If you change your lifestyle including diet, exercise and bad habits, you’ll find that your weight will drop off and it will stay off. It sounds extreme, but if you’re really dedicated to change you will find it comes a lot faster than you expected. Here are some ideas to help you on your journey:

Everyone owns a bike, and using it more than you ordinarily would is a great way to lose weight. If you need to run a few errands that don’t require you to travel a great distance, ride your bike. It’s a great way to burn calories and boost your metabolism if you have the time.

Part of weight loss is regular elimination. The more rapidly your body can move food and liquid through your system, the less chance it will have to build up and accumulate pounds. Though chemical laxatives are generally a bad idea, a diet very high in fiber (whole-grain products, lots of fruits, vegetables, and of course, plenty of water) will keep one’s digestive tract in good working order, which will assist in your weight loss efforts.

If you want to lose weight, make sure you’re getting enough sleep. If your body doesn’t get enough sleep it can’t function properly. If your body isn’t functioning properly you won’t have the energy to exercise and lose weight. Instead you’ll be more prone to sitting around snacking and you’ll end up gaining weight.

If you want to lose weight, try cutting sugar from your diet. Sugar adds a lot of unneeded calories to your diet. Sugar will often give you an energy boost, but it doesn’t last nearly as long as healthy foods and can leave you feeling drained afterwards. If you cut out sugar, you’ll cut out a lot of junk food. The less junk food you eat, the less calories you’ll take in.

When you’re watching your weight, try to make smart choices at the fast food restaurant. Luckily, that’s much easier to do now. Instead of the double burger with cheese, go for the grilled chicken filet sandwich. Also, ask for easy or light sauce, or no sauce at all, which will cut way down on calories. Order one of the salads, but go easy on the dressing – or better yet, dump the dressing in the lid and dip your salad into the dressing a forkful at a time.

A great way to help you lose weight is to follow a proven diet that you can follow long term. There are so many fad diets out there and most of them will make you gain all the weight back or even more. It’s best to pick a diet you can follow over a long period.

When you’re changing your lifestyle to lose weight you need all the support in the world. What we’ve included here is only a jumping off point, it’s up to you to make other changes that you feel comfortable with to increase your weight loss until your goal is met.