Is there anything more frustrating to a dieter than hitting a weight loss plateau? After diligently following a diet plan and steadily losing weight, the scales now refuse to budge.

That initial weight loss is often enough to keep us motivated but as this slows or even comes to a halt, what should you do?

What’s going on? You’re practically force feeding yourself healthy food in attempts at losing weight, but the pounds won’t budge. Unfortunately, healthy doesn’t necessarily mean low calorie and it’s those calories that are the all important key to losing weight.

It’s unfortunate that many of the higher calorie healthy foods are those we’d quite happily munch on throughout our diet. But these healthy foods often contain either high levels of sugar or fat and therefore are more likely to hinder than help your diet. So if you’re wondering why your weight loss isn’t as fast as you expected, maybe it’s down to eating too many of the healthy, high calorie foods shown here.

Why do we have so much difficulty maintaining our weight? While some struggle with diets trying to shed excess pounds, others find it a task keeping weight on. So how many calories do we need to maintain our weight.

This question presents a different answer for everyone as we all have our unique daily calorie requirements. Although the average daily calorie allowances given for men and women is 2,500 and 2,000 respectively, your own calorie needs may be significantly higher or lower than this figure.

Sticking to a diet is tough and one of the hardest challenges we face is when the dreaded hunger pangs strike. Being hungry all the time is one of the main reasons why diets fail. Too often despite our best intentions, we give in to our rumbling stomachs, eat the wrong foods and give up the diet. The good news is you don't ever need to be hungry while on a diet, nor do you have to spend a fortune buying special diet products. There are so many ways of filling yourself up with healthy and nutritious food that's easy to prepare and won't prevent you losing weight. Try some of the following suggestions and make your diet work.

We’re all wising up to the hidden dangers associated with eating a high fat diet. Not only does it lead to obesity, it can dramatically increase our cholesterol levels. Left unchecked, a high cholesterol level means we’re more than twice as likely to suffer from heart disease.

Despite the abundance of diets promising weight loss without calorie counting, the fact remains - eat fewer calories than your body needs and you’ll lose weight. This is often why dieters lose their motivation – they don’t know how many calories they should be consuming to successfully lose the pounds. So how do we go about finding this illusive figure? Working out your daily calorie intake for weight loss is quite straightforward. It’s not an exact science but it will provide a really helpful guide to your efforts at losing weight.

No-one enjoys dieting. When it comes to losing weight, we just want to get it over with in the shortest possible time. But choosing the right food to help us on our way isn't always straightforward. Fat-free or low-calorie both sound like good options, but which is best for weight loss? Read on to make sure you don't get caught out.

Watch out, hidden calories about. It's a minefield out there where everything is not what it seems. If you're embarking on a diet, it pays to be armed with the knowledge of where the dangers lie.

The following advice will help you avoid making common mistakes when choosing food for your diet plan.

‘Two for one’, ‘buy one get one free’, ‘all you can eat buffet’. These phrases are part of our everyday lives and they’re all designed to make us buy more. We all love a bargain but when it means we’re eating twice as much food as we should, our health suffers, with obesity the major problem.  We’re literally killing ourselves with overeating. So what’s happening and how are we getting it so wrong when it comes to our portion sizes.

Embarking on a weight loss regime is a daunting prospect for many people. All too often the first meal to go by the wayside is breakfast. It's a pattern that's repeated time and again by both "first-timers" and "experienced" dieters alike. Monday morning arrives and so begins a new diet. With the best of intentions you skip breakfast, believing this will give you a head start at eliminating unwanted pounds.