If you work outside the home, brown bag your lunch

It's tempting to run out to the nearest fast food joint for a high fat, high carb lunch. If you pack your lunch you have control of what you eat and won't be tempted by a burger and fries. If you have a fridge and microwave at your office, and who doesn't these days, you can serve up a delicious salad and soup lunch. As an added benefit you will save money. The average fast food lunch these days costs around $7.00. And you can use the time you save to run errands, relax or take a walk around the block.

Lose That Weight with Acai Berries

You know you've put it off long enough. First it was "wait until the kids were back in school," then "who can diet at Halloween with all the festivities," then along came Thanksgiving and Christmas with all the cookies. Well you're out of excuses it's time to lose that weight in 2009.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to find a food that was not only good for you but helped you lose weight and tasted good? How about a raspberry chocolate flavored juice? There is such a thing: the Acai berry. It's high in antioxidants, amino acids, and essential fatty acids. It helps you lose weight because the Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids it contains help increase your metabolism. The fiber fills you up and because it takes longer to digest, it keeps you full so you don't get hungry as soon.

Acai berries are not some brand new scientifically molded super food. It's been around for ages and has been consumed by native South Americans as a regular part of their diet. The Acai palm tree produces two crops a year. Are you now wondering why this wonder fruit doesn't show up in the produce section of your local supermarket or at least health food store? It's simply because the berries are extremely perishable once they've been harvested. Within 24 hours of being removed from the palm tree the berry starts to rot. That and the fact that the berry is a small sized fruit about the size of a grape with a rather large seed there isn't a lot that's edible.

The good news is that Acai berries products are available in the United States and other parts of the world besides South America. There's Acai berry juice, pulp, powders, extracts, and supplements.

Like any good for you food the challenge is to incorporate the food into your diet on a daily and regular basis. Here are a couple of ways to get Acai berries into your diet and boost your weight loss program. Here are a few more ideas.

Fruit smoothie - Mix 1/2 cup of juice with 1/2 cup of yogurt, whirl in a blender with a handful of chopped fresh fruit.

Mix the pulp with equal portions of applesauce

Mix half juice and half green tea

Mix half juice with half sparkling water

The amount you should use of the powders, extracts and supplements depend on the quality of the product and how the acai berry was processed. While there haven't been any side effects confirmed from Acai berries eating too much of anything isn't good for you.

Have breakfast

Skipping breakfast leads to low blood sugar mid morning which results in cravings for sugary foods to pump the blood sugar back up. A vicious cycle results and continues throughout the day. Your breakfast should consist of whole grains, a protein source and fruit. It doesn't have to be fancy. A slice of whole wheat toast spread with a tablespoon of low fat peanut butter and an apple will do just fine. Or you could mix ½ cup of nonfat cottage cheese with chopped fresh peaches and a couple of whole wheat crackers. Another possibility is a scrambled egg served on an English muffin with a glass of orange juice.

Can You Lose Weight Fast And Easy Or Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

You've been lugging the same 15 pounds, or maybe it's 25 or 50 pounds, around for what seems like forever. You've tried every diet known from cabbage soup to no carb to bananas and peanuts. You lose a little weight and then it comes right back on. Are you your own worst enemy when you try to lose weight fast and easy?

The key word is "try." When you think about it there's really no such thing as "try." You either accomplish your goal or you don't. And that may be why you've had such a difficult time "trying" to lose weight, you didn't think you actually could.

How you think determines how successful you'll be. Trying implies a half hearted effort that may work for a little while but is full of doubts to whether you'll achieve your goal. So change your way of thinking as much as your way of eating to lose weight.

Picture yourself healthy and at the weight you want to be. If you have photos of the thinner you put them up on the bathroom mirror. When you look at the photos picture yourself looking like that now. If you don't have photos choose a picture of someone you'd like to look like.

The idea is to fill your mind with the positive image. When a cookie beckons or you're dying for a double mocha latte in the afternoon, replace the craving with the positive image of you.

Change the way you think about food. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and juices are filled with energy and that's what the new you wants: lots of energy. Sugary cookies, breads, candies, sauces, and rich foods are filled with sludgy, draining, weigh you down calories, and that's what you do not want.

Enjoy the crunch of a fresh apple and the sweetness of the juice. Thank about the vitamins and antioxidants you're giving your body. Apples have another benefit. It's been shown that eating a small apple before every meal leads to weight loss. That's because apples contain a substance called pectin which makes you feel fuller so you eat less.

Now compare the apple with a frozen entrée, over salted, laden with chemical preservatives, and added fat to replace any flavors the natural ingredients may have had. The entrée just sits in your stomach like a lump and then slowly slugs through your digestive system.

Which would you rather have?

Change your thinking from trying to doing and you'll lose weight fast.

Visit Dee Power's Lose Weight Fast for more weight loss tips.

Consider enlisting your family in your weight loss program

Most of us are a bit overweight. If you need to lose a few pounds the odds are so does your significant other. Dieting together can be more successful than dieting alone, but don't turn it into a competition. Men naturally lose weight faster than women because their body composition has a higher proportion of muscle to fat than women's. Muscle burns more calories than fat which means they lose weight faster. Instead of looking at your weight loss goals as pounds look at it as a percentage of your body weight loss. Or establish your weight goal and mark each target as a percentage of your total weight loss goal.

If others in your family are at their perfect weight or just don't see the need to lose weight, they may not understand the need for less food, less fat, or streamlined meals. Prepare your meal and add an extra dish or two for them, that you don't particularly care for. Another alternative is to prepare a regular meal and you eat half of what you usually would eat. It's very possible that if you don't tell your family they're eating low fat low calorie they won't notice. You can always say you're preparing healthier food for them which is true.

Snacks and junk food can be a dieter's downfall. Buy your family their favorite can't-live-without-snacks. Keep those snacks in their rooms, laundry room, or their closets. Out of your sight is out of your mouth. Make it clear when those snacks are gone there won't be anymore until the next shopping trip.

Children can be the dieter's best friend or worse enemy. Tell your children you want to lose weight and you need their help. No more fast food, no more unhealthy snacks. Most children will co-operate, some a little too well, when they tell you you to stop eating that ice cream and stay on your diet in front of the other parents.

Adjust your plate size

Adjust your plate size. The tendency is to fill our plates full, so trick yourself and use a smaller plate. Use a salad plate for your dinner plate and you'll automatically eat less. Use a small bowl instead of a soup bowl and you'll cut calories. You can also reverse it. Use the dinner plate and fill it full of salad greens – just be careful with the salad dressing. To cut down on the amount of dressing consumed, place the dressing in a small bowl. Dip your fork in the dressing before you spear your salad. While your salad is on the dinner plate, use the salad plate for your entrée.

Know what a serving really is.

Know what a serving really is. Portions these days have become gigantic. You might think that a serving of cooked pasta is a big bowl full but look on the package. You'll be surprised to see that a serving is considered just an 8 ounce cupful of cooked pasta. And the serving of pasta sauce? Well that's just ¼ cup or 2 ounces. A serving of chicken, or meat, is 4 ounces, that's a chicken thigh or drumstick. In the case of meat, a serving is about the size of a deck of playing cards. A serving of vegetables is ½ cup, a serving of fruit is ½ cup, or one whole fruit such as an apple. Of course with fruits and vegetables