It does not matter if summer is around the corner or it's getting towards the end of the year, if you're like a great many other people, you are starting to think about slimming down. And shedding pounds fast. There are some things you can do to shed some weight in a short amount of time and do it safely.



None of those crazy soup or celery or lemon juice diet programs. Those do work, but what a cost you need to pay for releasing a couple of lbs. And the most awful part is that when you go back to normal eating after lemon juice for ten days, the extra weight seems to astonishingly reappear all by itself.



But if you want to do some small modifications in how you eat; changes that you can live with and continue with after your original weight loss, then pay attention because here a few sensible tips for you.



Tip #1 - Pay Attention



There's a reason why many famous dieting programs have you keep a food diary of everything you take in. When you take notice and write down everything you eat, whether it's a snack or a breakfast bar or even a stalk of celery, you tend to eat less.



Could be because the thought of needing to keep track of each bite makes folks want to eat less because it's a pain to write it all down. But much more likely it's because your mind begins to think to itself "Hmm, am I truly hungry enough to eat this and then write in my food diary"? Often times, the answer to that is a "No" and you wind up eating a lot less food.



This journaling idea works in a lot of self-improvement areas, not only dieting, but when it comes to food, it really helps you pay attention to what you are doing. And being mindful about precisely how you are treating your body and your well being is a very good step in the direction of feeling better and losing weight.



Another great tip has to do with the idea that less is more.



Cut it down.



One of the largest amounts of calories comes from the consumption of fats. Of course, this is not the case 100 % of the time for 100 percent of the people. But if you live in a location that has a diet similar to the Standard American Diet, which is very high in animal fats and saturated and hydrogenated fats, you're eating a lot of calories from fats.



The fats themselves contain a high amount of calories per unit measurement. Basically if you took a teaspoon of a carbohydrate and a teaspoon of fat, the fat would have more than two times as many calories in it.



Fats contribute to the taste and the mouth feel of food and this is a huge reason why they are so popular. Problem is along with two times as many calories, they don't metabolize as cleanly as many carbs and you are left with the results hanging around your waist.



If you like butter on your toast in the morning, put only half the amount on that you typically do. Use only half the amount of oil when you're cooking on the stove. Try something like one of those cooking sprays. The food will still cook nicely and will slide out from the pan, but the amount of oil you will have added in is almost non-existent.



Bake your potatoes in lieu of frying them. Boil your eggs instead of scambling them with a tablespoon of butter. Just do a couple things like this and you will surprisingly find that you are ingesting nowhere near the amount of calories that you did previously.



The fact remains, it doesn't take a lot of doing to alter some dietary habits. And when you make those modifications to your lifestyle you will be well on your way to losing some weight quickly in a safe, simple to sustain way.