I know everyone has tips that they like to follow - and I know some of us have tips that others haven't even heard of yet. So I wanted to make a thread for everyone to post their "little" tips to everyone else.

I'll start off with a few that I like to follow.

1. Cold water helps speed up metabolism. Drink ice water instead of warmer water. Your body has to warm the water up in order to use it.
2. Leave bleached flour alone. Wheat or whole grain is a better choice.
3. Find a alternative to soda. Even if it's diet soda. The only diet soda I've ever been able to enjoy as much a regular is any diet Dr.Pepper.

I hope to hear some new tips from everyone!

We all have to find out what works for us and what doesn't, as we're all different.

My best tip, if you could really call it that - is to plan ahead - always. Eating healthy won't happen on it's own, it takes a conscious effort and lots of thought to make it happen. Plan ahead, knowing where your next snack and meal is coming from. ALWAYS.

1. Never go starved to a party where there will be bad food.

2. Whenever you get a salad at a restaurant guess the number of calories it has, then add about 50% if you order it as is is on the menu.

3. When making dinner that contains multiple portions (like a casserole) divide up your meal portion and put the rest away before you start eating.

Find healthy foods that you enjoy and try new foods...try foods you don't like cooked several different ways before you rule them out completely.

Exercise is a must, you must must must have intentional movement in your life(IMO) to be the healthiest person you can be.

Avoid sugar, Just Do It. It's hard to stop eating once you start and letting just a little bit in can open flood gates to letting more and more into your diet.

You've posted a couple of "old wives tails" here. Cold water verses warm water ~ it's water all the same. The body does not have to warm the cold water and does not work harder to "warm" the water.

Diet soda is not an alternative to soda when it comes to the amount of chemicals in diet soda verses the sugar in regular soda. Soda, all soda, is bad for you. New studies have shown that drinking any kind of soda will slow down your weight loss efforts. Try cutting all soda, even diet, it will help your weight loss efforts. Once you lose the weight and are maintaining, you can put it back in.

All flour comes from wheat. Some is bleached, some is not, some is self-raising, some is specifically for baking, but it's all based in wheat unless otherwise specified. Even whole wheat flour is made from WHEAT. There are other ingredients in flour, but wheat is the main ingredient.

There's a lot of great things you can do for yourself ~ drink 8 glasses of water a day, lower your sodium count, and walk. They will all help you lose without the gimmicks.

I'll say that I pretty strongly disagree with the black and whiteness of this statement. This subject gets discussed a lot on these forums.

I would summarize those discussions as follows....

1. Diet soda affects different people differently. For some people it has been a critical part of their weight loss success. For others, it can trigger old cravings/eating habits and be counter productive. Some people feel that cutting diet soda has been helpful in there efforts, but I have also seen that a lot of those people are a bit further along in their healthy eating habits, and aren't usually newbies who are starting the process form scratch.

2. Most people would say that drinking equal amounts of diet soda is preferable to drinking regular soda. However most people also probably overestimate the benefits which are a lot less than say drinking water. This is for reasons like triggering more eating and leaving less room for healthier beverages.

3. Even most huge diet soda lovers, they would admit that all the stuff, chemicals, artificial sweetners aren't fantastic for them. There could certainely be other problems with drinking diet soda that might be problems we discover later.

Black and whiteness? What are you even talking about? That statement doesn't even make sense and if you begin with that, a confusing statement, do you actually expect someone to go passed your opening phrase? I know I didn't bother to.

Fact is, soda, diet or regular, dehydrates you. When you are dehydrated, you retain water. When you retain water, it's harder to lose weight. The chemicals in diet soda mess up your body. The sugar in regular soda inhibits your weight loss. Both cause you to retain water. Both inhibit weight loss.

Is that "black and whiteness" enough for you? I said, I'll unnecessarily repeat myself, but okay ~ that the OP was passing on "old wives tales" (and I did spell it incorrectly in my first post, apologies for that). That's what I said. Period, no diatribe with bullet points necessary.

well, my niece used to drink 4-6 sodas most days, and switching to diet versions started her weight loss. She dropped 20 pounds just using diet soda. The other good thing it did for her was to get her thinking about weight loss and she started to change her diet. Now she is a very normal weight.
I also take diet schwepps ginger ale with me to parties. I decided to stop drinking alcohol for a while as I am working on weight loss. So this way I can have a "party" drink without guilt.
I don't think soda is evil. too much of anything isn't good for anyone.

sorry, forgot about my tips to add: Planning is important I agree.
Getting on the treadmill while watching tv is a great one.
Drinking water while watching tv helps keep me from snacking.
Playing on the computer keeps me from snacking.

This thread has the potential to be so very helpful, so let's please agree to disagree nicely or it will be closed.

My best tip is to not eat anything that has ingredients that a 3rd grader cannot pronounce. From Michael Pollan's book Food Rules.

Learn to like things that you never liked before or at least TRY and be open to eating new things and doing new things!

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.

Be nice to yourself (without using comfort foods) and remember that Rome wasn't built in a day.

a tv commercial break is about three minutes. Enough time to get a couple sets of exercise in I want the goodies in the advertisements less if I am soing something that makes me look better!

Diet soda certainly does have a lot of chemicals, but actually it appears to be an old wives tale that caffeine dehydrates you. I don't think there's any research evidence that backs it up (at least up to the equivalent of 5 cups of coffee a day)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/he...on/04real.html

And at the bottom of this link are citations of some of the recent research
http://www.artofdrink.com/2009/12/ca...-hangovers.php

Starting my morning with pure protein food is a huge help. I'm a calorie counter, but for breakfast, I don't eat any carbs. This helps set the tone for the entire day. I also workout right after breakfast so this just works somehow...not science based, just me-based.

Frozen grapes. They take a long time to eat, are healthy and taste sinful.

When I want to munch at night, one of the things l like to do is eat a 60 calorie Dannon yogurt mixed with 1 cup of puffed Kashi (70 calories). It takes a while to eat and is very filling.

Keeping a food log. I have on called Lose It on my iTouch and I LOVE IT!

I watch t.v. at the gym on my iTouch. Right now, I'm watching LOST. I"m only on Season 2 so please don't tell me anything! When I watch it, I don't even notice how tough my workout is on the elliptical.

For soda, I drink Zevia which I find at the health food store. It is made with Stevia and has no calories. I only like the raspberry flavor. I know it's not super healthy, but it works for me.

The body cannot use cold water without first bringing it to body temperature. If you consume 64 oz of ICE water in a day, your body will expend roughly 70 Calories warming it for use. This is science - not an old wives' tale.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/question447.htm

Also, while unbleached flour may not help in the weight loss department, it is probably healthier than chemically processed bleached flour.


I would have to second a tip from below - my food journal has been a lifesaver. I've only been using it for 5 days now, but those 5 days have been 100% on plan. I'm finding the whole process a lot easier since taking the journaling seriously. Good luck, all!