HA! There is no way, ---- but --- now that I have your attention -------!

As a former yo-yo dieter who never knew if her clothes would fit from one week to the next with the massive mood swings that go along with feeling like an elephant with fluid retention, LET'S TALK!!!

Here are a few tips to help lose and maintain a healthier weight for you.

1. Eat breakfast! Dieters can lose 17% of their overweight just by doing this alone. If you can't eat in the morning, learn to! Food "breaks the fast" and your metabolic rate will remain sluggish, on a "sleeping" mode, until you fuel the body after sleep.

2. Increase fiber. Fiber lowers cholesterol, decreases constipation, and keeps everything moving. Along with cereals and grains, psyllium husk capsules - 2 daily with a big glass of water - can keep bowel movements softer and help flush excess fluid from the body.

3. Speaking of fluid, you all know I call myself the B6 queen. Vitamin B6 for many women acts as a natural diuretic, and I don't know about you, but when I feel puffy I eat more and stupidly because nobody loves me anyway because I feel PUFFY!!! B6 also gets rid of nausea and mood swings associated with beginning any hormonal method of birth control or hormone replacement.

4. EXERCIZE!! To the point of messy sweating! Every day! Don't think about it, JUST DO IT! If you can't do it for 20 minutes, do it for 5! I get on a Nordic-trac every morning in my tee shirt nightgown. I like the nordictrac because I don't have to jump up and down so I don't even need to put on a bra. And many of you have heard me say that if I looked trim enough to prance around in spandex at a health club I wouldn't need the health club in the first place!! Exercise makes you feel fantastic and extremely proud of yourself! It releases chemicals in the body that just make you feel like smiling! AND it gives you energy. And speeds up the metabolic rate. And gets rid of excess fluid that makes you feel puffy --yadayadayada Before I had my precious Nordic Trac, when trying to lose weight after my son was born, I would run in place every day, holding my arms crossed in front of my breasts so I wouldn't bounce them off. When my son began to run, he would cross his arms over his chest and take off. The neighbors thought he was the strangest kid, but I knew that all those mornings he saw me jogging in place as his only physically active role model (my husband is a truly wonderful couch potato!) he was just copying me!

5. And this one is hard. Try not to eat a large meal for dinner or to eat late. The calories just hang around and go straight to the hips while you are sleeping.

6. Eat less but more frequently. The body burns calories metabolizing snacks and meals.

7. Protein at lunch speeds everything up. A can of tuna, some nuts --

8. New studies show that increasing calcium intake can speed weight loss.

9. I recently read in a magazine that anti-bacterial soaps are absorbed into the body and slow the thyroid gland function, thus slowing the metabolic rate. I don't know who did the research, but I think this is probably garbage, or insignificant unless you consume a lot of soap (just included that one because the magazine was in our office lobby, and you may have read it!!

10. Muscle mass uses more calories, so build some up by doing resistance exercizes with weights. But be careful and learn how to use them properly or you can hurt yourself. Just ask me what not to do - I frequently become a "weekend warrior" and limp around for days on end. Be especially careful if you are a klutz.

11. Phoenix is full of mountains - go climb some!! It is terrific fun and you need to retrain yourself to a healthier lifestyle outdoors WHEN the triple digit temps are gone.

12. Make your liquid refreshments calorie free or low. There are too many junk calories in those guzzlers you buy at Circle K - they are expensive and look much better on someone else's gut instead or yours.

13. Don't eat dinner with loose clothes on. Honestly, I think the worst thing to put on when you get home and relax is sweat pants or tights or loose stuff. Go for tighter jeans with a waistband, and then if you eat too much you can't breathe! Or throw up, but that's not good either.

The United States has the worst problem with obesity. Our food portions are too large, we eat standing up or in the car, we snack too much, and we eat garbage that isn't nutritious and makes us fat.

We are only given one body to live our life in, and we should take better care of it - don't you agree?

Why not start NOW?!! Life is too short to put things off, and today is the first day of the rest of your hopefully happy and healthy life!

Oh, I hope you are inspired! Or was that last paragraph just plain hokey? Too much? I think so too - just ignore it!

Formerly Chubby Lynne Fiore, NP