Drop These Mantras, Lose Weight

Losing weight can be easier than losing your car keys. "Right," you say. Just follow us for a few moments (trust us, we're docs). Throw out certain long-held beliefs about weight loss and pounds will melt more easily than ChapStick in your glove compartment in August. Update these mantras now:

"Don't let the clock tell you when to eat." Eating at regular intervals throughout the day helps you eat less overall, burn more calories, have less lousy LDL cholesterol rooming in your blood vessels, and have improved glucose tolerance. Skipping meals or eating at random times can slow your metabolism and cause your body to hoard fat and calories. Keep your energy and metabolism in full gear by eating a small amount of healthy foods every 2 to 3 hours. (Of course, if you're absolutely not hungry, eat just a little piece of fruit or a small serving of vegetables.) Ideally, pair a high-fiber snack with healthy fat or protein, such as a handful of plain Cheerios (no sugar added) with six chopped walnuts.

"Don't weigh yourself every day." Research found that people who weigh themselves regularly after reaching their goal weight do a much better job of keeping the lost pounds off than people who step on the scale only when the planets align in a certain way. But the operative word here is "after." While you're trying to lose weight, a bathroom scale may not be your best friend, since it's easy to read success or failure into every natural fluctuation. But when people had reached their goals, daily weighers or waist measurers (didn't know that was a word, did ya?) did best at keeping the pounds off for the long haul.