Most people only need to lose about 10 percent of their body weight to prevent or reverse serious health problems.
And as you'll
learn in the chapters ahead, this is easy to accomplish. Losing weight isn't complex or even difficult. You don't even have to give up your favorite or fast-food drive-thrus to succeed. Of course, we all know people who have lost weight on the latest trendy diet. While it's tempting to think that these folks have more willpower than we do or know some magical secret we don't, the real secret is that there isn't any mystery to slimming down. It's not rocket science; it's just simple math: if you eat more calories than you burn, your body will gain weight. If your daily intake of calories pretty much equals what you burn, your weight will remain stable. If you eat fewer calories or burn more than your body needs to maintain itself, you'll lose weight. There are no gimmicks, shortcuts, or loopholes around this fundamental law of nature.
Do the Math
Your body will lose 1 pound for every 3,500 calories you shave from your diet. The most painless way to accomplish this is by simply eating 500fewer calories a day—or burning off that many—or some combination of both. It doesn't matter whether those calories come from home cooking, restaurant meals, or fast food. Forgo or burn a mere 500 extra calories every day and you'll shed the weight. Sounds easy? It is. To prove it, here are some tips to illustrate just how easy losing weight this way can be: Keep your pantry and fridge well stocked Most weight-loss attempts fail because of poor planning. If your refrigerator and pantry lack a variety of healthful, lowcalorie foods, you'll grab whatever is handy when you get hungry. If you buy chips, candy, ice cream, and other fattening treats when you shop, that's what you'll eat when your blood sugar dips and makes you hungry. So if you shop a little smarter, you'll naturally eat the good stuff when you arrive home as hungry as a bear.
Eat five times a day
Most people trying to lose weight don't eat breakfast. Many skip lunch as well. So by 5 p.m. they're ravenous and often consume more calories at dinner than they would if they ate three sensible meals a day. They've also thrown their bodies into fat-hoarding mode by eating a giant meal. Eating three meals a day and snacking in between controls your hunger and prevents your blood sugar levels from dipping too low, which makes you want to eat, eat, eat. Dinner is the largest meal of the day for most Americans. Unfortunately, this works against weight loss. In laboratory studies, animals who consumed most of their calories at night gained more weight than those taking in an equal number of calories throughout the day. Reason? The body's secretion of insulin peaks in the evening and extra insulin ensures that more of the calories you eat will be stored as fat. You'll lose weight more easily if you eat more of your calories at breakfast and lunch and fewer at dinner.
Eat lean protein with every meal
Protein curbs hunger more effectively than fat or carbohydrates. If you want to test this yourself, have a bagel for breakfast, then clock how long it takes before you're feeling hungry again. The next morning, eat that same bagel slathered with a tablespoon or two of peanut butter. You'll see that this extra protein will keep you full for at least an additional two hours. Try to eat at least 15 to 20 grams of protein with every meal—and more is even better. You'll get that much from one egg or a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, a Sonic burger for lunch, and one of Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salads for supper. When you find yourself hungry an hour or two after eating, it means you probably need to up the amount of protein in your meals.
Get enough good fat
Many so-called experts advise you to reduce the fat in your diet. But as you'll see in the next chapter, between 25 and 30 percent of your daily calories should come from fat—yet always in the form of fish, nuts, olive oil, or other sources of healthful fats. Adequate amounts of fat cause your metabolism to operate more efficiently, burning calories instead of storing them. As a bonus, it also promotes the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients such as vitamin D, vitamin K, and coenzyme Q1 0 .
Don't depend on "white" carbohydrates This means white rice, pasta, white bread, and other starchy foods. There's nothing wrong with eating these foods on occasion. And I'm not suggesting you peel the white bun off a burger and toss it in the trash, but white carbohydrates raise your blood sugar almost as fast as pure sugar does. After this initial spike, massive amounts of insulin are released into the bloodstream to quickly move the blood sugar (glucose) into your muscles, your liver, and your brain. Once the blood sugar is removed, you not only feel hungry again but will crave more carbohydrates. Additionally, refined white carbs encourage your metabolism to turn excess calories into fat and store them in your fat cells. Eating these foods in the evening when insulin is higher almost guarantees weight gain.
If you find that your energy consistently dips after eating, or you frequently become sleepy, it's usually because you've had too many of this type of carbs. To lose weight and have a steady supply of energy (instead of the roller-coaster kind), eat more unrefined foods such as brown rice, beans, legumes, whole grains, and vegetables. (Sorry, french fries don't count.)
Take it home
This one simple tip could save you several hundred calories per meal. Studies reveal that people tend to eat as much as 40 percent more when they dine out. You actually eat less by having a take-out meal and bringing it home. In addition, eating fast food at home gives you the option of serving up healthier side dishes along with the main course, such as salads or steamed vegetables. Order dressing on the side This might sound trivial, but it's often the condiments and restaurant side orders, especially salad dressing, that can really pack on extra pounds. Consider a salad topped with Newman's Own Ranch Dressing offered at McDonald's. The dressing alone has 170 calories. Switching to Newman's Own Low-Fat Balsamic Vinaigrette drops the calorie count down to 40. Even better, order it on the side and drizzle on only a small amount. Eat slowly—and mindfully A lot of the calories we consume are "mindless" calories. These are the result of automatic, hand-to-mouth feeding when we're occupied with other things, like snacking in front of the TV or wolfing down calories at a bar.
Eating on the run—when your stomach has no time to catch up with your brain—almost guarantees that you'll take in more calories than you would if you sat down and really enjoyed your food. Americans gobble their meals far more quickly than people in France, Italy, or other Mediterranean countries. Rapid eating is a sure-fire way to take in excess calories. Here's why: once your stomach's stretch receptors sense that it is close to being full, they send a signal to your brain to stop eating. Unfortunately, this signal can take as long as twenty minutes to get there. So people who eat quickly tend to consume a lot of extra calories before their brains get the message. Here's
how to avoid this:
• Keep your hunger under control by eating frequently, say every two or three hours. This will prevent you from becoming so famished that you practically inhale your food when it's set in front of you.
• Take smaller bites and chew slowly. Appreciate the aroma, texture, and flavors, rather than gulping down your food.
• Eat at the table, not at the kitchen counter. This will help you relax, slow down, and appreciate the food's flavors and aromas.
• Get in the habit of putting smaller amounts of food on your plate and on your fork. Don't overload, either.
• Set down your fork between bites. Pick it up again after you've chewed and swallowed your food. Americans have a habit of filling their fork for a second bite before they've finished the first. Food-in-hand quickly becomes food-inmouth.
Take smaller portions
Forget those hard-to-remember rules about portion sizes. They don't work, because everyone requires different amounts of food. However, taking a little less than you think you want generally works. Studies show that people typically overestimate the amount of food they need—but once it's on their plate they eat it, even if they've already had enough.
Plan on seconds
That's right, I said "seconds." This clever trick works in two ways. First, you can take a little less with your first helping without feeling like you're dieting. Second, putting some time between a first and second helping gives your brain time to receive your stomach's "I'm full" signal. Because we've been so conditioned since childhood to clean our plates and not waste food, we usually eat what's in front of us even if we're not really hungry. A smaller second serving will help you steer clear of these extra calories. This tip helps shrink the size of your stomach without making you feel deprived. Your stomach actually stretches when you indulge yourself with heaping first servings on a regular basis. This trains it to need larger amounts of food to become satisfied. Cutting down your serving sizes reverses the process, actually reducing the size of your stomach and triggering chemical reactions in your brain that lessen your body's demand for food.
Why Soft Drinks Are So Fattening
Carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the North American diet, accounting for about 7 percent of our daily calories. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, teenagers get 13 percent of their calories from soft drinks. The average 
American drinks upward of 50 gallons of soft drinks annually! Apart from their water content, soft drinks are mainly refined sugar. Teens suck down the equivalent of 15 teaspoons of refined sugar daily in sodas. That's about the top end of the carbohydrate limit that experts recommend for all foods combined in a day! Soft drinks have been named as one of the leading causes of overweight and obesity—along with Type 2 diabetes and other weight-related illnesses. They contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is toxic to the body, in particular the liver. HFCS also causes profound fat accumulation and weight gain. This inexpensive sweetener is dumped into soft drinks and is added to literally thousands of foods, from cookies and jams to supersized muffins.
It's not merely the extra calories that make it such a nutritional nightmare. There's evidence that high-fructose corn syrup acts differently in the body than regular sugar and may increase the risk of serious diseases. HFCS also causes a rise in triglycerides, the blood fats that have been linked to heart disease. Animal studies indicate that a high-fructose diet can trigger insulin resistance and excess levels of insulin. Even without these dangers, the extra calories alone are a good enough reason to avoid it. In 1970, the average adult ate about half a pound of HFCS a year. Now that's risen to about 70 pounds! Kids—with smaller bodies and a big thirst for sweets—chug down even more. It's not only the sugar that makes sodas a problem, but also what they replace in kids' diets. Children used to drink a lot more milk than soda. In the mid-1990s, the balance turned and children were drinking twice as much soda as milk. At the same time, they began getting lower amounts of vitamins and minerals in their diet.
Want to lose weight without trying? Give up (or cut back) the soft drinks. At 140 calories per 12-ounce serving, you could easily lose half a pound a week (or more) by simply switching to water, ice tea, or carbonated seltzer from the soft drink fountain with just a dash of Sprite, 7-Up, or lemonade added for flavor. Here are some other tips:
• Read food labels and limit your consumption of any beverages or foods that list HFCS as one of the first three or four ingredients.
• Since corn syrup is the main ingredient in sodas, cutting back on them will make losing weight much easier. Try to substitute seltzer or sparkling water with a squeeze of lemon every once in a while (or more often, if you can).
• Go for smaller drink sizes. Those Big Gulp cups are belly-busters—and a sure path to diabetes. If you must have bigger sized drinks, fill a Big Gulp cup halfway with club soda or seltzer from the soda fountain and the other half with your favorite soft drink. You'll be cutting your calories by 50 percent.
Quick Cuts
Take a hypothetical hamburger meal at any fast-food restaurant. By the time you've totaled up the meat patty (500 calories, at least), the bun (about 160 calories), the "special sauce" (easily 150 calories), a big order of fries (about 800 calories), and an average cola (about 170 calories), youVe swallowed in excess of 1,600 calories. That's almost the total calorie need for a 120- pound woman for the entire day! It's a whopping amount, but you're probably getting even more in the form of condiments (one tablespoon of mayo adds about 100 calories) and other add-ons.
So try this weight-loss trick: Go to the same restaurant, have grilled chicken instead of the beef patty, eliminate (or reduce) the condiments, order a club soda with lemon, and substitute a baked potato (without butter or sour cream topping) for the fries. You'll easily cut the calorie load by half while feeling just as full. You'll also be getting a lot less fat—good for your heart as well as your hips.
If you drop a 300-plus calorie soda from your diet five times a week, you'll lose nearly a half a pound a week. Or you won't gain it. If you must have an occasional soda, dilute it with seltzer or soda water and you'll save a bunch of calories.
Downsize, don't supersize
At most restaurants, a single serving usually provides enough fat and calories for two daily meals. It's not a bad idea to get in the habit of ordering "half sizes" from the menu. Or you can order a child's meal and see if that satisfies you, because this is usually the correct amount of food. When we dine out, my wife and I often order one entree and share it. With soup and salad, that's plenty! Or, since it's often cheaper (relatively speaking) to get the larger portions, go ahead and order the standard serving and take half home for later.
Fear the Fries
Without a doubt, fast-food french fries pose the worst danger to your weight and health. Nearly everyone loves them—even people who aren't fast-food junkies. Yet french fries are often soaked with trans fats, chemically altered oils that are an even greater risk for heart disease than saturated fats like butter and lard. French fries are also high in acrylamide, a chemical that forms in starchy foods like potatoes when they're cooked in very hot fat and is known to cause cancer in laboratory animals. And we haven't even talked about the excessive salt sprinkled on them. What should you do? No one wants the food police ordering them to hand over their fries. But you don't want to keel over from a stroke or heart attack either, do you? So try this for compromise. If you have an irresistible craving for fries, order the small size and eat them s-l-o-w-l-y. Like one at a time. Enjoy every bite . . . and leave a few for a friend. Feeling better? Good. Because, in all honesty, you've reached your fry limit. This is one fast food you can't have every week if you want to lose weight—or keep your blood fats in the healthy zone. Besides the deadly trans fats and cancer-causing acrylamide, french fries are loaded with calories. A typical small order packs between 200 and 300 of them. You'd have to walk between two and three miles to burn them off—and even then your arteries would still be stuck with the extra-fatty load.
How Hungry Are You Really?
While a few of the fast food chains have cut back on their portions, "supersize" still sells in America. McDonald's current Quarter Pounder, the original supersize burger, seems almost dainty today at a mere 700 calories. By contrast, the Double Whopper at Burger King approaches 1,000 calories.That's half the calories the average person needs for an entire day! Before you order: Ask yourself if your appetite really demands that much chow. A little forethought and knowledge will really help. Consider this:
- The McDonald's Quarter Pounder with cheese, a 16-ounce soda, and an order of large fries contain 1,166 calories.
- The McDonald's regular hamburger with small fries and a 16-ounce club soda weighs in at 481 calories.
If you did nothing else in your weight-loss efforts but switch to the second, smaller meal, you'd save over 3,400 calories a week. With this one simple change, you'd lose one pound a week! That's 50 pounds a year! How would you like to lose 50 pounds without giving up fast food? Keep reading to see how.
Escape the Salt Mine!
By now most of us know that a high-salt diet is a major risk factor for hypertension, stroke, and heart attack. And it increases your weight. 
The body has a mechanism for keeping the salt level in the blood and tissues constant. If you eat a lot of salt, the body dilutes the blood and tissue fluids by retaining more water. But did you realize that the average American consumes twenty to thirty times more salt than his or her body needs? And that's if you never pick up the salt shaker.
Nearly 80 percent of our daily salt intake comes from hidden sources like prepared foods, including fast food. Consider the "healthy" McDonald's McVeggie sandwich. It contains 1,200 milligrams of salt, 80 percent of the upper recommended daily limit. McDonald's is hardly alone. You can easily get a day's worth of salt (or more) in a single meal at virtually any restaurant chain. It's almost impossible to avoid salt when you eat out.
You can help lower your salt intake by choosing fish instead of a burger or chicken. For example, a McDonald's filet of fish has 640 mg. of sodium versus 1,140 mg for a Double Cheeseburger and 1,210 mg for a Premium Grilled Chicken Classic. A baked potato (one of nature's best sources of heart-healthy potassium) is much better for you than french fries. More realistically, since most restaurant food is awash in salt, you should plan on cutting back on processed, packaged, and other salt-rich foods when you're eating at home, where you can control the ingredients. If you are salt-sensitive or have blood pressure problems, a good general rule for healthy eating is this: If you eat fast food today, don't eat any food that's packaged in a can or box tomorrow.
Avoid "Addictive" Foods
Just about everyone who struggles with their weight has a few "problem foods." By this I mean snacks or treats that are so seductive and tantalizing that giving them up would take almost superhuman strength. One of nature's ironies is that these foods are never good for you.
They're things like crackers and chips. Greasy fastfood burgers and fries. Wedges of cheese. Chocolate and ice cream. The specific foods hardly matter; they're different for everyone. But we all know which ones are a problem for us individually—and being free from the spell they cast over us would sure help us budge those stubborn pounds. Why don't we just quit eating them? For the same reason that smokers have such a hard time quitting or drug addicts keep going back for more. The truth is, certain foods affect the brain the same way heroin and nicotine do. They produce neurochemical changes that are addictive. That's why willpower alone is never enough to erase their power over us —and why so many people say things like, "I know I have to quit eating [fill in the blank], but I just can't." In his fascinating book Breaking the Food Seduction, Neal Barnard, M.D., reports on a study in which a group of chocoholics was given a drug called naloxone, which prevents narcotics from affecting the brain. After taking the drug, the volunteers were offered a tray filled with M&M's and other chocolate snacks. Normally, these chocolate-cravers would have pounced on the candy. But after taking the drug, they had no interest. Why? Because chocolate affects the same parts of the brain that are stimulated by opioids such as heroin. Chocolate isn't the only food with addictive qualities. A number of other foods, including cheese, have also been found to stimulate opioid receptors. Some foods—mainly sugar and refined carbohydrates—cause alternating surges and drops in glucose (blood sugar) that stimulate appetite and food cravings.
This is why it's not enough to deal only with calories when you're trying to lose weight—or to feel guilty when you slip off your weight-loss plan. You're probably dealing with addictions, which means you have to work hard to break the cravings cycle. Here's some help.
Sugar addiction Some recent diets emphasize "carbohydrate addiction." This is a little misleading. You know anyone who's addicted to, say, broccoli? The carbs that people really crave are crackers, pastries, and fries. Yes, these foods are carbohydrates, but the true addiction is to the concentrated sugars in them. When you eat highly processed, highglycemic carbohydrates, glucose floods the bloodstream.
The pancreas churns out insulin to get rid of the excess sugar. The insulin then removes so much of it that you experience a glucose plunge. That's about the time you start craving still more sugar. To stop this cycle:
• Eat low-glycemic, high-fiber carbohydrates such as beans, whole grains, vegetables, and so on. One study found that doing nothing more than eating regular, slow-digesting oatmeal instead of the instant kind caused participants to snack about 35 percent less throughout the day.
• Eat more protein. This controls your hunger and improves the ability of insulin to remove sugar from the blood, causing less precipitous spikes and falls.
• Eat enough and eat often. As long as you're eating healthy foods, frequent meals stabilize blood sugar (and insulin) and reduce out-of-control cravings.
"Death by Chocolate" For millions of Americans, chocolate is among the leading sources of extra (and excess) calories. Hard to give it up?
You bet! Apart from its opioid-like effects, chocolate contains addictive caffeine, a stimulating substance called theobromine, and a drug-like chemical called phenylethylamine. It also has chemical compounds that resemble those found in marijuana. No wonder so many people call themselves chocolate addicts or chocoholics.
• The average chocolate bar has about 200 calories and more than 10 grams of fat. That's a lot of extra calories, especially if you eat one or more every day. Helpful hint: Buy individually wrapped chocolates, such as Hershey's Dark Chocolates, for easier portion control. You can still occasionally indulge your chocolate tooth while keeping the calorie count down and helping your heart at the same time.
• Monthly estrogen swings are often behind chocolate cravings. If you eat more fiber-rich foods and cut back on fat around the time of your period, you'll smooth out hormonal fluctuations that trigger these cravings.
• Maintain or increase your regular exercise schedule in the cold months to combat feeling low. Winter depression often stimulates the urge for chocolate and other sweets. Cheese Like chocolate and sugar, cheese triggers a class of opiates (casomorphins) that can be highly addictive. When you consider that a thumb-sized piece of cheese packs about 15 grams of fat and 200 calories, you can see why cheese binges can really put on the pounds.
• You don't have to give up cheese to curtail cravings or calories, but you do have to eat less. Try dairy-free soy cheese as a substitute. It provides real cheese texture and flavor without the addictive properties.
• Order your burgers without cheese at the fast-food counter. When getting a pizza, ask that it be made with half the usual amount of cheese.
• When you have to have cheese, look for reduced-fat products such as low-fat mozzarella and ricotta. Better yet, substitute other foods that give the same creamy mouth feel without all the fat and calories, such as avocado or yogurt.
Doesn't all this sound easy? I told you it would be. And there are plenty of other success tips like this in the pages ahead. I promise: You don't need to go on a diet to lose weight and improve your health—and you won't have to give up the foods you love.
Disclaimer: This website is for information purposes only. By providing the information contained herein we are not diagnosing, treating, curing, mitigating, or preventing any type of disease or medical condition. Before beginning any type of natural, integrative or conventional treatment regime, it is advisible to seek the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.
