Whether it’s the Atkins or the Paleo diet, many weight watchers have agonised over ways to slim down.

But now a leading geneticist has come up with a very simple solution to dieting – saying we should eat less of everything and not ‘blindly’ count calories.

Giles Yeo, a tutor at Cambridge University, has offered his six top tips for losing weight in his book ‘Gene Eating: The Science of Obesity and the Truth About Diets.

He said at the Hay Festival that dieters need to accept weight loss is ‘difficult’, but achievable if they ‘chip away at it a little bit at a time’.

His second tip is to ‘eat less of everything’ – but not to cut out certain food groups unless you have an allergy.

He said: ‘Don’t demonise and exclude whole food groups, unless medically warranted. Too much of anything is bad, and too little of anything is also bad.’

Mr Yeo said he once spent 29 days on a vegan diet and lost 10lb (4kg) while eating as much as he wanted. Meanwhile his blood cholesterol dropped by 12 per cent.

Some of his other tips include eating food that takes longer to digest, because it makes you feel fuller, and avoiding blindly counting calories.

‘Food that takes longer to digest will travel further down the gut and make you feel fuller,’ he added. He also advises eating more unsaturated fats, including avocado, nuts and olive oil.

Finally, he said ‘don’t fear food’, saying it is ‘better to understand food better and work with it, rather than be afraid of it’.