Each person faces unique challenges when trying to lose weight. As Director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center, Lawrence J. Cheskin and his team of experts have had much success in helping individuals develop successful plans of action. Each plan contains the crucial ingredients for healthy success: an attainable goal, an appealing diet, and a practical programme of physical activity. Based on research in medicine, psychology, nutrition and exercise physiology, this manual offers an approach that recognizes the different reasons people gain weight - and why they have trouble losing that weight and keeping it off. The manual helps the reader to develop and follow a plan that meets his or her own specific needs. As you read through the book, you should be able to establish your own weight loss goals, dietary aims and exercise schedule, while building critical skills to help to cope with temptation, frustration, and anything else that interferes with your goal.