You can read all the diet books that exist, and you can try every fad diet and exercise program.  You can join a gym, or a weight loss club, or you can hire a personal trainer.  Those steps are fine, but that’s not the first step.

The first step to weight loss is critical: you must decide that you want to lose weight.

To repeat: you must decide to lose weight.  No-one else can make that decision for you.

Your spouse may want you to lose weight.  Your doctor may want you to start a weight loss program.  Perhaps your friends and family are telling you to lose weight.  That’s great, but except for the calories you may burn by arguing with them, they can’t help you lose weight.

Only you can change what you eat.  Only you can decide not to eat four pieces of cake when you are hungry at midnight.  Only you can decide to get up early in the morning to go to the gym, or to go for a run.  Only you can have the inner motivation to make changes to your life.

So ask yourself this simple question: “Why do I want to lose weight?”  Then write down your answer.  You may want to lose weight due to simple vanity (I want to look better).  It may be a health issue (I don’t want to get diabetes, or have a heart attack).  It may be personal (I want to be able to go for a swim and a bike ride with my children).  Whatever the reason, the reason must come from within.  You must make that decision.

Once you know why you want to lose weight, you can decide to do it.  For yourself.  Not for anyone else.

That’s why the first step to losing weight is to decide you want to lose weight.  It’s up to you to make that decision today.

The average fast food meal contains many hundreds of calories more than a comparable meal that you prepare at home.  In short, fast food meals are generally not healthy.

After a busy day at work, it’s difficult to rush to the store to buy healthy, fresh ingredients, and then rush home and spend 45 minutes in the kitchen preparing a healthy meal.  So we often take the easy way out and buy hamburgers or fried chicken or pizza that may not be the healthiest alternative.

To lose weight, you should avoid fast food and eat at home.  But where do you find the time?  Here’s how:

First, start by planning your meals in advance.  Every weekend pull out your calendar and look at your schedule: what days will you be home early, and on what days will you be working late.  It’s the late days that take the most planning.

Then, on the weekend, when you have time, do your shopping and then pre-prepare as many meals as possible for the week.  You can make a double batch of lasagna (with healthy ingredients) and freeze it or refrigerate it for use later in the week.

Focus on quick and healthy meals.  It’s not hard to barbecue a chicken breast and make a salad.  Pasta can be prepared quickly if you have the ingredients ready.  Plan ahead.

For fresh vegetables, stop by your local grocer on the way home.  If you have your meal plan, you know that today all you need to buy is fresh broccoli, or beans, or lettuce, or whatever you are cooking tonight.  If you know exactly what you want to purchase, it’s a quick trip.

As an added bonus, planning ahead and cooking at home can save you a lot of money, while you reach your weight loss goals.

Here’s a simple weight loss tip: stand up!

Standing burns more calories than sitting, so whenever you can, stand up!

When you are at the office talking on the phone, stand up.  Buy yourself a hands free wireless earpiece for your phone, so you can walk around while talking on the phone.  Standing and walking burns more calories than sitting, and it’s easy.

Stand up when you are having short meetings.

Don’t sit at your desk all day; get up and walk around.

You will be surprised how much weight you can lose by standing up.  Try it!

First, stop eating two hours before you go to bed.  That means no snacks or meals in the two hours leading up to bed time.  Plan your dinner for perhaps four hours before bed, and then if necessary have a small, healthy snack two hours before bed, and that’s it!  You can drink water, but don’t eat anything in the two hours before bed.  Your food will be fully digested before you go to sleep, so your insulin will be at the right levels, and your body can burn fat during the night, not the food in your stomach.

Second tip: when you wake up in the morning, do 20 to 30 minutes of moderate exercise.  Nothing strenuous.  You don’t need to run 10 miles.  A leisurely walk, or some light cardio, or yoga, would be fine.  Your goal is to get the blood flowing, and since you haven’t eaten, your body will burn fat for energy.

These two tips are very simple and easy, and will help you shed pounds with virtually no extra work!

For more great tips, check out the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast: it’s free!

The short answer is: not much.  A holiday is not the time to be trying to lose weight.  Take the day off from your diet and enjoy the food.  Losing weight should not be your goal.  Your goal should be to not gain weight.  Here are two tips:

First, skip a meal.  If you know you will be having a huge dinner, sleep in, have a late breakfast, and just have a small healthy snack instead of lunch.  You may eat more calories at supper, but if you have virtually no calories at lunch, the total number of calories you consumed for the day may still be reasonable.

Second, get some exercise.  Go for a walk.  The advantage of exercise is it helps burn calories, and while you are walking you probably won’t be eating, so it’s a win-win.  Take the entire family for a walk.  It will be fun for everyone, it will help with your weight, and it will build your appetite for the evening meal, which for today, enjoy it.  You can get back to your healthy eating tomorrow.

Your body requires nutrients, vitamins and minerals, so if you stop eating, your body is not getting those nutrients.  If you fast for long enough, obviously you would die of starvation, so you need a plan.

To start, your body can go weeks without food, but it can’t even go days without liquid, so if you fast, continue to drink plenty of liquids.  Water is essential.

Next, if you are not fueling your body, you will not have the energy to do strenuous physical exercise, so while fasting avoid heavy exertion.  Fasting and resting go together, so take it easy while fasting.  Walking is fine, but running a marathon while fasting is not a good idea.

Finally, if you fast for an extended period of time, your body will get used to lower food intake.  Then, when you stop fasting, your body will work hard to replenish it’s lost stores of fat and energy.  Your metabolism revs back up, and it’s common once you stop fasting that you regain all of the weight that you lost while fasting.

So what’s the secret to fasting for weight loss?  First, only fast periodically for brief periods, such as a day or two, not a week or two.

Start by preparing.  Tell yourself that your fast starts tomorrow.  Have a plan to drink lots of liquids, to reduce physical activity, and to stick with it.  Eat normal, healthy foods the day before your fast.

Then, while fasting, have non-strenuous activities planned to keep you busy, and to keep your mind from thinking about food.  Read a book, go for a leisurely walk, take a nap, listen to music, but avoid strenuous physical activities.

At the end of your day long fast, break the fast the following morning by drinking two glasses of water with a bit of lemon.  Let the water work through your digestive system to remove any toxins accumulated.  Then, have your normal healthy breakfast.

Fasting once a month can be beneficial, and can help in your weight loss program.

If you live in the Northern United States or in Canada you can’t swim outside all year long.  In cold climates a trip to an indoor pool in the middle of winter may not be particularly appealing.  But once the summer weather arrives there is nothing more refreshing that a swim in an outdoor pool.  The hotter the day, the better.

If you want to lose weight while swimming, swim with a purpose.  Don’t just splash around in the water; if you want to burn a pound of fat a week, or burn 3,500 calories a week, you need to swim.

Start by doing an easy length or two of front crawl.  Then do some breast stroke, then back stroke.  Then do another set, but faster.  Then do the front crawl just using your arms, as fast as you can.  Variety is key, so change it up.

I find that a half an hour in the pool goes by in no time, and a full hour is easy once you get used to it.  Have fun, because if you enjoy it, weight loss is fun.

It makes sense.  Your body needs rest to repair itself.  Without proper reset, your body can’t do what it needs to do.  You wake up feeling tired and irritable, so what do you do?  You eat.  Your body craves food to increase your energy, but it’s not lack of food making you sleepy; it’s inadequate sleep.

Diets are fine, but the first step in weight loss is to get proper rest each night.

Yes, I know that is an obvious statement, but think about it.  You can go on a fancy diet, like the Atkins Diet or the South Beach Diet, and you can exercise like crazy, and you will lose weight.  That’s great, but the simpler method is to eat less.

I like to eat pizza.  Every weekend we have pizza.  I like to eat 5 slices of pizza.  How can I lose weight?  Only eat 4 slices of pizza.  Simple.  I’m eating less.

For breakfast I like to have a bowl of cereal and two pieces of toast.  If I have a slightly smaller bowl of cereal and only one piece of toast, I will still feel full, but I’m eating less, so all else being equal I will lose weight.

But wait, you say: If I’m eating less, won’t I be hungry? At the start, yes, you might be hungry.  Your body is used to eating 5 slices of pizza, so if it only gets 4, it may think it’s hungry.  Here’s the amazing part: you will adjust.  Your body will adjust.  It will get used to 4 slices instead of 5, and after a week or two you won’t feel hungry at all.

The best way to quit smoking is to gradually reduce your cigarrette consumption.   If you smoke 20 a day now, drop down to 19 each day for the next week, then 18, and so on.  It works the same with food.  Very gradually reduce your portion sizes, and before long you will be eating less, and you won’t even know it.  Try it, you’ll see.  Eating less really works.

In a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine on July 28, 2008 (here’s the link: Effect of Exercise on 24-Month Weight Loss Maintenance in Overweight Women) it was discovered that the more you exercise, the more weight you can lose.

In the study, 201 overweight and obese women aged 21 to 45 years old were told to reduce their caloric intake to 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day, and they were split into four groups based on physical activity (from light activity up to vigorous intensity).

They discovered that individuals sustaining a weight loss of 10% or more of initial body weight at 24 months reported performing more physical activity (1835 kcal/wk or 275 min/wk) compared with those sustaining a weight loss of less than 10% of initial body weight.

The study concluded that the addition of about four and a half hours per week of vigorous physical activity, combined with a reduced calorie diet, is very important in allowing overweight women to sustain weight loss. The message is clear: if you want to lose weight, more exercise is better. Don’t just go for a leisurely walk three times a week, go for a brisk walk for 45 minutes to an hour six times a week, or add in other forms of physical activity to enhance weight loss.