Extremes don't work long-term when making changes in your diet. You can't eat a bag of cookies for dinner and the following day expect to be satisfied with vegetables on your dinner plate. Make small changes to move the scale down to your weight loss goals. The great thing about making small changes is you don't become overwhelmed and give up. As you accomplish a small change, you feel successful. That feeling of success propels you forward to take on and accomplish more changes. Diets have made us feel as though we've failed. I disagree. I believe that diets have failed us. The key to weight loss is to make small changes for big weight loss results.

1. Use flavorings instead of swimming in fat. Butter, cream sauces, sugary sauces tend to encourage the mentality of the more the better. Many of my clients use these fat-ridden choices as pools that the food swims in rather than for flavoring. Flavorings such as salsa, hot sauce, Cajun seasonings. To keep your digestion and metabolism fires burning, these seasonings provide flavor without the fat and fewer calories. Adjust your taste buds to flavorings rather than pools of fat.

2. Stairs as exercise equipment. Who needs expensive exercise equipment or gym memberships? You can spend only 10 minutes a day walking up and down stairs to make a big difference. For a 15-minute work break, you can spend only 10 minutes and have 5 to spare! According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), it takes only 10 minutes a day to help you lose as much as 10 pounds a year. 10 minutes a day for 10 pounds a year.

3. Skip e-mail or phone calls and walk it. The convenience of e-mail and telephone have made us even more sedentary. Are you stuck at a desk all day? Get up and walk around the office or your home for five minutes per day for every two hours. A brisk five-minute walk every two hours will equal an extra 20-minute walk by the end of the day. How easy is that? An added benefit is that you'll be less likely to find yourself in front of the vending machine out of boredom.

4. Balance your starch choice with vegetables. At your next meal, check out the proportion of your starch to your vegetables. For most of us that diet, carbohydrate choices are far larger portions than the portion of vegetables. To avoid a carbohydrate overload, eat an equal size portion of starch food choice to your vegetable choice. High fiber vegetables will satisfy your hunger before you overindulge in starchy foods.

5. To be smaller, order small. When you order a food item, order the small size. Order the smallest portion of everything. Super size, giant, jumbo sizes don't result in a body size small. If you're ordering a submarine sandwich, order the 6-inch rather than the 12 incher. We tend to each what's in front of us even though we'd be satisfied on less. Think small to be small.

6. Drive past the drive thru. If you're running short of time or just plain don't feel like cooking, have a stash of healthy frozen dinners that have been created for weight loss. If you have problems with evening eating, you can use frozen dinners as well. Many of us tend to eat more in the evening than in the morning. An easy way to keep your evening eating and dinner meal is to buy a pre-portioned meal. You can supplement with vegetables and fruit.

It isn't necessary to make big changes all at once to lose weight. Actually, smaller changes tend to build on the successes of each other. We're less to feel overwhelmed by all the differences in our lives and give up. When you build a brick house, it is built a brick at a time. Build your own sturdy, solid foundation for weight loss, built one small change at a time.