Tips to Take Off Pounds

By Melissa Gotthardt, Prevention For more than 50 years, Prevention's been creating, collecting, and perfecting advice to help you slim down. That's because we want you to look and feel good about yourself. By achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, you can significantly reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, certain types of cancer, back pain, joint problems, and more. In other words, you can maximize all the goodies that life has to offer! Here's our best advice to get you where you want to be. 10 Reasons to Lose Weight 1. Live to see your grandchildren, great-grandchildren—even great-great-grandchildren 2. Be able to romp with all those kids 3. Keep your mind sharp 4. Increase your energy level 5. Protect your immunity 6. Reduce your risk of breast cancer, heart disease, and stroke 7. Manage menopause more easily 8. Reduce stress 9. Breathe easier 10. Feel fabulous! 10 Foods That Fill You Up These foods will fill you up with the fewest calories: Potatoes Fish Oatmeal Oranges Apples Whole wheat pasta Grapes Air-popped popcorn Bran cereal Soup 10 Fun Ways to Burn Calories Here's a list of activities with the calories you'll burn per hour doing them. Jumping rope, 544 Roller-skating, 476 Bicycling, 408 Swimming, 408 Hopscotching with the kids, 340 Ballroom dancing, 296 Coaching your kid's soccer team, 272 Paddling a canoe, 238 Walking in the woods, 238 Playing Frisbee, 204 (Calorie figures based on a 150-lb person) 10 Easy Ways to Flatten Your Belly 1. Eat a bowl of raspberries. Packed with fiber, they fight constipation (that can swell your midsection like a balloon). 2. Drink lots of water. It's filling, calorie-free, and keeps your metabolism running in high gear. 3. Skip the cocktails. Sure, alcohol may be fat-free, but it's loaded with calories. It can also raise your levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that helps your belly store fat. 4. Sit up straight. Hunching forward makes your belly look bigger. For a slimming effect that actually trains the stomach-supporting muscles to stay taut, sit with your shoulders back, chin up, and lower back supported against the chair. 5. Plant a garden. All the bending, lifting, and twisting help shape your middle, and you'll burn about 350 calories an hour. 6. Move your hips. Hula hooping works on the same calorie-burning, waist-whittling principle as gardening—but with less dirt. 7. Hit the greens. Ditching the golf cart earns you a walking workout; whacking the ball tones and tightens your midriff. 8. Get a leg up. Crunches with your legs off the floor tone the upper portion of your ab muscles. Lie on your back with your legs propped up on a bed or chair. Curl up slowly, raising your head, shoulders, and upper back off the floor, then slowly lower. Do 10 to 12 repetitions, two or three times a week. 9. Reverse that crunch. To tighten your tummy from a different angle, lie on the floor with your arms at your sides, feet off the floor, and your legs and knees bent at a 90-degree angle. Contract your abdominals and press your back into the floor, lifting your hips about 2 to 4 inches off the floor. Hold, then lower. Do 10 to 12 repetitions, two or three times a week. 10. Do crossover crunches. To work the muscles that define your waistline (the obliques), lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Place your right ankle on your left knee and your hands behind your head, elbows pointing out. Lifting your head and upper back off the floor, twist, and bring your left shoulder toward your right knee. Hold, then slowly lower. Do 10 to 12 repetitions, then repeat to the other side. Do two or three times a week. 10 Smartest Ways to Slim Down 1. Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Skipping meals can set you up for bingeing. Studies show that people who spread their food intake throughout the day eat fewer calories. 2. Pack snacks. Whether you're at the mall, in the car, or at work, keep yourself armed with healthy snacks to help you resist fat-and-calorie-laden temptations from vending machines and fast-food joints. 3. Team up. Enlisting the help of a partner or friend can boost your motivation and help you stay on track. 4. Start writing. Keeping a food or exercise log not only helps chart your progress, but it's also a great way to spot minor slips in your routine before they become major problems. 5. Compliment yourself. Treat you as you treat those you love. Focus on your successes, not failures—and give yourself a pat on the back each day. 6. Get moving. Whether you walk, run, bike, or swim, aerobic exercise is key to weight loss success. Work up to doing at least 45 minutes, 5 or more days a week. 7. Be a little selfish. You need to make time for yourself if you want to achieve your goal. 8. Have two helpings. Filling your plate with two kinds of vegetables, not just one, ups your nutritional intake and leaves less room on your plate for fatty foods. 9. Take one bite at a time. "Mindful eating," which involves concentrating on taste and sensation to make each mouthful an event, maximizes your food satisfaction and minimizes the odds of overeating. 10. Lift weights. Resistance training builds muscles, which boost the number of calories that your body burns throughout the day—making weight loss easier. Aim for two or three workouts a week. I Can Do It! Instead of saying, "My weight loss efforts haven't worked before; they probably won't work now," tell yourself, "That's enough. I can do anything that I put my mind to." Create a new sound track in your head. Keep Low-Cal Cooking Quick & Easy Stock your kitchen with these low-fat, low-calorie staples, and eating right will be a cinch: Fresh garlic Butter-flavored cooking spray Canned beans: Kidney, black, and navy are stellar fiber sources; rinse first to remove some of the sodium. Fat-free chicken broth: Keep a can on hand to whip up an easy vegetable soup (add frozen veggies) or mashed potatoes so flavorful that you won't miss the butter. Water-packed tuna Grated low-fat cheese Instant grain dishes: Think couscous, tabbouleh, even boil-in-bag rice. Zesty spices: Chili powder, red-pepper flakes, and curry blends add salt-free zip to recipes. They're great as toppings for air-popped popcorn too. Canned mandarin oranges: They're a creative addition to salads and simple desserts, especially when your fresh fruit supply runs low or is out of season. A pack of pitas or tortillas: Use them as sandwich wraps, or cut them into wedges and bake to make your own low-fat chips. Don't Let Stress Make You Fat Next time you've had a bad day at work or a fight with your spouse, or are just being pulled in too many directions, try one of these stress busters instead of raiding the fridge: 1. Get out in nature. The gentle swaying of windblown trees or the meandering of a stream can slow body rhythms that have built to a stress-induced peak. 2. Take the slow road. Hopping in the car to run errands may seem practical, but traffic's another stressor. Bike or walk whenever you can. If you must drive, don't jockey for position. Chill out in the right-hand lane. 3. Turn on the stereo. Soothing music has been shown to ease anxiety and lower blood pressure and heart rate, even under superstressful conditions. 4. Get up and dance. Besides being great exercise, it releases endorphins, your body's mood-elevating chemicals that help erase stress. 5. Savor silence. Even a total of 10 to 15 minutes of quiet time per day helps you eliminate the buzz in your brain and experience some serenity. 6. Laugh out loud! Humor can actually inoculate against anxiety: One study found that people who watched an episode of Seinfeld before tackling a stressful task didn't show the spikes in blood pressure and heart rate that their humorless study counterparts did. Seven Ways to Break Up Exercise Boredom 1. Change your venue. Bored to tears by your treadmill workout? Take a walk outside instead. Your after work routine has become too routine? Get up earlier. Changing where or when you exercise, even if you're doing the same activity, is a great way to change your outlook. 2. Find fun exercise. Investigate sports and hobbies that enhance your activity level. Backpacking, mountain biking, kayaking, even bowling can all burn calories—but they don't feel like workouts. 3. Act their age. Join the kids for a game of backyard touch football or tag. Capitalize on their infectious energy. 4. Make a date. Treat exercise as social time by pairing up with a friend or your spouse. By committing to someone else, you'll be less likely to skip your workout. 5. Count backwards. Ever notice how your trip back from a great destination seems shorter than your trip there? Apply that principle to exercise by counting reps backwards—from 10 to 1, instead of 1 to 10. 6. Lend a hand. Support causes such as breast cancer, AIDS, or multiple sclerosis by doing fund-raising walks, bike rides, or runs. Beyond the exercise, you'll feel good about what you're doing, as well as fortunate to have a healthy body to do it. 7. Gear up. Add a new twist to your routine with equipment such as a heart rate monitor or pedometer. Tracking your workouts with these types of devices keeps things interesting. One Slip Up Won't Stop Me! If you've fallen off the weight loss wagon, stop feeling like a failure; focus on the challenge ahead. The sooner you climb back on, the sooner you'll see the results! There's No Magic Number - Don't measure your success solely by the number on the scale. Your weight will naturally fluctuate by a couple of pounds some days. Give yourself a weight range of 5 to 10 pounds to allow for these changes. Use other methods, such as your clothes or tape measurements, to track your progress.