There are plenty of ‘fad diets’ on the internet that promise to help you lose weight fast. The problem is that losing weight that way is not healthy, and chances are that you won’t keep it off. There are ways to lose weight fairly quickly and if you continue to keep up the practices that caused you to lose the weight then you will keep it off.

1. Water, water everywhere!

First and foremost, drink plenty of water. Drink it when you get up in the morning, drink it before a meal, and drink it while you are eating. Water is needed to hydrate your body, especially if you are exercising. The other good reason to drink lots of water is that water fills you up. Remember your mother saying to you at a restaurant not to fill up on water because you wouldn’t eat your dinner? Well, forget it. Drink all the water you want. It has no calories in it and yet has the amazing ability to help us feel full. Another good way to get flavor without a lot of calories is eating things that have a lot of water in them, like watermelon (notice the word water in there?) and tomatoes. They both are 95% water and so they will help you feel full without giving you a lot of calories.

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2. Five servings a day!

When you are dieting, getting your fruits and vegetables is especially important. But make certain that you choose fresh fruits and juices, instead of processed fruits. Stay away from the canned and dried fruits. Canned fruits contain less fiber than fresh fruit, and they almost always have sugar added. Same thing we can observe with fruit juices. If you are having strong desire for fruit juice, go for fresh fruit juice and make it yourself when you can.

With vegetables, you can never eat too many. If you can, eat them raw because cooking, even boiling, removes half of the vitamins from them. Your best bet is to have a salad and if you must have dressing, use the low fat, low calorie type. Vegetables are also a great source of fiber, so that is another reason to keep them in your diet.

3. Easy ways to exercise

When people talk about exercising, the things that come to mind are things like walking, running, and hiking, biking, and swimming. There are plenty of ways to exercise and burn calories without really changing your daily routine. Use the stairs instead of an elevator or escalator. Instead of asking someone to bring you something from downstairs, get it yourself. Change the channels on the television manually instead of using a remote control. Give your dog some much needed attention - take him outside for a walk. If you take the bus or subway to work, get off a block before your stop if you are able to. When you are watching television, get up and move around during the commercial breaks. These seem like small things but over time they can make a big difference.

Exercise doesn’t have to be boring. Crank up the music on the stereo and dance - dancing is exercise too. If you are frustrated, hit your pillow. Don’t keep your cell phone right next to you or on you. Keep it somewhere that you can still hear it, but will have to get up to answer it. Talk while on your cell phone instead of sitting back down.

Choose the least comfortable of available positions. Instead of lying down, sit. Instead of being sitting idle, stand up. Instead of standing in one place, walk. If you can, instead of walking, run. Start out slowly with your exercising. Make it fun, and stop when your body tells you to stop. Don’t get frustrated.

4. Alcohol

If you enjoy wine, stick with the dry wines instead of the sweet wine. Sweet wine, as the name implies, contains more sugar, but with the dry wine, most of it has been removed with the fermentation.

5. Meals

Don’t skip your meals. In fact, five to six smaller meals a day instead of three large ones helps keep your metabolism going all day and helps with weight loss. Also, chew all your food thoroughly. Chewing activates the salivary glands and it’s in your saliva that sugar is digested. So chew everything, even if it seems like you don’t need to. It will help.

In conclusion, there is no quick weight loss plan. But by eating healthy and exercising there’s no reason why you can’t be at the weight you want to be and look and feel great besides.