tips to lose weight

Pass on the movies and screen the views of a local park instead. Not only will you sit less, but youll be saving calories because you wont chow down on that bucket of popcorn. Other active ideas: a tennis match, a guided nature or city walk (check your local listings), a bike ride, or bowling.

Conversely, the more food in front of you, the more youll eat regardless of how hungry you are. So instead of using regular dinner plates that range these days from 10 to 14 inches (making them look empty if theyre not heaped with food), serve your main course on salad plates (about 7 to 9 inches wide). Instead of 16 ounce glasses and oversized coffee mugs, return to the old days of 8 ounce glasses and 6 ounce coffee cups.

Youre more likely to eat more and eat more high fat, high calorie foods when you eat out than when you eat at home. Restaurants today serve such large portions that many have switched to larger plates and tables to accommodate them.

If you eat your dinner restaurant style on your plate rather than family style, helping yourself from bowls and platters on the table, youll lose weight. Most of us tend to eat an average of 150 percent more calories in the evening than in the morning. Youll avoid that now because when your plate is empty, youre finished; theres no reaching for seconds.

A study published in the Journal of Physiological Behavior found that we tend to eat more when we eat with other people, most likely because we spend more time at the table. But eating with your significant other or your family, and using table time for talking in between chewing, can help cut down on calories.

If youre out and ordering a sub, get the 6 inch sandwich. Buy a small popcorn, a small salad, a small hamburger. Again, studies find we tend to eat whats in front of us, even though wed feel just as full on less.

A body of research out of Pennsylvania State University finds that eating water rich foods such as zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers during meals reduces your overall calorie consumption. Other water rich foods include soups and salads. You wont get the same benefits by just drinking your water, though. Because the body processes hunger and thirst through different mechanisms, it simply doesnt register a sense of fullness with water (or soda, tea, coffee, or juice).

You can eat twice as much pasta salad loaded with veggies like broccoli, carrots, and tomatoes for the same calories as a pasta salad sporting just mayonnaise. Same goes for stir fries, omelets, and other veggie friendly dishes. If you eat a 1:1 ratio of grains to veggies, the high fiber veggies will help satisfy your hunger before you overeat the grains.

There is some scientific legitimacy to todays lower carb diets: Large amounts of simple carbohydrates from white flour and added sugar can wreak havoc on your blood sugar and lead to weight gain. While avoiding sugar, white rice, and white flour, however, you should eat plenty of whole grain breads and brown rice. One Harvard study of 74,000 women found that those who ate more than two daily servings of whole grains were 49 percent less likely to be overweight than those who ate the white stuff.

Fancy coffee drinks from trendy coffee joints often pack several hundred calories, thanks to whole milk, whipped cream, sugar, and sugary syrups. A cup of regular coffee with skim milk has just a small fraction of those calories. And when brewed with good beans, it tastes just as great. You can also try nonfat powdered milk in coffee. Youll get the nutritional benefits of skim milk, which is high in calcium and low in calories. And, because the water has been removed, powdered milk doesnt dilute the coffee the way skim milk does.