KEEP IN MIND: I am not a doctor or nutritionist. This is just what I’ve found works best from what I’ve read and heard and by following these tips myself. These are more like guidelines, not necessarily what is right for everyone.

• Stop drinking pop/soda. This is huge if you wondering why you aren’t losing but tend to drink a lot of pop or juice. Drinking these things adds SO many unecessary calories to your body. They contain ridiculous amounts of sugar that will ultimately get you addicted to it. So I would definitely stop drinking it all together and replace it with water -or- if you really can’t kick it completely, at least substitute it with something better like tea with a little honey or something similar. However, replacing it with drinks containing fake sweetener is another bad idea because it can leave you craving the REAL stuff while also having bad effects on your health.
• Only eat what you need. This is something I’ve had a lot of trouble with and still have trouble with. I would eat and eat until I felt overwhelmingly full. I’ve learned that I really don’t need all the food I put in my body and have realized that by eating only until I’m no longer hungry that I feel better overall. You don’t have to feel like your stomach is stuffed to be full. Stop early and you’ll realize you really don’t need to keep going. Try measuring your food and only eating the serving size suggested by the package. It might seem like a tiny amount but if you wait a few minutes after eating, chances are you aren’t really still hungry—you’re just not overly full.
• Drink a lot of water. I like to drink a lot of water before a meal so that I already feel somewhat full and I’ll ultimately eat less. Plus it’s very good for your skin! And always drink water with meals instead of pop because sometimes you don’t realize how many empty calories you’re ingesting if you are chugging down pop between bites.
• Always keep fresh things in the house. I have an entire drawer devoted to just my produce in my fridge that I share with 4 roommates. Its good to always keep fresh veggies in the house so that if you need to go somewhere quickly you can at least have healthy options to grab and go. And this way, you’ll also be avoiding processed food and extra hidden fat/sodium.  Things I pretty much constantly have in my fridge: lettuce, red onion, avacado, cucumber, grapes ect. Perfect for an impromptu salad or a healthy dinner :)
• Explore new cultures. I’ve recently discovered my love for mediterranean food: hummus, mujadara, pickled turnips, tabbouleh. Delicious. And it can give you new meal ideas that can be healthy that you might not have tried before. A lot of this type of food seems more fresh and healthier than a lot of American fast food, so usually I’ll go for that instead of somewhere else when I’m out and about. Explore around and figure out what you like to give yourself more options, and then tweak them to make them healthy if they aren’t already :)
• Make simple changes. I realized that my usual sub I get from Jimmy Johns could be a few hundred calories less just by eliminating the mayo. You might think that something is healthy but make sure you consider all aspects of it. There could be one tiny condiment on something that can add hundreds of unwanted calories.
• Try giving up meat and dairy. I know this is obviously not a quick tip and that many people will be very unwilling to do this, but being a vegetarian and sometimes vegan, there are a lot of health benefits that go along with the lifestyle. Giving up dairy can help in so many ways. Just think of it this way: Milk is something we and other mammals drink from our mothers to gain weight as infants. So why keep drinking it after we are past infancy? The purpose was to make us gain weight and grow, so what is preventing it from making us gain weight now—when we’ve stopped growing? This is a controversial topic so I won’t preach and there are certainly plenty of people who are fit and healthy and still eat dairy. BUT— do consider giving it a try if you are having trouble dropping a few pounds. :)