When you’re ready to lose any weight over 5 pounds, your mentality should be on changing your lifestyle and dropping the weight gradually – not doing everything you can to lose weight in a short time span. This approach increases the likelihood of keeping the weight off. While getting your body accustomed to a healthier you, chart your progress in a weight loss blog. Even though you might not be able to see the fruit of your labor early on, by blogging on your progress and changes made, you can start to see results and feel the momentum.

Before tackling any of the steadfast and true methods of losing weight, change simple things about your diet and exercise. For one, replace soda and any other high sugar, high calorie drinks with water. (You may want to still have some fruit juice). A water replacement will automatically slash your daily calories and you’ll hardly even miss the other drinks. After all, you’ll still be able to eat what you want.

The next weight loss tip is to stop eating two and a half to three hours before you go to bed. The logic behind this is you are burning very few calories while asleep so any calories you consume prior to bed time are going to convert into fat and added weight.

While you implement the two strategies above, blog each day about the changes you have made. At the end of every 5 days, go ahead and track your progress. This can include weighing yourself, checking for inches lost around your waist, hips, arms, and thighs, and adding up your potential calories saved. You may not see any results in the beginning, but as you continue to change your lifestyle for the healthier, you will experience success.

After making the two small changes above, phase yourself into two more easy fixes..

First, make a commitment to walking just 15 minutes a day. This small amount of time can make a world of difference in your number of calories burned. Add these calories to the ones you saved above and you’re really cooking.

Another alteration comes from your diet. Try switching one unhealthy or lacking meal a day to a well balanced, nutritious meal. For example, if you are going to eat pizza for dinner, switch to boiled chicken, spinach, and fruit for desert with skim milk to drink.

By continually converting your way of living into a healthier one with small alterations along the way, you will get in shape and lose the weight. Make sure to chart your progress along the way so you can see how far you’ve come.