Simple and Overlooked Tips for Losing Weight

A lot of diet fads have come and gone over the past few years, as has special over-the-counter diet pills, which are designed to suppress your appetite. And some of the diet fads have, such as the Atkins Diet, has been proven successful and have really changed people's outward appearance. Diet pills are aplenty, and I have seen success with a lot of them. I think right now, Hoodia is the new thing in dieting. It really seems to be effective.

And with Thanksgiving fast approaching, and the looming Holidays in December, the average American will gain between 5 and 15 pounds. Then the majority will pledge to themselves in their New Year's resolution that they will lose weight, and get in shape.

I do not claim to be a Fitness specialist, nor a dietitian, but I have common sense, and I recognize the simple, disregarded ways of dropping a few pounds.

If I were to give advice to someone who wanted to lose 10 to 30 pounds, I would simply tell them to exercise three or four times a week- about 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise. Sure, everyone knows that, but how many people actually follow that routine. A lot of people feel that just walking for 20 or 30 minutes a day is an efficient form of cardio, but in my opinion, people walk more than that a day without the objective of losing weight. Hey, it may work for some, but I am not an advocate of it.

And then I would tell the person to cut out about 75% of your sugar intake. If you actually looked, you would be taken aback at how much sugar some everyday snacks contain. But also, you would be surprised at how many snacks there are that do not contain large amounts of sugar, and taste similar to the sugar-filled snacks. For example, instead of buying the big Chips Ahoy bags of cookies, Nabisco and several other brands have 100-calorie packs of cookies and snacks. The purpose of that is after you eat a 100-calorie pack, you're finished, there is no more in the pack, but when you are eating Chips Ahoy cookies, you may have already consumed five or six cookies without even realizing it.

Also, just about every brand of ice cream has a sugar free version of the flavor that you like; you just have to look for it.

Cutting out sugar cuts out a lot of calories. But all of that is obvious, right?

Also, I would drink at least 32 oz of water a day. Replace a can of Mountain Dew with a bottle of water. No, it may not taste the same, but drinking water can become habit forming. In my office, I always have a bottle of water sitting on my desk. It's just a habit, kind of like smoking; instead you will not get lung cancer from water.

And if you are just not willing to give up your soda, a conversion to diet soda would be recommended. I use to hate diet drinks, but it was because I was not accustomed to the taste. Growing up, kids drink Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, and Mountain Dew, so when they become young adults, that is what they are used to. But seriously, after a week of diet soda, you will get use to the taste, and the taste of regular soda will become the foreign taste.

These little tips I mentioned are obvious, and most adults are aware that they exist, but they are often overlooked because people would rather go with the latest diet trend, believing that they would see more results. And plus, it is much easier to pop a diet pill than to run five miles and check the back of their snack packs.

But I believe that most anyone could lose their desired weight if they followed these simple, obvious, and often overlooked steps