I started walking most days (4-5 times a week) for about 30-40 minutes a day. You don’t have to calculate the number of calories–as long as you are moving, you’ll be burning calories.

I cut out ALL sugary drinks–that means no sugar soda, no sugar in my coffee or tea, no Starbucks, no juices. Anything with sugar (with the exception of skim/1% milk which has some sugar) I just cut out completely. Also, try to avoid drinks with 100mg sodium.

Then I stopped eating fast food–and fast food doesn’t just mean McDonald’s or Burger King, but ALL fast food. That means no more Panera, no more Starbucks, no Jamba Juice, no Subway, none of that crap. Don’t get salads from restaurants, they have just as many calories as anything else on the menu. Avoid eating in restaurants in general, but if you do, try to eat more chicken, seafood, lean meats, and try to go easy on salty food and ask for less sauce.

Don’t eat anything that comes in a box, and don’t eat anything with health claims on it. It’s all sugar and it won’t help you lose weight. Kudos Bars, Nutri-Grain bars, Luna Bars… they are junk food in nice packaging.

Try not to eat too much fruit, it will make weight loss harder. I know people vouch for fruit being healthy and having natural sugar, but that doesn’t mean its good to have tons of it. One apple a day is fine. One mango in a day is fine. A half cup of assorted fruit a day is fine. A box of strawberries in one day = too much.

Try to eat more vegetables, lean meats, etc.

I did this and I swear to you it wasn’t as difficult as it might seem. If you do this, you won’t even have to count calories because cutting out sugary drinks and restaurant foods and all of that will be more than 3500 calories a week cut from your diet. You can buy equipment if you want to, but you should remember that you don’t need a treadmill to walk a couple of miles.