That's Fit

• You underestimate the power of sugar. High-sugar foods like refined carbs make your blood sugar spike and trigger a release of hormones that can make you feel more hungry and crave certain foods.
• You lie to yourself. You tell yourself that one indulgence won't hurt. And it won't! The problem starts when one indulgence turns into two, three, four, five, or more.
  
• You think in days. If you slip and allow yourself a treat or miss your exercise session you think "well, today's a bust ... I'll start again tomorrow." Don't let one slip mess up an entire day.

Coffee has a bad reputation. Is it the jitter-inducing caffeine content? The bitter taste that for some people makes it necessary to load it with sugar? The fact that it's often served topped with whipped cream? Maybe all of the above. But take a second chance on coffee -- it could be help you get slim.

Yes, that's right: Coffee is slimming. Regular coffee has 0 calories, so it can help curb your hunger without doing too much damage to the numbers on the scale. It also has all-important antioxidants. And even more importantly? According to AOL Body, it can help boost your metabolism for up to two hours after you drink it.

Of course, this doesn't apply to fancy, fat-laden coffee drinks at Starbucks. When grabbing your java, make sure to keep it simple: Black is best, but adding a little skim milk and splenda won't hurt. And be sure to stick to no more than one or two cups a day.

Have you been dieting and exercising for a fair amount of time, but the weight still doesn't seem to be coming off? You watch the show The Biggest Loser, and you're seeing people drop as many as 13 pounds per week, yet you can't seem to shed more than one. What's the problem?

First of all, as a general rule, you should never gauge your own progress by comparing yourself against someone else. But if you still can't help but do so, take a look again at those folks on The Biggest Loser. You'll notice that they lost considerably more weight at the beginning of the show than they have in more recent weeks. That's because they had a tremendous amount of weight to lose at the onset. However, once they lost a great deal of that weight, their weekly weight reduction quickly went from around 10 pounds to about 2 pounds. So, if you are not as heavy as many of the shows participants were, it will be harder for you to make such dramatic changes to your body in such a short span of time.

That all aside, though, there may be some other factors that are inhibiting your progress. To help remedy these issues, what you need to do is ask yourself if you are:

1. Working Out Enough? If you stop and think about how much time you actually spend sitting down (be it at work at your desk, at home on the couch, or even at places like restaurants and the movies), it may become clear that you're inactive far more than you're active. If you simply don't have the time to workout more often, try other ways to keep your body active, such as walking or biking to work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and purposely parking your car in a spot that is farthest from the entrance to a store or your office.

• Chew gum when you're hungry
• Drink green tea several times a day
• Use smaller plates
• Fidget
  
• Eat grapefruit
• Get some sleep
• Slow down when you're eating
• Do crunches during the commercial breaks
• Don't take seconds

• The salad diet: stick to salads and lean protein and the pound will drop off
  
• The no liquids diet: Cutting out soda, juice and alcohol it is a surefire way to trim down
• The seafood diet: Limit your carbs and go for fish and seafood instead.
  
• The no-snacking diet: Quit mindlessly eating and prolong your hunger until meal times to slim-down quick
• The portion-control diet: Measuring out your food and sticking to an allotted amount of calories will help you lose weight fast.
  
• The meal-replacement diet: Going on the Slim Fast plan or another meal-replacement diet will help you lose weight in a short amount of time