One of the most effective strategies for losing weight and sticking to your diet is to plan ahead. While it may seem difficult at first to be prepared, the results will astound you.

Here are some ideas to help you plan your meals without spending too much of your valuable time:

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One of the hardest places to stick to your diet is the office. And since you probably spend a large majority of your time at work, you need to have some strategies to help you deal with the temptations you’ll face.

Here are five ways to avoid those workplace diet temptations:

Stock up on snacks. Keep healthy snacks available at all times. You may want to designate a drawer in your desk for them. When you’re feeling hungry, instead of heading to the vending machine for a candy bar you’ll have healthier options.

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When you look at your diet, do you only look at the food you’re eating? Are you scratching your head wondering why you’ve been gaining weight when you’re so sure you’ve been eating better?

One thing you may need to look into is how many calories you’re drinking. No matter how healthy you think milk or juice is, it doesn’t mean you can drink them all day long. Add in soda, alcoholic drinks, sports drinks or specialty coffees and you may be drinking yourself fat.

Take a long, hard look at the calories you drink and see where you can whittle down the calories. It could make a big difference in your weight loss plan!

Here are six ways you can reduce liquid calories:

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If you’re like most people, you love to pour rich, creamy dressing all over the vegetables in your salad. And while you may think you’re eating healthier because you’re eating your veggies, the salad dressing may be weighing you down more than you realize.

Some salad dressings, while tasty, are often full of fat and calories that you don’t need when you’re trying to slim down and get healthy. But there are alternatives that are healthier for your body yet still delicious.

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When you start a new diet, one thing you may decide to do is switch from regular soda to diet soda. But how healthy are diet sodas?

One of the benefits of switching from regular soda to diet soda is that you’ll immediately lower the number of calories that you consume. Most regular sodas contain over 100 calories for a can.

If you have several cans a day, you may be taking in several hundred extra calories from soda alone. Diet soda, on the other hand, normally has zero calories. So you can instantly lower your caloric intake by several hundred calories when you make the switch.

However, having lower calories doesn’t necessarily mean better health.

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When you’re working on improving your diet, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by how to get started. Even if you’re a seasoned dieter, you may wonder how you can get to the next step or how to make your diet a part of your lifestyle.

You need to determine where you are in order to know what you need to do next. Whether you’re thinking about dieting for the first time in your life or you’re trying to make your new changes something permanent, there are specific things you can do to take your diet to the next level.

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You hear it everywhere now: if you want to lose weight, it helps to eat smaller meals more frequently. In other words, spread out the calories (energy) you take in over the course of day instead of eating all those calories in one sitting. This helps to keep your blood sugar level and curb cravings, amongst others.

Now, eating small meals more frequently doesn’t mean you are automatically going to lose weight. You still need to be within a calorie deficit: to lose weight, you need to eat less calories than you burn in a day. So, let’s say you eat 1500 calories and you burn 2000 calories in a day. That creates a reasonable calorie deficit of 500 calories.

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When your emotions cause you to overeat, your life can seem out of control and the pounds continue spiraling upward. You may feel that you simply don’t have the willpower to overcome the problem. Your self-esteem and self-confidence may have eroded to the point where you’re withdrawing from those you love and you don’t feel like going out to have fun.

Sometimes emotional overeating occurs because of certain “triggers” that make you crave certain foods (usually the ones that are loaded with high carbohydrates and sugar) and mindlessly binge on them until you can’t eat another bite. Chronic overeating is an addiction just like the ones we’re used to hearing about — drugs, alcohol and even sex.

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One way to save time during the week (and to stick to plan) is to prepare food ahead of time. I spent part of Sunday afternoon preparing (from left to right, top row to bottom): Spinach Chick Pea Curry, basmatic rice, cucumbers/carrots/hummus, pre-cut cheese pieces (30g) for snack, clementine/pineapple fruit salad (banana will be cut at eating time), 2 bowls filled with my scrambled egg fixings*, 1 bowl with 2 servings of cereal (Kashi, All Bran, soy pieces).

* Scrambled egg fixings: diced low fat cheese, chopped spinach, chopped zucchini and chopped mushrooms. See my recipe: Suzanne’s Low Calorie / High Protein Easy Scrambled Eggs

What can YOU do to save yourself some time this week — and stick to plan?

What is a Countdown Calendar?
A countdown calendar can help you focus on your weight loss goals by counting backwards from the start of a weight loss session until your goal date. So, let’s say, you were doing a 90 day (12 week) countdown, the first day of your weight loss journey would start at Day 90, then Day 89, all the way down to DAY ZERO. You would also have on this calendar your weigh-in and measurement days — and anything else that can help you lose weight.

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