love chocolate so much, that you know fine well that if you try to go without them you will eventually (usually within hours) succumb and stuff your face with them.

Do something outrageous and buy a bag of crisps and a chocolate bar every day.

Don't buy multi-packs and keep them in your cupboard. And don't have a biscuit tin tucked away either.

Make the effort to buy a bag of crisps and a chocolate bar every day. Go into your local corner shop and take your time selecting a packet of crisps and a bar of chocolate.

Now, if you are like most people, you will start off each day determined to lose weight - so don't eat crisps or chocolate for breakfast. Save them for the evening time, when you're watching TV and traditionally fill your face with "just one more" biscuit.

Now I've already said (How To Lose Weight - It Really Is This Simple), the secret to losing weight isn't what you eat, it's how many calories you consume. So you need to include those crisps and a chocolate bar in your daily allowance of calories.

In front of me I have a 25g bag of Walkers Steak & Onion crisps (yum yum) that come in at 130 calories. I also have a 40g Mars Delight (surprisingly crispy, deliciously smooth . . . ) that has 220 calories. Total for these two beauties - 350 calories.

I'm currently allowed to eat around 1,900 calories if I want to lose a pound or so a week so if I want those crisps and that Mars Delight tonight I know I have to limit myself to around 1,550 calories for the rest of the day.

Today, my breakfast added up to 400 calories and I've also had a banana since (about 100 calories). For dinner I'm having a Matteson's reduced fat smoked sausage, some oven chips and a portion of peas (total about 500 calories). So by the time I've finished my dinner I will have consumed 1,000 calories - leaving 550 calories for whatever I have for tea. A cheese baked potato and an apple would do the trick.

And then I get to eat both the crisps and the chocolate without compromising my belly-be-gone plan and without feeling guilty.

Of course I don't have to eat the crisps and chocolate. And as I re-educate my body over time, I probably won't even want both. Given the amount of salt in them, crisps every day probably shouldn't be encouraged anyway. But I know I can eat them if I want to as long as I have factored them into my daily calorie intake.

To me this has to be better than going from eating snacks as and when the fancy takes you to sudden cold turkey - only to then cave in after a hard day at the office and eat a whole packet of Jaffa Cakes and a tube of Pringles washed down with a couple of cans of Coke (total calorie intake in that sitting approaching 1,500 calories) in one glorious pig-out.

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