1) Keep  A Food Diary

This is one of the simplest things you can do to lose weight. Keep track of everything you eat – and we mean everything, even the snacks and nibbles – and when you see it all laid out, you’ll understand where you can cut back.

When you first decide to lose weight, don’t change anything for a week. But during that week, write down all the details of your food log.

What you’ll discover is that  you are overeating too much food, in excess of what your body can use up as fuel to burn enough calories to  lose weight. From here you can be more responsible and accountable for your health and weight loss, by eliminating some of the foods you don’t really need. And when you’ve done with that, use an app to track the calories. Of course this only works if you’re honest, so don’t be tempted to cheat!

2) Eat Less Meat, More Veggies

Meat isn’t necessarily bad for you, and we’re certainly not going to say you should cut steak out entirely, because it’s delicious.

But it does tend to be more calorie-heavy than a great plate of vegetables.

Find some vegetarian recipes online and try them out on or two nights a week, rather than instantly reaching for pork or chicken. You’ll be surprised how tasty vegetarian cooking can be, and it’s great for the waistline too!

3) Don’t Diet, Adapt

Often people treat dieting as a one-time thing, and as soon as they’ve hit their target weight it’s back to the cake and pies. Which means another diet next month, and the month after that…

If you’re serious about losing weight and keep it off, it should be sustainable. That means small changes you can stick with. Maybe switch from full fat cream to half and half. or cut out heavy carbs like bread.

Doing this reduces your calorie intake in the long term, not just during your diet weeks

4) Watch The Booze

Did you know a small glass of wine contains 130 calories?

But that’s nothing; a pint of beer contains 215

The odd drink is fine, but if you’re downing some every night. It’s going to add up

5) Don’t Skip Meals

It can seem weird that eating less can lead to getting fatter. But it is true.

Skipping meals encourages binge-eating later and if you get into the habit of letting yourself go hungry, your body goes into starvation mode. When that happens, your metabolism slows down as it starts converting more of the foods you eat into fat and stores it as a reserve for the next time you go on a hunger strike.

6) Use Smaller Plates

Your brain has a hard time distinguishing between a big plate of food and a small one. It just sees them both as “a plate of food”. One unit.

This is a neat psychological trick. A smaller plate means you put less food on it, so even though you’ve eaten a smaller plate of food, you can still feel just as full because your brain thinks you’ve eaten more.

Obviously, this doesn’t work at extremes, but it’s great for cutting your portions down to smaller sizes without your brain (or stomach) really noticing the difference

6) Fat Is Not Bad

Don’t avoid fats like the plague. Even though they higher in calories than protein or carbs, they’re also a lot easier to regulate and are mandatory for your body to function properly. Good diets involve proteins and small amount of healthy fats that add flavor to dishes or recipes, like oily fish, nuts, avocados and coconut oil rather than starchy foods like carbs, adding excess calories you want to avoid.

8) Do Less Cardio More Strength Training

Incorporating strength training 2 to 3 times per week will reap many benefits. Strength training boosts your metabolism. With cardio activities, when you stop doing the cardio, the body stops burning calories for weight loss efficiency. However even after you leave the gym with strength training, you’ll continue to burn calories for up to 72 hours as the muscles need energy to repair themselves, which will further increase your fat-burning potential long term. Additional benefits include sculpting and toning, heart health and general well-being by boosting your immune system.