40 Weight Loss Tips to Help You Achieve Your Goals

FEAR WEIGHT LOSS no longer. The science is in, and it doesn’t take a crash diet, a juice cleanse, or anything else dramatic in order to lose weight. It’s all about small changes in daily habits. Yes, the healthy, science-backed solutions are way more simple than diet culture seems to lead on.

We’ve all heard about the guy who transformed himself just by calling it quits on the cola. It always sounds too good to be true, but as long as daily changes are done consistently, they can cause big-time change.

Think about it: If you’re a soda fanatic, you probably drink at least two of them a day. We can round one soda to about 240 calories. Now, what if you were to cut out just the pop from your diet, and replace it with water or a low-cal flavored seltzer? If you punch the numbers, that’s nearly 3,360 calories that you’re cutting out of your diet weekly. Given one pound of fat equates out to 3,500 calories, you’re already almost at a loss rate of one pound per week even without changing anything else.

Even if you’re not a soda person, there’s loads of daily changes you can make to losing weight and make maintaining that weight easier. In fact, Andy Yurechko, M.S., R.D., of Augusta University Medical Center in Georgia, believes the most successful dieters avoid fads and focus on long-term sustainable practices.

“A healthier type of diet is something you can do every day of your life,” he says. So it helps to make it easy to do.

That’s exactly what these small changes are—healthy tweaks you can make to your everyday routine that have the bonus of helping you lose weight and get rid of your belly.

Overachievers, take note: The point isn’t to do everything on this list at once. Start anywhere, and add the next small step when you’re ready. Remember, it’s all about progress, not perfection. So fear not, weight loss is within reach with these simple changes.