How to Lose 10LBS...

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And Cut 35,000 Calories From Your Lifestyle

Losing weight isn't easy. Losing ten pounds can seem like an unreachable goal, and whether you want to get in shape for summer, show off a new and sexy butt, or embark on a new path to health and wellness, you'll need to make some lifestyle changes.

A combination of diet and exercise will have the greatest impact, but here are 5 easy ways to shave the 3500 calories per pound you'll need to eliminate to lose ten pounds.

Easy Stroll
To calculate the number of calories you burn while exercising, you'll need to consider your weight and how much effort you expend. (Online calculators can help you estimate your calories burned.) Walking two miles an hour is the pace of an easy stroll, a shuffle in a crowd, or window-shopping at the mile, but in half an hour, you'll still burn about 100 calories. If you don't replace them with a soft pretzel or a latte, and you walk for 30 minutes three times a week, you'll shave 1200 calories, or about a third of a pound per month. In two and a half years, you'd be down ten pounds. To lose those ten pounds faster, walk five days a week and you'll have lost ten pounds in a year and a half. Try taking the stairs or parking on the outer edge of the lot to add steps and burn extra calories.

Brisk Walk
To amp up your workout, hit a pace of four miles per hour. This is a brisk walk, much like the one you'd use to hurry across the street when you're already getting the signal not to enter the crosswalk, when you hear a crash and glass breaking in a nearby room, or when you know you're about to miss the bus. Keeping a pace of four miles per hour is easier on a treadmill or on a track where you can compare the laps you've completed to your overall time. At four miles per hour, you burn about 200 calories in 30 minutes, and it will take you half the time to lose ten pounds that an easy stroll will. Walk at a brisk pace five days per week and in just under nine months you'll be ten pounds lighter.

Swap Out the Soda
A 12-oz. can of soda has about 150 calories in the form of sugar. But we typically drink the serving sizes offered; a 20-oz. bottle of soda from the vending machine will add closer to 250 calories to your daily total. If you cut down just one 20-oz. bottle seven days per week, you'll eliminate 1750 calories--or 3500 calories, the equivalent of a pound, in two weeks' time. Keep up the no-soda habit for five months and you'll lose ten pounds easily. Replace the soda with water, and while you're coming down from the caffeine withdrawals, limited tea or coffee.

Careful with Condiments
Calories from condiments can add up quickly. Instead of slathering your sandwich with 50 calories--or one tablespoon--of mayonnaise, try one tablespoon of mustard. Brown or yellow varieties come in at under 15 calories per tablespoon (honey mustard has a higher calorie count). Swapping out mayo for mustard on a sandwich every weekday will save 700 calories a month. The savings will show up over a four-year period, but every little change helps you on the way to ten pounds.

Snack Sensibly
Snacks are an important part of your diet. Light snacking keeps your blood sugar even, and gives you the energy to squeeze in a brisk walk instead of skipping it and ordering in pizza. Instead of that package of chips or cookies, which could run several hundred calories and include little that nourishes your body, try one of these healthy, diet-friendly, but still tasty options: 15 almonds, 5 cups of air-popped popcorn, a large apple, or a cup of fresh cut vegetables and ¼ cup hummus.

Try one, or two, or a combination of these ideas, and you'll be on your way to losing ten pounds in no time.

By Helen Calhoun