The summer months call for showing off . . . or despair. If you succeeded with your winter diet, then this spring you will find you have fewer pounds--and this is what you need to feel good about yourself, and good about how others see you.
However if despite your efforts to limit what went into your mouth, you couldn't bear your anxiety and you gained weight, summer can be torture. 
That's why now's the time to set concrete goals. Don't insist on those that have to do with Barbie doll models and are impossible to reach, or diets that require dozens of products and 48 hours a day just to complete them.
Your good habits will offer you a healthy weight.
The Argentine doctor Alberto Cormillot, founder of the Argentine Institute of Nutrition and the Diet Club, a network of weight loss clinics similar to Weight Watchers in the US, points out that obsession is one of the emotions that can sabotage diet plans.
"Someone who wants to lose weight should concentrate on improving their habits, eating healthy, and doing physical activity even if it's just a good walk every two weeks," explains Cormillot.
In the 1990's, experts from the American Dietetic Association drew up guidelines on how to reach a healthy weight in order to combat the unattainable image of the beautiful models that walked the runways worldwide.
Among the main points there are some that you may already be familiar with, but it never hurts to remind ourselves. You can even put the following list on your refrigerator door.
- Stay away from trendy diets that promise fast and easy weight loss. Most importantly, if you have extra pounds, lose them and maintain this weight without gaining it back again.
- Eat skim dairy products to cut out some calories and fats.
- Replace mayonnaise and dressings, with small amounts of their diet versions, mustard or ketchup, vinegar, lemon, some drops of oil, a spurt of soy sauce, sesame or flax seeds, pepper or herbs.
- Lower your intake of salt in order to avoid bloating.
- Choose different types of fresh fruit, salads, and cooked vegetables. Try new flavors.
- Set aside non-diet fried foods and desserts as "favorite foods" and limit them to two times a week in normal amounts.
- Make wise food choices in between main meals: fresh fruit, fruit or vegetable juice, skim milk, a sandwich with whole wheat bread, cereal with skim milk.
- Drink a lot of liquid (water, soda water, diet sodas, soups, tea, Jell-O).
- Work out regularly even if it's in the form of walking. Although it's not excessive or exhausting, it still allows you to eat without having to worry so much about your weight.
Just by following these very basic steps you will feel better about your body this summer. And it will show on the scale even beyond the exact number it shows.
