Save yourself 10 pounds a year!

Becoming overweight doesn't happen overnight. There isn't a little Fat-Fairy that comes down and strategically places french fries on your thighs or fried chicken in your arm pits - making the idea of wearing a strapless dress nothing other than a joke. No, body fat is a creepy night crawler that, little by little, injects your body with useless matter in the most unflattering places.

It's a fact that if anything is done little by little, you are less likely to notice. You don't take $20 out of your mom's purse, you take $2 a day for 10 days. You don't re-arrange your co-worker's office as a joke, you move everything 1" to the right once a week to drive them crazy! Its the same concept with weight. Small changes, here and there, add up to you becoming ........plump........without noticing.

Think about it: 100 calories a day (more than your caloric need) for 365 days is 36,500 calories. That equals 10.4 lbs of body weight. So, if you eat one too many 100 calorie packs, small fries, bite size Snickers, extra slices of cheese, or 8 ozs of soda every day - you could wake up a year from now, ten lbs heavier. Now, what if you do this for 5 years in a row? If you weigh 150 lbs today and you keep this pattern up - you would weigh 200 lbs by the fall of 2016. Scary thought, right?

So, what can you do? Well, you need to learn how to decrease your calorie intake by making small changes/substitutions throughout the day. Here are a few ideas on how to save yourself 100 calories a day, meaning 10 lbs by fall, 2011!

1. Kick the soda habit (1 cup soda = appox. 100 calories)

2. Start using a non-stick cooking spray (1 tbls of canola oil = 124 calories, 1 tbls butter = 100 calories)

3. Skip the coffee creamer, try skim milk (2oz liquid creamer = 80 calories)

4. Order the SMALL (large McD's fry = 500 calories, small = 231 calories)

5. Add mustard, not mayo (1 mayo packet = 90 calories, 1 mustard packet = 30 calories

6. Cut back a drink a day (1 12 oz regular beer = 145 Calories)

7. Skip the bagel (approx. 250-300 calories)

8. Go baked, not mashed (1/2 cup baked potato = 57 calories, 1/2 cup mashed potatoes = 115 calories)

9. Switch from 2% to skim (1 cup 2% milk = 122 calories, 1 cup skim milk = 90 calories)

10. Go naked (1 Qdoba tortilla = 330 Calories)

Have anymore great suggestions?! Add them below!!