12 Helpful Tips Women Who’ve Lost Weight Swear By

What You've Been Doing: Being rigid about meal planning and never deviating from what you've decided in advance in eat
Try this Instead: Keep planning ahead, but find a method with some flexibility
"Planning out my meals ahead of time takes away the stress of trying to figure out what to eat in a moment when I'm hungry. But last-minute plans come up, or sometimes I just don't feel like eating the meal I've mapped out. So I use a white dry-erase board to write down meals for the next day. If things change, I can just erase what I had written and write in the new meal—it helps me be prepared but also flexible." —Katie Foster, Runs for Cookies; lost 125 pounds