With so many contradicting diets out there now, it can be hard to know what makes for a sound weight loss plan when you’re thinking about starting one up. Before you make the leap to choosing what’s best for you though, there’s 5 things you should know first before anything else:

<b>Tip #1</b>: <i>Know how many Calories you need?</i>
Before you try and cut down your food intake, make sure you know how much you’d be needing to maintain your weight, that’s the first step to knowing how much less you should eat to drop the extra pounds.

it’s not too hard to figure this out:
Body Weight x 15 exercise time/day x 3.5
so for example, if your weight is 120 pounds and you average 15 minutes of moderate exercise a day, then you should have 1,800 52.5 = about 1,850 calories.

Once you know that, any diet plan that tells you to go lower than roughly 75% of that number every day is probably not going to be losing you weight in a healthy way, and if you’re losing weight too fast, it’ll all come back when you’re done, and be much more difficult to get through.

<b>Tip #2</b>: <i>Secrets of weight loss, or just good diet and exercise?</i>
Why are you the way you are? There’s all kinds of answers, many of them not your fault, but ultimately how you live determines how you look… there’s no fast track to cheat your body. You’re much better off making small permanent changes in your eating and exercise habits than if you force yourself to change everythingtemporarily, only to slide back as soon as you’re done.

People try all kinds of crazy things rather than trying to change old habits… before starting a new diet, ask yourself… am I working on changing how I live for the better, or am I grabbing an easy fix? If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is. Eat all you want, don’t exercise, and still lose weight? you may find after trying that for a while, that you’re back where you started, minus a couple hundred dollars. Think twice before investing in hoodia or some other miracle pill.

<b>Tip #3</b>: <i>Make some new friends!.</i>
The internet allows for all kinds of great new things… connecting with other people trying to do the same thing you are can be a great way to make the tough changes. Ultimately the real challenge and purpose of dieting after all isn’t to change your body, it’s to change your mind. Anything less than that will leave you back where you started eventually.

Peer Trainer is an amazing free service, though there’s quite a few other great ones out there too if you look for them. Check out the article below for some great ideas on how to effectively use peer trainer, and for other ideas on how to make a Sound Diet Plan.

So! Want some more detailed free advice on how to put together a good diet plan? If you’re truly serious about achieving your goals, check out how to make a <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.squidoo.com/DietPlansThatWork”>Diet Plan that Works</a>!

James O’Day is a student trying to get into better shape… mostly writes about what he’s learned on his journey so far.

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