For many people, trying to lose weight is quite simply a miserable experience. Conflicting advice, weight loss pills, tough exercise regimes, deprivation of your favorite foods… it’s just not fun.

Worse yet is how often it’s not sufficiently effective. All that work and too often the goals still appear unattainable.

But no matter how much weight you want to lose, there are a couple things that are very important to keep in mind.

1. Exercise.
   If you aren’t exercising, you aren’t increasing the number of calories your body is burning, and it becomes much harder to lose weight. Make sure you include at least 20 minutes three times per week of aerobic exercise to most improve your overall fitness. Find something you enjoy doing to make this a bit easier.
2. Eat more healthy foods.
   Low carb, glycemic index, whatever rules you want to go by, the most important is to include a lot of healthy foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. If you work at finding recipes you really enjoy this will become an easier lifestyle change to maintain, making it easier to maintain your weight loss for the long run.
3. Eat less.
   No matter the diet, there’s a part of it that comes down to calories. Eat too many calories of any type and you’ll gain weight. If you need to snack to get through the day comfortably, find healthy alternatives to your old snacks that won’t add so many calories to your daily total. It doesn’t have to be rice cakes and celery; it can be what tastes good to you and keep you from thinking on less healthy and higher calorie alternatives.
4. Don’t get in your own way.
   Sometimes you will get frustrated. But giving up because things aren’t going so smoothly as you like won’t help matters any. If you slip up, start right back up again. If the scale isn’t showing the changes you’d like to see, remind yourself that it all takes time.

Within these basic parameters you can find plenty of ways to drop unwanted weight in a way that is comfortable for you. If one way is too stressful or leaves you feeling too deprived, try another way. There are plenty of alternatives out there; no point sticking with one you hate.

Yes, the dreaded Halloween candy season is here. Worse yet, tomorrow if you have kids they will be bringing home bags full of the stuff after trick or treating. You may even have a lot left over if you don’t get as many kids as you expected trick or treating in your area.

It can make avoiding temptation more difficult than usual. And the holiday season is just beginning.

Different families have different ways of coping with this influx of sugary treats. Some avoid having candy leftovers by handing out something healthier than candy. This can be challenging since few things are quite as popular as candy with all ages, but it’s not impossible.

Some parents only allow the candy to stay a short time, then dispose of the rest one way or another. I’ve always thought this wasn’t fair to kids, especially those who aren’t currently facing weight problems. Better is if you can teach them how to enjoy it in moderation, in my opinion.

But it may be your own self control that is the real issue.

If it works for you, try having a favorite, yet much healthier snack available and try to stick to it when the candy comes calling. This won’t work for everyone, but if it does the job for you, it’s a fairly easy solution.

Limiting how much you can have works for adults as well as kids. If you tell yourself one piece a day and stick to that rule, the Halloween candy can only do so much to your weight loss efforts.

Think of the Halloween candy as practice for the challenges of the holiday season. Keeping control of your dieting and eating habits only gets harder as we go through Thanksgiving and Christmas.