Six small changes can help keep off pounds

Here are a half-dozen small changes you can make that help you keep off pounds. They are alternative approaches to the drastic diet and exercise revisions that most people find so difficult to follow.

The idea is to start with smaller, easier changes that will, at the very least, halt the weight-creep and give encouraging results.

Stop drinking calories

Replacing your favorite full-sugar drink with an artificially sweetened version. The evidence is mixed. Some studies suggest that though diet sodas don't add calories, they still activate your sweet tooth. But other studies show no such effect. "It's very difficult for my patients to stop drinking soda," said Caroline Apovian, M.D., director of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston Medical Center. "I always tell them to switch to diet soda."

Eat more protein

Low-carb, high-protein diets have proved surprisingly effective, especially in the short term. And it turns out that people who eat a higher proportion of their calories from protein end up consuming fewer calories overall.

Eat more fiber

Fiber is the good guy of food. It may help protect against colon cancer and heart disease, and it is your weight-control friend. It slows digestion, helping you to feel fuller longer, and displaces other caloric foods. Best of all, it comes in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that are loaded with beneficial vitamins and minerals.

Add 2,000 steps a day

That's 20 to 25 minutes of walking, covers about a mile, and will burn about 100 calories a day—enough, Hill said, to prevent gradual weight gain in most people.

Cut your screen time

"When we're sitting, we are burning almost as few calories as we do when we're sleeping," said Marc T. Hamilton, Ph.D., a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. "Sitting too much is hazardous to your health in a different way than exercising too little."

"Standing upright washing dishes, getting dressed, or filing papers isn't exercise by anybody's standard," Hamilton said. "Yet these activities double your metabolic rate compared to sitting. If you can find 6 or 7 more hours a week to spend standing instead of sitting, you've done something good for yourself."