Want to lose weight? Achieving good health with a healthy diet is not complicated — you can do it, and you can feel great as the pounds drop away. Here are three easy tips you can use today.

1. Turn off the TV and Go for a Walk With a Friend

Watching TV is relaxing when you’re exhausted, but did you know that the best cure for tiredness is exercise? Exercise is especially useful at the end of a long stressful day, because it eliminates stress hormones from your system, improving your health.

Just put on a pair of sneakers, and get outdoors: a simple stroll around the block, even for ten minutes, will refresh you, and set you on the road to weight loss.

Walking is great fun when you do it with a friend. Find a weight loss buddy, so you can go for walks together. Walking is fun exercise because you can walk anywhere, even around your local mall (avoid the places serving food.)

2. Eat Fiber at Every Meal: Free Food!

Vegetables and fruits are not only packed with nutrition, they also give your body much-need fiber. They fill you up, and are generally low in calories, so you can look on them as free food. (The only vegetables you need to watch are potatoes, but even potatoes, when baked or steamed, have very few calories, pound for pound.)

Look on vegetables as free food, and enjoy them every day. If you want great vegetable recipes, find a cookbook which focuses on healthy vegetable recipes.

3. Create a Digital Diary of Your Weight Loss Progress

Hate looking in the mirror? Here’s how to make the mirror your friend: start a digital diary.

Take a photo of yourself with your digital camera, and store the photos as a digital diary. The photos will record your weight loss, and inspire you to continue.

It’s one of the most miraculous and stressful times in a woman’s life— being a new mom. The constant on-the-go of new motherhood can leave you feeling tired, worn, and generally unhealthy. Taking good care of yourself is one of the best ways to ensure that you can take great care of your child. The following are some tips that will help you adjust to new motherhood and start feeling like your old self again.

Take it slow – In this type A world a lot of moms feel like they have to get back in to shape right away, back to work right away… Give yourself enough time to adjust. Your body has been through a lot and should be given time to ease back into things. It will be better and healthier for both you and your baby in the long run.

Take naps – Sure, maybe your baby’s nap time would be a great time to get that laundry done and, sure, maybe you think you’re used to not sleeping after a while, but, believe you me, your body knows the difference. Getting a healthy amount of sleep is the core of all health. Missing out on a solid 8-hour stretch can throw your hormones, adrenals, and brain chemistry out of whack. Try to catch up when you can.

Don’t crash diet – A crash diet isn’t going to keep the weight off in the long run. Besides, if you’re breastfeeding it can cause problems and lower your milk supply. The consensus is these days that the only diet that works is healthy, smaller, more frequent meals. Eating whole foods (not over-processed) in this manner will help your metabolism and stimulate your milk supply.

Walk – Walking is not only great exercise, it’s also a great opportunity for you and the baby to get some fresh air. Go to the park, see some trees, say hi to some neighbors. It will do a lot for your health and your sense of well-being.

Socialize – One of the greatest stressors of being a new mother is the isolation. You’re often on duty 24/7. Even with the most helpful and supportive partner, you can still feel like you’re cut off from the world. Mental health is a huge part of overall health— make sure you take some time to get out and see friends or even make new ones.

While trying to maintain a diet to lose weight and/or gain muscle, having a cheat day is a big temptation. While many people will do one day a week that they allow themselves to cheat on their diet, others insist that you have to maintain the diet for as long as possible. We wanted to find the truth for this question, so we at DJ Connection decided to do a little research. The end goal that we had in mind was to find out what would most benefit our bodies while still allowing us to enjoy our lives and the food we eat.

The first thing we noticed from maintaining a diet is that at some point the body stops losing weight. Despite maintaining a low calorie intake and keeping up with cardio, we found a plateau to the benefits that we were seeing. So to figure this out we decided to ask our medically savvy friends and the all powerful Google to figure out why. What we found is that while dieting, the mind eventually believes that it is starving. Because of this many things in the body happen that would disrupt weight loss, but the main problem is a drop in the hormone leptin. Leptin is basically your anti-starvation hormone that will keep you from losing weight in an attempt to keep you from starving. When this happens it becomes very difficult for a person to drop any more weight, which is why diets stop working after prolonged diligence.

To counter a drop in the hormone leptin, the best thing to do is increase your calorie intake for a short period! This means that the cheat day is not only the best day of the week for a dieter, but it may actually help you continue to lose weight. Now keep in mind that this does not mean that you can diet for a few days and then have a cheat week and still lose weight, in fact all that we have seen and heard so far suggests that a cheat day should only be taken every once in a while. In order to successfully keep the leptin in balance a increase in calorie intake of 20-30% for 12-24 hours. If you have been on a strict diet for 6 months or more, you may need to take several more days of increased calorie intake. By doing this you can enjoy your life and food a little bit more, while still getting the drop in belt size that you are looking for.