Fatty Fatty Two by Four!

Summer is comming and so is swimsuit season! Are you ready?

If you're like me every winter seems to add a few pounds and each year they get harder to take off so the Perspective research department has looked at dozens of diets and from all the information presented has come up with these simple tips to get back into shape!

We consulted health and fitness experts, the latest scientific studies and real-life men and women who are taking off pounds to find 20 quick weight-loss strategies that work.

Add one to your routine today and watch the scale go down!

Change your clothes
If you exercise after dinner, put your workout gear on before you get to the gym. You're less likely to veer off to the couch, says Karen Bridson, a Toronto fitness trainer.

Start with salad
Jennie Wilson of Toronto loads up her plate with a luscious salad before she has her main course, a strategy that's helped the 29-year-old lose 40 pounds in two years. It packs a double-punch: you meet your veggie quota and take the edge off your hunger with filling fibre before diving into the higher-cal entree.

Work out with a cheerleader
A Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania study found that participants who received frequent positive feedback during exercise worked harder than those who received infrequent encouragement or none at all. Click here to find a fitness buddy in the Chatelaine Fitness & sport forum.

Sip green tea
In a study on mice, Japanese researchers found that green tea extract helps endurance during exercise. You may see a similar effect from drinking four cups(1L)of green tea daily.

Talk on the move
Use a cordless phone at home so you can walk laps and do stairs while you chat. Every step counts!

Identify the emotion
"If you find yourself craving something or wanting to overeat, ask yourself why," advises Nancy Saunders, a registered dietitian in Ormstown, Que. Take the time to figure out what's going on – chances are you'll discover a bag of cookies isn't what you really need

Go green
Arrange individual green grapes on a cookie sheet and pop them into the freezer. After they freeze, put them into a container and leave them in the freezer to munch on the next time you want a quick sweet snack. It's a favourite trick of Denise Hargrove, a registered dietitian in Kingston, Ont.

Open a can
A ton of fast and tasty recipes call for beans and legumes, which are naturally high fibre, high protein and low fat. Give Quick Lentils with Coriander and Mint a try.

Schedule in fitness
Jennie Wilson sits down and plans out her workouts week by week. "Thinking about workouts ahead of time helps me make them part of my day," she says. Tight on time this week? Work in a workout with our fast fitness exercise plan.

Do the hand jive (no joke)
Control portion sizes with this no-fail guide: a serving of meat is about the size of the palm of your hand, and a fist equals about a cup(250 mL)of fruit, vegetables or grains. Your thumb is the size of about one ounce(30 g)of cheese.

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com