I went from 200 pounds to 191 pounds by following this plan, with absolutely no sense of deprivation or any other hardship. Remember, this, too: claim and believe hard tasks are easy and you will accomplish them more easily and in a shorter time.

1. Eliminate your evening meal. Make breakfast your biggest meal; eat a nutritious lunch.

These are crucial. If you are not hungry in the morning, it is almost certainly because you eat or snack at night. Stop eating dinner and snacking at night. The longer you do not eat before going to bed, the better. Minimum is three hours; four or six hours are better yet. When you do this, you will wake up hungry and ready to eat a hearty, nutritious breakfast. No sugary cereals and dairy milk, even 2% and skim. Or Pop-Tarts, or other junk food.

Make lunch a more moderate meal than breakfast, but still substantial, emphasizing vegetables, fruits, complex carbs. Eliminate the evening meal until you reach your desired weight. When you start eating dinner again, if you choose to, make it your lightest meal, like healthy soup and salad.

The big point to understand here is that three meals a day just does not fit in with our 21st century lifestyles. The whole concept comes from when most of us lived on farms or worked in factories and really burned calories. So unless you are a lumberjack, professional triathlete or have some other super calorie burner job, get out of the habit of a big evening meal. And to lose fat fast, cut it out altogether until you lose all the weight you want to lose.

2. No snacks between meals.

Even healthy snacks like fruit are no-nos. If you eat breakfast and lunch as described above--whole, naturally filling foods--you will not get hungry between meals. If you do, drink water instead of eating. If during your transition period you must eat, make your snack fresh fruit, dried fruit, vegetables. Avoid nuts, seeds or junk food. Work toward eliminating all snacking in between meals, which is pretty easy to do. Snacking includes soft drinks, diet drinks, sports/energy drinks and all beverages that are not water. Drink water. Shoot for 7-8 cups--a cup is 8 ounces--a day.

This tactic really worked for me and I lost belief in the whole idea of eating four, five or six smaller meals a day. I shared this info recently with a woman who was complaining she needed to lose 15 pounds. She replied that the five-six smaller meals a day really worked for her. Then use that tactic, I urged her, and any other that works for you. Whatever tactic it is, you have to use it to lose it, in place of whining about needing to lose weight.

3. Exercise 45 minutes daily.

You cannot beat walking for starting out. After that, you can beat walking. If you are not already walking or getting other aerobic exercise like walking, start and work toward getting 45 minutes of brisk, non-stop walking daily. Once you reach that goal and that becomes your daily norm, you have to either increase the time you walk or increase the pace of your walking to keep losing weight. And when you advance to jogging 20-plus miles a week, the pounds will melt off, I guarantee you.

4. Eliminate refined sugar and free fats or fatty foods.

The best way to avoid refined sugars and fats is to adopt a plant-based diet of whole, fresh natural foods. Eat foods as they are grown, nothing added, nothing taken away.

Avoid dairy completely, including low fat, skim and especially cheeses. Get dairy foods out of your diet. Eliminate meats, including fish, poultry and other animal products like eggs. If you cannot do that entirely, use meat and other animal food products sparingly, as flavoring rather than as the main portion.

But the best all around diet for getting lean and fit is a plant-based diet of whole, fresh, natural foods, free of meat and other animal products like dairy and eggs. Whole, fresh foods are high in fiber, naturally filling, nutritious and lead to healthy, permanent weight loss.