Your body requires eight, 8 ounce glasses of water each day. Water facilitates weight loss and helps you stay healthy and regular, even when you are on a diet. If your water does not taste good to you, add a slice of lemon to each glassful.

Remember that drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of water each day is as important to weight maintenance as it is to weight loss. Don't make the mistake of thinking that by cutting back on water intake, you will prevent water retention! The opposite effect will take place. By drinking more water your kidneys will be stimulated, helping to reduce water retention; and, in the process, your body will burn some more calories. Always drink water in place of "diet" beverages - there is no caffeine in water -and it is calorie free! Avoid artificially sweetened beverages of all types. If we can persuade you to give up diet drinks, this could lead you to a world appreciating sweetness while satisfying your palate and, in a matter of just one or two weeks, natural food will begin to taste unbelievably sweet, and it will be much easier for you to stick with your diet. Diet drinks (and artificially sweetened desserts) just turn on your appetite "on" without satisfying it, possibly leading you to overeat at other times. When you need a drink, try water! If you crave something sweet, have a drink of water.

Substitution of fruit for snacks and desserts is helpful. Other dense-calorie foods that are high in fatty acid sugar should be restricted. Nibble on fruit all day long, not just grapefruit, like so many do. Remember almost all fruit is "safe" for dieters. Keep fruits in plain sight on the counter or on the table. Make a very attractive selection of grapes (two kinds), oranges, tasty crisp Granny Smith, York or other apples; peaches that have just come in season; bananas, kiwis, papaws, cantaloupe, and the old standby -- grapefruit. Make it a practice to eat fruit, including dried fruits of all kinds, for desserts, in place of pies, cakes, and cookies. Then we will have truly taken another big step in controlling our weight.

The food processors who manufacture diet foods are capitalizing on our preference for snack foods, and they may have us "hooked". Think about it. Somebody "out there" is making a fortune feeding us artificially sweetened junk with no nutritional value, and we are gulping it down and getting our fill while getting addicted and becoming overweight. Cutting out the use of all artificial sweeteners can be difficult, but if you are serious about losing those pounds, we know you can do it!

Plain old water, with zero caffeine and calories, can really help you shed those unwanted pounds and keep them off! Sometimes the most help comes from the simplest sources, doesn't it?