The book in overview iii change . Most diets that get a second hearing bring about weight loss – but for how long ? Eventually people give up . As I started to work with overweight clients I found that they kept bemoaning their ‘ lack of self-discipline ’. Many had come to see themselves as failures . This got me thinking . What actually is selfdiscipline and what role does it play in long-term change ? The answer ? In simple terms : not much of a role at all . Self-discipline might get us to study on Sunday and Monday evenings for an exam on Tuesday , but it simply will not get us to change our eating habits for the rest of our life . As I will discuss in depth in Chapter 2 , self-discipline is of no use when trying to bring about long-term change . The suprising truth is that the more you find yourself having to use self-discipline , the more likely you are to fail . Instead we need to put effort in at the outset to creating what I call ‘ strategic structures ’: the building blocks of new habits . It is critical that you understand this distinction between effort and self-discipline – whether you are trying to lose weight , give up smoking or drink less . Effort is critical to success , self-discipline is not . The effort needs to be applied to planning for danger times because , if we are perfectly normal human beings , self-discipline will fail us at these times . Why a new approach ? I was appalled when I started to look at the research into the effectiveness of traditional diets and found that the medical profession is better at treating most cancers than we are at treating obesity . In her informative book , The Psychology of Eating when reviewing the treatment of weight loss , Joan Odgen said , ‘... in real terms , between 90 % and 95 % of those who lose weight regain it within several years .’ Some intensive programs have done a little better than this recently so , to be conservative , I work on a 20 % five year success rate as the best