Let's begin at the begining . . . a very good place to start

I have been thinking quite a bit about where to begin. If I were taking a friend and totally remaking her, I would start with these things: If she could afford it, I would take her to the salon and get her brows and nails done, because these are fast and inexpensive, and they make you feel terrific. I would give her a good pep talk about posture and tell her to start doing something active--anything, really-- every day. And then we would talk about diet.

I have been dieting since I was in junior high. (Disclaimer: Please DO NOT put your adolescent daughters on a diet just because I said I dieted that young. It is probably the reason I have a hard time maintaining my weight today, and most definitely the reason I have mad issues with my body image. If you think you girl needs a diet, ask your pediatrician. And please take care not to project your own body issues onto your daughters. Teach them to eat healthy instead.) I have read lots and lots of terrific and junky books on the subject. Dieting philosophies change over the years as science advances and we know more about the biochemistry of how food is used in the body. Right now, I have in my home, The Zone Diet, The South Beach Diet, The Fat-Flush Diet, The Body Sculpting Bible for Women, How to Eat Like a Hot Chick, The Acne Prescription by Nicholas Perricone, M.D., Eating for a Healthy Skin, and my college nutrition text. While all these diets vary in their basic philosophy and approach, they all have a lot in common.

Please do not confuse yourself by reading a lot of diet books at the beginning. If you are over weight or eating a poor diet, any change you make will be an improvement. If you are worried about your weight, understand that it is enough at first just to reduce the amount of calories you consume. If you are a comfortable weight but want to look healthier, more vibrant, prettier or sexier, improving the quality of what you eat will go a long way.

Now, here is what all the diet books will tell you (except that Atkins nonsense. That is a whole other story) .

Drink water or some other non-calorie, non-caffeinated liquid, at least 8 cups (64 ounces) a day. This is not that hard to do. If you have a 16 ounce glass of water at each meal, that is 6 cups right there. Add another glass at bedtime or when you wake up, and you are all done. This helps you in a few ways: it keeps you hydrated, which makes your skin look prettier and dewier; if you drink the water with our meal, it helps keep you feeling full; water helps improve metabolism, which helps you burn off fat faster; and it will displace sugary sodas, milk, fruit juices, and so on. For more reasons to drink water, see this article by Trent at The Simple Dollar.

Eat a balance of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean proteins. Except for the concept of "whole grains," this concept has been around since the 1970's, probably longer. Remember "3 square meals"? Only the proportions have changed. For a more detailed explanation of what you should be looking for in each of these categories, see this post.

How do you balance your diet? The easiest way is this: Picture a dinner plate. Now imagine yourself filling that plate before a meal. Put some nice veggies and maybe a piece of fruit on first. The fruit and veggies should fill at least half your plate. Now of the remaining half, divide that equally. Put a piece of lean protein on one quarter of your plate. This protein should not be much bigger than a deck of cards. On the remaining quarter, you can put some bread, rice, a potato, some squash, or some whole-grain pasta. Now you can drizzle some olive oil over your veggies or pasta, or you can have a salad with a vinegar-and-oil dressing, or you can add a handful of nuts for dessert or smear a tiny bit of nut butter on your bread. Ta-da! All those veggies should fill you up, and if they don't you can also have a salad on the side or seconds on the veggies.

Easy cheesy!

The more a food looks like it did when it was growing, the better it is for you. When the Breyer's Ice Cream people made that ad with the kid attempting to read all the long chemical names of ingredients on an ice-cream carton, they were onto something. We know intuitively that food should be mostly natural. While the raw foods enthusiasts take that to an extreme, they do have a very good point. Try this simple test. If you cannot look at a food and see what it looked like alive, you should be suspicious of it and think twice before you put it in your mouth. If the food has been processed (like ice cream or a soy burger) check the ingredients. If you can't recognize the source of the food by looking at it, and if you also don't recognize or can't pronounce some of the ingredients, or if the ingredient list says "processed" anything, really avoid it. And if you pick up a package and it says "hydrogenized" or "Hydrogenated" anything, drop it like it's hot. Foods should really stay close to their roots.

Eat small, balanced meals throughout the day. This helps keep you from having peaks and slumps. You know that little lift you get form a candy bar, and the subsequent slump when the high wore off? You want to avoid that. You want to keep your energy even all day. Eating frequent small meals also helps you maintain a higher metabolism through the day, it keeps you from getting ravenous so that you will eat anything, and it will help your stomach adjust to smaller volume, so you will feel full on fewer calories. The key words her are small and balanced.

There is also one big secret all those diet gurus keep, and they try to hide it in their complicated philosophies. I'll tell you what it is in the next post.