I recently lost 20 pounds and now weigh what I weighed in college—I lost fat that was over 30 years old! And guess what—the journey was relatively painless.

Following are 15 easy ways to stop the scales from making their inevitable march upward and move towards a lighter leaner and healthier you.

Fuel The Fire. Eat five small meals a day and keep your body burning fat. This one change made a huge difference for me. I never ate breakfast, ate a small late lunch, and ate the house for dinner. My body was holding onto fat because it had gone into starvation mode—when I needed food I wasn’t eating.

Sling Iron. Researchers from Tufts University have found that resistance training increases your resting metabolic rate by 7percent, so you’ll burn more calories throughout the day, even while doing nothing. Muscle is active tissue and requires more energy than fat—besides, if you don’t lift weights or strength train, you’ll still be saggy and flabby even if you do lose weight.

Keep It Going. Instead of resting between weight-lifting sets, move straight from one exercise to another to keep your heart rate up and maximize burn says Wayne Westcott, author of Get Stronger, Feel Younger.

Get Up Offa That Thing. Translation, stand, don’t sit. It you stand when you take a call you’ll burn about 20% more calories than sitting. Better yet, pace.

Got Milk? Women who ate 1,000 to 1,400 milligrams of calcium per day burned more fat and calories according to findings published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. That’s 3-4 servings of dairy.

Let Your Legs Do The Work. If you lean on the handrails of your treadmill or elliptical, you lessen the work done by your larger and more powerful lower body muscles and burn fewer calories. If needed, only hold loosely for balance.

Watch What You Drink. A calorie is a calorie, and many are wasted on drinking fattening fluids. Make water your drink of choice. Check out the calorie count and sugar and fat levels in juices and fancy coffee drinks and you’ll just say no.

Alcohol Is A Double Negative. In addition to the extra calories contained in alcoholic drinks, alcohol is metabolized first which leads to everything else being stored as fat. Also, when you drink, you tend to eat more and make unhealthy eating choices.

Move To The Music. Put some fast paced driving songs on your playlist. You’ll work out harder and faster, burning more calories and fat. Plus it will feel easier, according to the experts at the University of Kansas. Further, exercisers who listened to music worked out more consistently—than those who didn’t, Fairleigh Dickinson researchers found. Do I hear Zumba???

Fidget. If you move your legs, talk with your hands, twitch your foot and/or squirm around you can burn as much as 350 extra calories a day, according to research from the Mayo Clinic.

Ramp It Up. Crank up the incline on your treadmill and you’ll jack up the calories burned. A woman walking at 4 miles per hour for 30 minutes blasts off 12 percent more calories on a 2 percent incline and nearly 35 percent more calories on a 5 percent incline.

Eat Yogurt. People who included yogurt in their diet plan lost 22 percent more weight and 61 percent more body fat than those who simply trimmed calories, University of Tennessee researchers found.

Interval Train. Women who did 20 minutes of intervals on a bike torched three times as much fat as those who stayed at one pace for 40 minutes, according to a study from the University of New South Wales.

Spice It Up. Eat hot spicy foods and rev up that metabolism. I know I look like I ran the marathon after I eat my Five Alarm Chili!

Use More Olive Oil. People who ate a diet high in monounsaturated fats (like olive oil and avocado) burned more fat over four weeks than they did on a diet high in saturated fats, one Australian study found.

Weight gain and loss of muscle tone are not an inevitable result of aging—they are a result of over eating and being sedentary.

Those who know me have seen my body totally change through changing the way I eat. If you need help getting it going, check out our Game On! Weight loss and lifestyle change program at www.synergy-gameon.com. It’s fun, it works and it’s only $45!  We’ve even got four men playing this time!

Need help on the exercise part too? With the Transformation Program you’ll be in the Game and have a personal trainer twice a week at an incredible value! Call me at 410 964-9858 or email me at charmaine_101@msn.com with any questions or to get started.