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



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



But if you want to do some small modifications to the way you eat; changes that you can deal with and keep going with after your initial weight loss results, then pay attention because here a few sensible tips for you.



Tip #1 - Pay Attention



There's a reason why many well-known dieting programs have you keep a food log of everything you eat. When you pay attention and jot down everything you eat, whether it's a goody 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 mouthful makes people want to eat less because it's a pain to write it all down. But more likely it's because your mind begins to think to itself "Hmm, am I genuinely hungry enough to eat this and then write in my food diary"? Often times, the answer to that is a "No" and you end up eating a lot less food.



This writing idea works in a lot of self-improvement areas, not just for dieting, but when it comes to food, it really can help you focus on what you are doing. And being aware about how you are taking care of your body and your well being is a very good step in the direction of feeling far 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 calorie intake comes from the consumption of fats. Of course, this is not the case 100 percent of the time for 100 % of the people. But if you live in a location that has a diet like the Standard American Diet, which is quite 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 twice as many calories in it.



Fats contribute to the taste and the mouth feel of food and this is a big reason why they are so popular. Problem is along with twice as many calories, they don't metabolize as cleanly as many carbohydrates 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 normally do. Use only half the amount of oil when you're cooking on the stove. Try something such as one of those cooking sprays. The food will still cook nicely and will slide out of the pan, but the amount of oil you'll have added in is almost non-existent.



Bake your potatoes instead 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 amazingly find that you are ingesting nowhere near the quantity of calories that you did previously.



The simple truth is, it doesn't take a lot of doing to alter some dietary habits. And when you make those changes in your lifestyle you will be on the right track to losing some weight quickly in a safe, easy to sustain way.