Move your scale to your kitchen.
Resolve never to super size your food portions.
Start eating a big breakfast, this will get your metabolism going.
Make sure your plate is half veggies and/or fruit at both lunch and dinner.
Eating out? Halve it, and bag the rest. A typical restaurant entree has 1,000 to 2,000 calories, not even counting the bread, appetizer, beverage, and dessert.
Park you car, so that you walk a little further the exercise will do you good.
Having trouble sticking to a diet, a good weight loss pill can get you seeing fast results and will help you stick to your goals
Remember that having a lapse is not failing. If you go off your diet, don’t quit and don’t get mad at yourself. Just get back on track.
Use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate.
See what you eat. Plate your food instead of eating out of the jar or bag.
Whenever you’re feeling a snack attack coming on, brush your teeth. You won’t be hungry anymore and your teeth will be whiter.
Easy Dinner: Try a veggie sandwich from Subway.
Removing skin from chicken can cut fat content by 75% and cut the calories nearly in half.
Making just a few changes to your pantry shelves can get you a lot closer to your weight loss goals. Here's what to do: If you use corn and peanut oil, replace it with olive oil. Same goes for breads--go for whole wheat. Trade in those fatty cold cuts like salami and bologna and replace them canned tuna, sliced turkey breast, and lean roast beef. Change from drinking whole milk to fat-free milk or low-fat soy milk. This is hard for a lot of people so try transitioning down to 2 percent and then 1 percent before you go fat-free.
Eat the low-cal items on your plate first, then graduate. Start with salads, veggies, and broth soups, and eat meats and starches last. By the time you get to them, you'll be full enough to be content with smaller portions of the high-calorie choices.
Tell people you're on a diet. There's no reason to be ashamed to be on a diet. I found that trying to keep my diet a secret was harder than just telling people. In fact, telling your coworkers, girlfriend, family, etc. will increase your accountability.
Eat 3 meals and 2 small snacks every day to help boost your metabolism and avoid the “starvation” mode which packs on pounds even with few calories. NEVER skip breakfast.
The best place to drop pounds may be your own house of worship. Researchers set up healthy eating and exercise programs in 16 Baltimore churches. More than 500 women participated and after a year the most successful lost an average of 20 lb. Weight loss programs based on faith are so successful because there's a built-in community component that people can feel comfortable with.
Instead of whole milk, switch to 1 percent. If you drink one 8-oz glass a day, you'll lose 5 lb a year.
Juice has as many calories, ounce for ounce, as soda. If you are going to drink it set a limit of one 8-oz glass of fruit juice a day.
We’ve all read the internet rumors about the dangers of aspartame. However, this sweetener has been studied more intensively than almost any other food additive. The FDA, WHO (World Health Organization) and the American Medical Association have confirmed its safety. The only proven danger is for people with phenylketonuria, a rare genetic disorder. Labels of products containing aspartame include this warning.
Many people don’t think of beverages as food. You can consume a lot of excess calories in your juice or latte without giving it much thought. Save several hundred calories per day by drinking your coffee black, or by drinking diet instead of regular soda. Forego juice and consume whole fruit. You’ll get the benefits of fiber and other nutrients that juice can’t always provide.
Here's another reason to keep level-headed all the time: Pennsylvania State University research has found that women less able to cope with stress--shown by blood pressure and heart rate elevations--ate twice as many fatty snacks as stress-resistant women did, even after the stress stopped (in this case, 25 minutes of periodic jackhammer-level noise and an unsolvable maze).
Make a salad with fresh spinach leaves and include small amounts of vegetables to your side salad, such as onions, peppers, celery, radishes etc.
Keep a food journal. It really works wonders.
Always order your salad with the dressing on the side, then lightly dip your forkful as you go. The dressing is usually high in fats, but a little goes a long way
Use mustard instead of mayo.
The next time you find yourself tempted to go for fast food or order a pizza, get active for about 15 or 20 minutes instead. Walk on the treadmill or outside, weed the garden, or dust the furniture. After you’ve moved around for a little while, your body will feel better and you will likely find that you want something healthier for dinner. Your body is thanking you
Eat more soup. The non creamy ones are filling but low-cal.
Cut back on or cut out caloric drinks such as soda, sweet tea, lemonade, etc. People have lost weight by making just this one change. If you have a 20-oz bottle of Coca-Cola every day, switch to Diet Coke. You should lose 25 lb in a year.
Begin your lunch or dinner with a glass of V-8 juice. This will not only give you a serving of vegetables, but it will also help fill you up so that you will eat less at your meal!
Take your lunch to work.
Make your sandwiches wiith wraps instead of bread.
Keep tabs on your weight: Nearly half of those who successfully shed pounds said they weighed themselves regularly. Regular trips to the scale helped to keep tabs on any weight fluctuations and indicate the need to correct them. Check your weight daily if it helps keep you on track.
Sit when you eat.
Tune in to an audio book while you walk. It'll keep you going longer and looking forward to the next walk--and the next chapter! Check your local library for a great selection.
Dilute juice with water.
Have mostly veggies for lunch.
Eat at home.
Follow the Chinese saying: "Eat until you are eight-tenths full."
Easy Dinner : A bag of frozen vegetables heated in the microwave, topped with 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese and 2 tablespoons of chopped nuts.
Don’t crash diet. It’s important not to set yourself goals you can’t meet when you’re trying to slim. Plan to lose weight over the next year, not by February. It probably took you 12 months to put it on in the first place.
Mix three different cans of beans and some diet Italian dressing. Eat this three-bean salad all week.
Don't forget that vegetable soup counts as a vegetable.
Limit alcohol to weekends.
Use pre-bagged baby spinach everywhere: as "lettuce" in sandwiches, heated in soups, wilted in hot pasta, and added to salads.
Eat Slower, allow yourself time to feel full.
Spend the extra few dollars to buy vegetables that are already washed and cut up, that way they are easy to prepare and you won’t go for the quick fix.
Really hate veggies? Relax. If you love fruits, eat plenty of them; they are just as healthy (especially colorful ones such as oranges, mangoes, and melons).
Keep seven bags of your favorite frozen vegetables on hand. Mix any combination, microwave, and top with your favorite low-fat dressing. Enjoy 3 to 4 cups a day. Makes a great quick dinner.
The best portion of high-calorie foods is the smallest one.
Try these smart little sweets: sugar-free hot cocoa, frozen red grapes, fudgsicles, sugar-free gum, Nutri-Grain chocolate fudge twists, Tootsie Rolls, and hard candy.
The best portion of vegetables is the largest one.
Hold out. your cravings will disappear after 10 minutes if you turn your attention elsewhere.
Don’t fall into the trap of buying snacks “for the kids”, they don’t need them either.
Dance to music with your family in your home. One dietitian reported that when she asks her patients to do this, initially they just smile, but once they've done it, they say it is one of the easiest ways to involve the whole family in exercise.
Realize, you are a work in progress.
It's more stressful to continue being fat than to stop overeating.
Skipping meals. Many healthy eaters "diet by day and binge by night."
Don't "graze" yourself fat. You can easily munch 600 calories of pretzels or cereal without realizing it.
Beware of pasta overkill. A serving of pasta is 1 cup, but some people routinely eat 4 cups.
Always read the "Serving Size" on the Nutrition Facts panel.
Snacking on bowls of nuts. Nuts are healthy but dense with calories. Put those bowls away, and use nuts as a garnish instead of a snack.
Don’t assume all energy bars and fruit smoothies are low-cal.
Beat hunger with a smoothie made with fat-free milk, frozen fruit, and wheat germ.
Forced to eat fast food, many restaurants now have low fat meals, if you can’t dine at Subway stick to chicken products without skin or batter.
Easy Dinner: Heat up a can of good soup clear soups over creamy.
Just in case nobody mentioned it before exercise can really help you lose weight.
When you're exercising, you shouldn't wait for thirst to strike before you take a drink. By the time you feel thirsty, you're already dehydrated. Try this: Drink at least 16 ounces of water, two hours before you exercise. Then drink 8 ounces an hour before and another 4 to 8 ounces every 15 to 20 minutes during your workout. Finish with at least 16 ounces after you're done exercising. (adding a twist of lime or lemon to your water will quench your thirst)
Easy Dinner: Precut fruit for a salad and add yogurt.
Don't tell yourself, "It's okay, it's the holidays." That opens the door to 6 weeks of splurging.
Eat before you meet. Have a small meal before you go to any parties: a hardboiled Egg, Apple, and a Thirst quencher (water, seltzer, diet soda, tea).
As obvious as it sounds, don't stand near the food at parties. Make the effort, and you'll find you eat less.
At a buffet? Eating a little of everything guarantees high calories. Decide on three or four things, only one of which is high in calories. Save that for last so there's less chance of overeating.
During the holidays, wear your snuggest clothes that don't allow much room for expansion. It will keep weight loss thoughts prominent.
Give it away! After company leaves, give away leftover food to neighbors, doormen, or delivery people, or take it to work the next day.
Walk around the mall three times before you start shopping.
Make exercise a nonnegotiable priority.
Once in a while, have a lean, salad for lunch or dinner, and save the meal's calories for a full dessert.
Are you the kind of person who does better if you make up your mind to do without sweets and just not have them around? Or are you going to do better if you have a limited amount of sweets every day? One RD reported that most of her clients pick the latter and find they can avoid bingeing after a few days.
If your family thinks they need a very sweet treat every night, try to strike a balance between offering healthy choices but allowing them some "free will." Compromise with low-fat ice cream, yogurt and fruit, or sometimes just fruit with a dollop of light whipped cream.
Try 2 weeks without sweets. It's amazing how your cravings vanish.
Eat more fruit. A person who gets enough fruit in his diet doesn't have a raging sweet tooth.
Eat your sweets, just eat them smart! Carve out about 150 calories per day for your favorite sweet. That amounts to about an ounce of chocolate, half a modest slice of cake, or 1/2 cup of regular ice cream.
Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The large majority of people who struggle with night eating are those who skip meals or don't eat balanced meals during the day. This is a major setup for overeating at night.
Eat your evening meal in the kitchen or dining room, sitting down at the table.
Drink cold unsweetened raspberry tea. It tastes great and keeps your mouth busy.
If you're eating at night due to emotions, you need to focus on getting in touch with what's going on and taking care of yourself in a way that really works. Find a nonfood method of coping with your stress.
Easy Dinner: Cereal, fruit, and fat-free milk makes a good meal anytime.
Put a sign on the kitchen and refrigerator doors: "Closed after Dinner."
Brush your teeth right after dinner to remind you: No more food.
Eat without engaging in any other simultaneous activity. No reading, watching TV, or sitting at the computer.
Eating late at night won't itself cause weight gain. It's how many calories--not when you eat them--that counts.
Skipping breakfast will leave you tired and craving naughty foods by midmorning. Try Carnation instant breakfasts or Slimfast shakes
If you're starving by 4 p.m. and have no alternative but an office vending machine, reach for the nuts brush off as much salt as possible. The same goes if your only choices are what's available in the hotel mini bar.
Next time you're feeling wiped out in late afternoon, forgo that cup of coffee and reach for a cup of yogurt instead. The combination of protein, carbohydrate, and fat in an 8-ounce serving of low-fat yogurt will give you a sense of fullness and well-being that coffee can't match, as well as some vital nutrients. If you haven't eaten in 3 to 4 hours, your blood glucose levels are probably dropping, so eating a small amount of nutrient-rich food will give your brain and your body a boost.
Easy Dinner: Pre-bagged salad topped with canned tuna, grape tomatoes, shredded reduced-fat cheese, and low-cal Italian dressing.
Nothing's less appetizing than a crisper drawer full of mushy vegetables. Frozen vegetables store much better, plus they may have greater nutritional value than fresh. Food suppliers typically freeze veggies just a few hours after harvest, locking in the nutrients. Fresh veggies, on the other hand, often spend days in the back of a truck before they reach your supermarket.
Never say “I can’t have that” but rather say “I don’t want that.” This puts you in control of your choices.
Worried about the trans-fat content in your peanut butter? Good news: In a test done on Skippy, JIF, Peter Pan, and a supermarket brand, the levels of trans fats per 2-tablespoon serving were far lower than 0.5 gram--low enough that under proposed laws, the brands can legally claim zero trans fats on the label. They also contained only 1 gram more sugar than natural brands--not a significant difference.
Overeating is not the result of exercise. Vigorous exercise won't stimulate you to overeat. It's just the opposite. Exercise at any level helps curb your appetite immediately following the workout.
Easy Dinner: Keep lean sandwich fixings on hand: whole wheat bread, sliced turkey, reduced-fat cheese, tomatoes, mustard with horseradish.
Think yoga's too serene to burn calories? Think again. You can burn 250 to 350 calories during an hour-long class (that's as much as you'd burn from an hour of walking)! Plus, you'll improve muscle strength, flexibility, and endurance.
Drinking too few can hamper your weight loss efforts. That's because dehydration can slow your metabolism by 3 percent, or about 45 fewer calories burned a day, which in a year could mean weighing 5 pounds more. The key to water isn't how much you drink, it's how frequently you drink it. Small amounts sipped often work better than 8 ounces gulped down at once.
Sitting at a computer may help you slim down. When researchers at Brown University School of Medicine put 92 people on online weight loss programs for a year, those who received weekly e-mail counseling shed 5 1/2 more pounds than those who got none. Counselors provided weekly feedback on diet and exercise logs, answered questions, and cheered them on. Most major online diet programs offer many of these features.
Wild rice is not a rice at all, but is a grass seed native to North America. It is nutty in flavor and has more protein and fewer calories than white rice.
If you like bacon, consider Canadian bacon for a healthier choice. A once ounce serving of Canadian bacon has 50 calories and just 2 grams of fat. An ounce of regular bacon has 165 calories and a whopping 14 grams of fat. But don’t forget that both are high in sodium.
We’ve all read the internet rumors about the dangers of aspartame. However, this sweetener has been studied more intensively than almost any other food additive. The FDA, WHO (World Health Organization) and the American Medical Association have confirmed its safety. The only proven danger is for people with phenylketonuria, a rare genetic disorder. Labels of products containing aspartame include this warning.
If you get the urge to snack, set a timer for 15 minutes, and then decide if you still want to eat.
Easy Dinner: Scramble eggs in a nonstick skillet. Pop some asparagus in the microwave, and add whole wheat toast. If your cholesterol levels are normal, you can have seven eggs a week!
If you have a bad day, start again the following day. One day won’t matter, but two will.
Need to lose a lot of weight? Make it easier by concentrating on small goals, such as 5 pounds at a time.
