Say the word diet and I immediately think, hunger, cravings, and weight gain. I just can't go on a diet. Chances are if you are overweight you don't need to go on a diet either. You just need to adjust your eating behaviors. So what might you do? Here are a few suggestions that you can practice starting now.

1. Eat much, much more slowly. Don't be the first person to finish. If someone else finishes before you do, stop eating. Yes. Push your plate away and step away from the food. Being a dating single person, I get exposure to various eating styles of men. The bigger people always eat all their food, and quickly. There is a correlation between skinny people and the pace they eat as well as how much food they leave on their plate. That's my mini research project conclusion.

2. Leave food on your plate, especially at a restaurant. Restaurant servings are full of fat and are unnecessarily large. That's why it tastes so good (but not good for you in large quantities). You eating your food or not does not impact people starving in Ethiopia. If you really care about them, stop eating out and send a little money each month to your favorite charity.

3. Stop drinking soda, juice, sweetened tea and coffee right now. Drink water, diet sodas and use Splenda. It won't kill you, but your deteriorating health due to excess weight will shorten your life. Yes, juice is just basically sugar water with added nutrients. One juice drink a day is plenty.

4. Move more. Whatever your activity level, make a plan to increase it gradually over the next ten weeks. If you've not been very active, start slowly. Please don't hurt yourself. I suggest walking. Walking is so easy. You can do it near your house or in a mall if the weather is bad. Get a good pair of walking shoes and comfortable clothes and go for a walk. If you haven't walked more than a block in a long time, then your next walk would be two blocks until that is comfortable. Then increase your time or distance.

One of the best things about being overweight is that you have such a great potential for improvement and you can create success for yourself (in weight loss) by just changing a few habits. Write down 3 - 4 things you want to do differently, put them on your calendar or planner, set an alarm for when you need to be doing it and do them for several weeks. Once you are comfortable with these changes you can add some other changes . . . and you won't have to follow any diet plan ever. Nice!