1. Eat breakfast. This meal gets you off to a good start in lots of ways. It’s been shown the people who eat breakfast while on a diet, lose more weight than ones who don’t. Your breakfast doesn’t have to elaborate. Have a half a bagel spread with low fat cream cheese or peanut butter and a piece of fruit. Two hard boiled eggs, a glass of skim milk and a few crackers. A fruit smoothie made with nonfat yogurt, fresh strawberries and orange juice.

2. Make lunch your big meal and dinner a light supper. You need energy to get you through the busiest part of the day. Food eaten in the evening just sits in your tummy and makes you feel heavy. Make it a rule not to eat after 8 PM every evening.

3. Exercise before you eat. Exercise boosts your metabolism and decreases your appetite. You don’t have to go to the gym, a brisk 20 minute walk will do it. You can exercise inside as well. Try going up and down the stairs, running in place, doing 15 minutes of Pilates or your favorite exercise regime. Take your break at work and use it to stretch.

4. Eat every four hours. That means three meals and two snacks for most of us. Keep the snacks low calorie. The idea is to keep your blood sugar on an even level. You won’t be starving and give in to the candy machine.

5. Decrease the level of stress in your life. Stress causes an increase in the hormone cortisol, which is linked to fat storage. When you feel stressed take a time out to meditate, practice deep breathing or just think about a happy memory.

6. Make sure you’re getting your vitamins and minerals, taking a daily supplement to boost what you’re getting from your food can be a good idea. There are studies that show calcium has fat blocking properties and vitamin C helps with insulin production.

7. Picture yourself at the weight you want to be. Don’t belittle yourself with the weight you haven’t lost but congratulate yourself with the weight you have lost. Keep a positive body image.

Do not slouch in your chair but try to maintain an erect posture with your tummy tucked in.

Slouching is a very bad habit. Not only is it bad for your back but it also gives you a very flabby figure. It is your way of saying yes to a comfortable, weight-gaining pose.

Make it a point to always sit as erect as you can. It is also a terrific way to ward off back problems.

Weight Loss Programs

Psst. I would like to let you in on a secret.

I understand that most of us tend to put on weight particularly in the mid section. It is the tummy that seems to have a mind of its own.

Well I will tell you a sure shot method to reduce the flab around the waist line. Mind you this doesn’t hold true for post pregnancy tummies.

This is what you have to do.

Breathe in air as strongly as you can and as you do so, tuck in your tummy as much as you can. Hold it like this for a few seconds and then slowly release your breath taking care not to let out your tummy. Try to keep breathing like this at least fifty or sixty times in a day.

In fact, breathe like this whenever you can remember to do so.

After the first day, you should feel the muscles of your stomach tightening each time you do this. Then you know that you are on the right track.

If you practice this without fail for 20 days, at the end of the twentieth day, you will have lost at least an inch.

Undress and stare at yourself in front of your mirror. If what you see displeases you, then you have all the more reason to work out.

Try tucking in the extra fat in all those wide areas, this will give you an idea of which part you need to be working on.

Turn to you side and get a very good view of your side profile. This is an excellent way of checking whether you have a tummy that is starting to bulge or has bulged already.

Try pulling in air and then take a look at your tummy, if it has gone in even a little bit, there is hope for you. If you start now, you can control it where it is now and may be if you really set your mind to it, you can lose a couple of inches in a just a few weeks.

Weighing yourself on your bathroom scales is a good idea but personally I would recommend this mirror viewing. To be very frank, a few pounds gain may shock you but does not really disgust you. But a flabby figure and extra fat certainly will.

While traveling in an elevator instead of just standing there and staring stupidly at the numbers going up or down, try raising yourself onto your toes and then back on your feet again. Do this several times. Try flexing your buttock muscles as well, particularly good for you if you play golf.

In fact there are many muscles in our body that we can twitch and flex without inviting the attention of others.

Even if others do notice you, its no big deal provided you are flexing a muscle in a decent part of the body. (Most of the other parts do not have muscles any way.)

Others might brand you as a health freak, but it is miles better to be known as a heath freak than as a sack of potatoes.

Do not carry your mobile phone around but leave it a place where you can hear it ringing. In this way you make sure that you at least get up and walk towards it. This might sound silly but I really mean it. You need a reason to keep yourself going.

Life today has become so easy that we have every thing at our fingertips. All we have to do is push a button here and push a button there. The only things that get any exercise at all are our fingers. Years ago Charles Darwin put forward a theory of use and disuse.

According to this theory, a certain part of the body that is put to constant use develops a lot and a certain part of the body that has no use at all becomes smaller and smaller and gradually ceases to exist.

Certain examples that he quoted were the long neck of the giraffe, which appeared to become longer and longer when the giraffe stretched higher and higher to reach the leaves at the treetops. He quoted the example of the absence of a tail in human beings to illustrate the example of the theory of disuse.

Now if Darwin’s theory were to prove true, as the years go by man is likely to end up with just a huge head, a few fingers and maybe some other parts of the body that are also put to use.

That is why I made it a point to say that you have to drive your self to move about. A cell phone may be convenient, but the same thing can turn out to simplify life just a little too bit. There are other arguments against the use of cell phones but that is beside our topic.

What I would suggest is that at home or in your office, leave the cell phone lying about so that you can hear it ring, but can’t just reach into your pocket and answer it. See to it that you have to actually stand up and walk a few steps before you can pick it up.

Try playing something like table tennis or basket ball. Games are a fun way to lose weight. It is much more exciting to play a game than just work out by yourself.

The best thing about games is that they are addictive. Once you start playing you will soon end up with a friends’ circle and then the playing goes on without even you knowing it.

It is something that you can look forward to and there is no stress involved in this program. In fact the more you play the less you will consider this to be a part of your weight loss program. As you burn away those calories, you will also be able to expand your social circle.

Join a dance class.

Dancing is a wonderful way to burn off those extra calories. It is true. When you dance you are in fact burning away a lot of calories.

I don’t mean the slow ballroom kind of dances in which one person actually leans on the other one for support. I’m talking about fast dances.

The best way to do it is by joining a dance class because they will really work you out.

But I would suggest that you wait for a couple more pounds to vanish before you think of becoming a ballet dancer.

If you have a dog, take it for a run and let the dog lead you on. You’ll be surprised how much exercise a dog can give you.

Animals are sensible enough to know that they need a lot of exercise, so let your animal lead you on.

Take your pet dog out for as walk and before you know what hit you, it will turn out to be a run.

If you can’t think of any thing else to do try punching your pillow.

Now here’s another one of those weird ideas but believe me it works. Not too many of us have punching bags at home and if you have really fluffy pillow giving it a good punching routine is just as good as anything else.

This is also a nice way of letting off steam so go for it. After all something is better than nothing.

I would suggest that you don’t hit it too violently or else the stuffing might come out. Don’t bother too much about the force with which you hit the pillow. It is number of hits that are important. Try to get at least fifty punches in one bout.

Try massaging your partner. This is a fun way to lose weight.

It is something that can give your partner a lot of pleasure and at the same time can give you a lot of exertion thereby leading to weight loss.

The attitude over here should of course be you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. It should not be a one sided effort or else the interest will soon dwindle.

In fact it is a good idea if a couple take up weight loss routines together. They can keep watch over each other, help control those urges to eat and motivate each other to stick to the routine.

There are a lot of things that couples can do together that can help them to keep physically active.

Try breathing exercises.

You might be surprised to know that breathing exercises too can lead to weight loss. If you are doing the breathing exercises properly, you will find that you can exert a lot of pressure on the muscles around the mid section.

You can feel a tightening of these muscles each time you breathe in or breathe out. So go ahead and breathe properly, it is good for you.

Tuck in your tummy whenever you walk.

Get that proper gait. The best way to do that is to tuck in your tummy and inflate your chest.

Don’t let your tummy hang over your belt line like some unruly layer of flesh. Bring it under the belt.

Each time you tuck in your tummy, you will feel the pressure on the muscles of your stomach.

This tightening and loosening of these muscles is even better than stomach crunches.

When nobody is watching try doing pelvic gyrations. If you take a moment to observe it you will see that it is the mid section of our body that gets the least bit of exercise and that is probably why the signs of weight gain are mostly seen there.

It is the same reason why we find it very difficult to lose weight in that section. So the best thing that you can do is consciously try to give that part a little bit of exercise.

Stomach crunches might be too strenuous an exercise to start off with but gyrations are relatively mild. Pelvic gyrations make you thrust your midsection towards all directions and this is the best way of tightening every muscle in that mid section and that is of course what weight loss is all about.

Stop using remote controls. Remote controls are the bane of a prospective weight loser. They may be remarkable gadgets by themselves but from the weight loss point of view, they just aren’t very helpful.

They really encourage us to take a laid back kind of attitude towards life itself. In fact if remote controls were not there, the television would not have become so popular. It is because of remote controls that people can remain where they are and switch from one channel to the other. And they only have to twitch a finger muscle to achieve this.

Now, I have nothing against multi channel television sets but what I strongly advocate is that you get up from where you are and change the channel of the TV each time you want to do so.

The same thing holds true for other remote controls as well. As it is we have remote controlled TVs, DVD players, A/Cs, garage doors, gateways and what not. The next thing we know is that we will have remote controlled people as well.

If you hate running, remember, you do not have to run a marathon to stay fit. 10 minutes of cardio each day is good enough for most.

If you can’t run, try walking. 15 minutes of brisk walking a day is enough to keep most people fit.

Any distance is walkable if you have the time, so consider walking to places that you would normally drive (such as work or the market if they’re not too far away). It may take you longer, but the health benefits will last you a lifetime.

Use the stairs instead of the elevator whenever you can. Elevators are one hell of a convenience particularly if you have to go up or down some twenty floors. But elevators also make us very lazy.

There may be no sense in trudging up some twenty flights of stairs because by the time you get there you will be totally pooped. But while coming down, if you have the time, you can easily come down the stairs instead of using the elevator. Coming down is not at all exhausting.

And talking about the time factor, I don’t think that there is much of a difference. Sometimes waiting for an elevator door to open at your floor after you hit the button can take up all of eternity.

If you have a sitting job, stand up and stretch yourself every half an hour. Most of the jobs today are indeed sitting jobs that are in one word sedentary.

This is especially true for those who sit and punch away at a keyboard or toy with a mouse all day long.

So if you have such a job, make it a point to get up at least every half an hour and stretch your self.