Most people who are on diets are on them because they have problems with portion control and/or proper food selection. So if you have a problem with this, then how successful will you be on a strict diet? In reality, not at all.

There are thousands—hundreds of thousands of people who are consistently on diets: the Atkins, South Beach, the Zone diet, the Grapefruit diet, etc. These chronic dieters jump from diet to diet and if they achieved any REAL fat loss then they shouldn’t even mathematically exist!

I’m going to outline a few step-by-step approaches to get the most out of your fat-loss plan, while making the minimum adjustments. Hold up! I’m not promising radical fat loss with little to no work! What I am highlighting are approaches to move your diet to one that promotes health while helping you to sustain LONG-TERM fat loss. Many people simply drop their calories and use Hollywood "tricks" for fat loss that only result in temporary weight loss and getting fatter on the rebound.

After the realization that you need to lose fat, and 65% of people do, here are some simple approaches to evaluating your nutritional and exercise habits.

Problem 1: You eat fast food, candy, or other obvious health-deteriorating foods.

Solution 1: Most people can’t quit on these foods cold turkey, and it’s unrealistic in most cases for people to do so. Instead, make a conscious decision to add more healthy foods to your diet on a daily basis. When you crave that whole sleeve of cookies, eat something healthy first and then dine on what junk you feel like. Adding healthier foods help naturally displace the unhealthy foods. Make a conscious effort to increase the amount of quality food you eat on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

Problem 2: You drink too many calories.

Solution 2: There are way too many calorie-free/low-cal drinks for me to go into great detail on this. You need to make water your main beverage. If you are on a limited calorie diet, does it make sense to drink down over 100 calories of soft drink? Absolutely not! It’s not filling, nutrient void, and ends up giving you a sugar rush and crash!

Problem 3: You blow the diet and eat (insert trigger food).

Solution 3: Blowing your diet doesn’t give you an excuse to continue blowing it. If you miss a meal you need to get back on track for your very next meal. Period. You shouldn’t continue to blow it for the rest of the night or the weekend and get back on track Monday. The sooner you get back on, the more likely you are to forget about the cheat, and the sooner you will lose fat again. Don’t wallow in self-pity and guilt!

The second solution is to not buy these trigger foods and keep them in your house. If it is in your house, it will get eaten. It’s worth repeating, so read it again! When you go to the grocery, do yourself a service and avoid buying these foods. There will come a time to have a cheat meal, because you can’t realistically diet all the time. When that time comes go buy the food you want to eat and eat it, without storing it.

This simple guide should give you a practical approach to evaluating your diet and making sensible changes. I rarely see people who get eat enough fruits and vegetables, so if I had to make one change I would encourage people to increase these amounts. If you can master these 3 problems I outlined you’ll be much more successful in the long term at managing your weight than 90% of people, which is absolutely something to boast about!