Six small sensible meals a day...because when you "diet" and deprive your body it thinks it's starving and will store fat to prevent it.

Keep your calories in the 2000 to 2500 mark and cut way down on fat, carbs and sodium.

Exercise will build muscle as well as burning fat. Muscle weighs more than fat so you'll reach a plateau at some point and this is usually when people give up thinking they've lost all they are going to lose. This is actually when you should step up the workout and keep eating those six small sensible meals.

Drink PLENTY of water so you can sweat like crazy without dehydration.

Walking...up and down hills...is a wonderful exercise to burn calories. Swimming is great as well. To build muscle you must have resistance. Weights build muscle. Crunches, as opposed to full blown sit ups, can be easier and have the same end result.

The key is to NOT starve yourself but to change the things you eat so that the calories you do ingest work for you and not against you! A car needs fuel to go. We are machines in a sense. We need fuel in order to go as well!

Oh...and grapefruit is an awesome diet food. Low carb, low fat, low sodium soup (organic vegetable, for example)
before a main meal can help cut down on consuming too much more thereafter. Water can give you a sense of fullness as well.

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Minds are like parachutes. They only work when they are open.

~Thomas Dewar~