Nevertheless, it’s an inescapable fact that proper diet has to be accompanied by an age-appropriate, regular exercise program – if the goal is good health and an attractive body. Diet is essential, but exercise is its essential partner. Diet provides the proper fuel, but exercise uses that fuel to generate health and fitness.

There’s no need to become a fitness fanatic, but there are several simple exercises you can begin today. Start a daily stretching routine of at least 10 minutes before doing any vigorous training. A 20-minute walk every other day is a great beginning for those not used to exercise.

Work up to more effort slowly. Most of those new to exercise get discouraged and quit too soon because they try too hard at first. This produces soreness and sometimes injury. That reduces the motivation.

Instead, start with some light weight training, using 5lb, 10lb, then 20lb weights. Curls, squats and other exercises are simple and you’ll soon graduate. Then add a 10-minute jog, a 20-minute jog, then 30-minutes. Once you hit an hour-long run, you’re into the serious workout category.

If you can, invest in equipment that may help you get motivated. Others will need the social stimulus of a gym to keep their willpower up. But in either case, don’t let your money go to waste. Make a commitment to regular workouts, whether at home or away. If you do join a gym, don’t be shy. Take advantage of the expertise of more experienced fitness enthusiasts and the staff.

In order to lose weight, you want to be sure to include some cardiovascular exercises in your routine. That can be running, cycling or any number of alternatives. To tone muscles and tighten the slack skin that will result from major body fat reduction, you’ll need to add resistance and weightlifting exercises. You can use stretchers, rope and pulley or other equipment to supply the resistance. Weight machines are great for lifting exercises.

As you get into the routine, you may or may not actually lose weight. If you’re not obese but merely overweight, you may not see much loss. As you reduce fat deposits the difference can be made up by gains in muscle mass. Don’t pay much attention to early losses, they may well be due as much to water loss as anything else.

But as you reduce excess body fat and tone muscles you’ll experience many side benefits beyond a more attractive body. You’ll feel better overall, be more energetic and should experience a heightened mood.

Feel good about it. You worked hard for the results.

Some people diet by simply foregoing meals, such as breakfast or lunch. But that ‘all or nothing’ approach guarantees cravings. The overall calorie intake needs to be lowered for a successful diet. But achieving it by skipping meals also leads to several other potential problems, including wild blood sugar swings and nutritional deficits. Those signal the body to crave what it lacks, which makes dieting that much harder.

Help yourself resist those cravings that do occur by keeping only healthy diet items around. A chocolate bar that is at the store a few miles away is a lot easier to resist than the one in the pantry. A jar of peanut butter kept in the cupboard is not the ideal way to test your willpower.

Instead, keep a supply of fruits, carrots and other items on hand at all times. Trail bars and other snack-style foods are fine, provided they don’t have high quantities of sugar or saturated fat. Some are designed with just that for hikers who need a quick energy burst on the mountain. Make sure they’re low calorie, low sugar and low fat.

Don’t skip on water. Take care not to over-hydrate, since that can be injurious to health, especially on very hot days. But dehydration produces signals that are similar to hunger. Keeping your body well watered leads to minimal cravings for food, especially sweets. Beware bloating, but a slightly full feeling from water reduces food cravings.

Be sure to eat a balanced meal before you shop for groceries. It will be difficult enough to resist that attractive package of goodies as you pass by it walking down the aisle. Give yourself every assistance by not being hungry when you see it. If necessary, take along an apple or some dried fruit to help you resist temptation.

Sometimes ‘cold turkey’ on all ‘goodies’ is the best way to go. But, for many, total forbearance leads to hugely increased cravings. You’re almost daring yourself to give in. Keep those cravings under control by indulging yourself with small portions of those things you love. An ounce of dark chocolate isn’t going to ruin your diet. In fact, it can be a part of a healthy one, since it contains antioxidants that are actually beneficial.

But do whatever is necessary to keep the quantity under control. Moderation does no harm and often produces the best result. Telling yourself ‘just one more’ over and over again undermines your efforts toward your goal.

Last, but far from least, keep your eyes on the prize. Remind yourself daily why you are making the effort to diet. You may want to lose weight, achieve fitness, create a better image, feel better about yourself, gain overall good health or all of the above. Imagine yourself achieving them. Realize that giving in puts you farther away from your goal and your cravings will tend to decrease.

Every month there’s a new claim, often given a coating of respectability by quoting the latest ’study’. But if trained scientists have difficulty deciding what the truth is, you can bet the average laymen doesn’t know for sure.

So what’s a person who just wants to lose weight to do? Not everyone is a scientist, and very few have the time or inclination to read a dozen scientific studies. Well, there’s no perfect solution to that dilemma, but there are a few common sense guidelines that can go a long way toward avoiding common mistakes.

Greet with a skeptical eye any outsized claims. ‘Outsized’, here, means those that make rock certain claims to know what’s best in nutrition – especially when they contradict long-standing and obvious guidelines.

Studies may differ on details, but they all agree that a balanced diet of the basic essentials – carbohydrates, protein, etc – is best. All agree that moderate, regular age-appropriate exercise is an important factor in health.

Be wary of anyone making promises for safe, easy, quick results. It’s possible to achieve any one of these three, but never all three together. A wise weight loss program will definitely consider safety first. It will rarely be easy – technology has advanced, but not THAT much. And, it is almost never quick. Reducing excess body fat, losing weight and getting fit require a long-term commitment.

Treat with caution any program that tries the other side of the coin: to scare you into adopting it. Many will tout claims of the dangers of meat, for example. While consuming excess animal fat can increase health risks, what is ‘excess’ is still being examined.

Any claim that eating meat in moderation is harmful is based only on junk science. Adopting a strictly vegetarian diet for ethical reasons or matters of taste is a valid choice, but not one required by science.

In other words, avoid extremes.

There are 3-day diets that recommend eating nothing but fruit for three days, then other foods the rest of the week. Bad idea. Such a diet is necessarily unbalanced and will cause rollercoaster effects on the body.

There are diets recommending almost all protein and very few carbohydrates. Bad idea. The body needs a variety of materials from which to extract and synthesize what it needs. That means it benefits from a balance of protein (to produce amino acids), carbohydrates (for energy), fiber and other essential elements.

Anyone selling a miracle cure, effortless or instant results, while claiming to have a safe and reliable program is selling you air. Don’t buy.

The same basic idea applies in all cases: not too much of this here, not too little of that there. But in the case of diet, what is it that gets balanced, exactly?

The answer is given by nutrition science, as graphically shown in the famed food pyramid. The basic guidelines are simple and based on sound nutrition. It’s this: get the right amount of carbohydrates, fats, protein, minerals and other needed compounds.

Carbohydrates are sometimes mistakenly looked at as unhealthy or not appropriate for dieters. Au contraire, carbohydrates are essential. They are the body’s foremost source of energy. Carbohydrates are broken down and put back together into various combinations of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, releasing energy along the way. That energy is used for cell repair, muscle movement and many other biological processes. In short, carbohydrates power everything we do.

About 50-60% of the total calories consumed daily should be in the form of carbohydrates. Slightly lower for those aiming at weight loss. That can be anywhere from roughly 150-400 grams per day. Every gram of carbs yields 4 calories. The wide range is the result of variation in diets. For a 2,000 calorie diet, for example, 50% is equivalent to 1,000 calories of carbs, or 250 grams. Some diets are focused on weight loss, others on muscle building, some on body fat reduction… the list is endless.

Fat often gets bad press, too. One reason is the fact that each gram yields 9 calories, so they’re ‘energy dense’. But they’re also the body’s ‘emergency energy supply’. Consumption of fat – of the right type and in the right quantities – is essential to a healthy diet. It is needed to create certain hormones and enzymes, to keep the brain and nerves healthy, to aid in storing fat soluble vitamins and a variety of other tasks.

But there are different types. A healthy, balanced diet will contain chiefly unsaturated fats, avoiding saturated and trans-fats. These should make up about 20-30% of the total daily calories intake. That’s about 25-40 grams per day.

Proteins are another vital component of the balanced diet. They’re broken down by digestion into amino acids, which are then reassembled into proteins used for growth, muscle building, cell repair and other functions. A healthy diet is comprised of 25-35% protein per day. That works out to, say, 165 grams or 660 calories daily (33%) for a diet of 2,000 calories.

Vitamins and minerals are the biochemical ‘facilitators’ in the diet. They add few calories, but are essential to getting all the needed reactions to take place. A wide variety of A, B-complex, C, D, E, K along with mineral elements like sodium, calcium, iron, zinc and others are a must. It would take an entire article just to list the names and amounts. A few of the major ones are:

Sodium: no more than 2,400 mg per day
Calcium: 1200-1500 mg per day
Iron: 15-20 mg per day
Zinc: 15-20 mg per day
Folic Acid (a B-complex vitamin): 400 mcg per day

Numbers are based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet for an average adult.

Calcium is used in bulk to build up bones. Iron is essential for making hemoglobin, a key component of red blood cells. Sodium is used to regulate the heart beat, in nerve fibers and elsewhere.

In theory a healthy, balanced diet – whether one designed for weight loss, weight training or just basic nutrition – can supply all the needed elements. But, leading busy lives can often cause individuals to forego some important aspects. Supplements, used wisely, can help in those cases.