Diet Coke isn’t healthy for you and neither is coffee. Caffeine can increase your heart rate and blood pressure. And the artificial sweeteners are not that healthy either.

But you know what… screw it.

A cup of coffee helps relieve the feeling of hunger and can get you through to your next meal without snacking (and so can a diet Coke).

I don’t suggest that you take up drinking coffee if you haven’t done so before the diet. But if you were caffeinating, then by all means – harness this unhealthy habit to lose weight.

In fact, I strongly suggest that you do not try to make two big life changes at the same time. It takes focus and discipline to adopt diet habits and if you spread yourself too thin, you’ll fail both challenges.

Here’s a couple of caffeinating guidelines:

1.  Don’t increase your daily amount of caffeine drinks.

2. Use artificial sweeteners and not sugar with your coffee (you don’t need the extra calories). If you can’t stand the taste of artificial sweeteners and must use sugar, then reduce the amount of sugar to half a spoon per drink.

3. If you drink your coffee with milk, make sure you use mostly water and only a drop of milk to color the coffee.

4. Use low-fat milk.

4. When you order coffee, make sure that they make it as described above (mostly water and a touch of milk) and let them know you’ll be adding your own sweeteners.

Note: All the above is true if you don’t have doctor’s orders to the contrary. We’ll discuss doctors orders in another post, since they are important but sometimes destructive to your diet.

So… keep caffeinating my friend. And soon you’ll be a thinner, sexier caffeine drinker.

photo credit: dongga BS via photopin cc

Most people think that being on a diet means you need to learn how to be hungry.

That’s a HUGE mistake. Hunger is the #1 enemy of a successful diet.

To successfully lose a lot of weight, your thinking, rational self needs to be in control over a long period of time (it could be months or even years in some cases). But when you let yourself become hungry, you relinquish control to your lizard brain.

I’m HUNGRY the lizard brain screams – and while your rational self may fight the overwhelming impulse to eat for a little while, it quickly loses control and you find yourself standing in front of the refrigerator doing the nasty with a baguette and a bucket of Humus.

The surest safest way to lose weight is to establish a meal schedule that’s low on calories, but keeps you content and full 95% of the time.

photo credit: » Zitona « via photopin cc