It doesn't matter if the summer time 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 beginning to think about losing weight. And losing weight fast. There is something you can do to drop a couple pounds in a short amount of time and do it properly.



None of those ridiculous soup or celery or lemon juice diets. Those do work, but what a cost you need to pay for releasing a couple of lbs. And the hardest part is that when you go back to normal eating after lemon juice for ten days, the excess weight seems to unbelievely reappear all by itself.



But if you want to do some small adjustments to how you eat; changes that you can deal with and carry on with after your initial weight loss, then listen up because here a few good tips for you.



Tip #1 - Pay Attention



There is a reason why many famous dieting programs have you keep a food diary of everything you take in. When you pay attention and take note of 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 having to keep track of each bite makes people want to eat less because it's a pain to write it all down. But more likely it's because your brain 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 find yourself eating a lot less food.



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



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



Cut it down.



One of the largest amounts of calorie intake comes from the consumption of fats. Certainly, this is not the case 100 % of the time for 100 % of the people. But if you live in a place 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 large reason why they are very 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 usually do. Use only half the amount of oil when you're cooking on the stove. Try something like one of those cooking sprays. Your food will still cook nicely and will slide out from the pan, but the amount of oil you'll have added is almost non-existent.



Bake your potatoes as opposed to frying them. Boil your eggs instead of scambling them with a tablespoon of butter. Do just a couple things like this and you will surprisingly find that you are ingesting nowhere near the quantity of calories that you did before.



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