By Real Age

Sure, weight loss boils down to a matter of calories in and calories out. But a few subtle and surprising diet changes could greatly increase your pound-shedding potential.

Heather K. Jones, nutrition expert and author of Good Housekeeping’s Drop 5 lbs: The Small Changes, Big Results Diet, recommends these three unusual waist-slimming tactics: Tempt your taste buds with vegetable juice, have a vegetarian lunch once a week, and get a regular seafood fix.

The Fat-Fighting Fare
Here’s how these small adjustments can offer big boosts in your overall weight loss results, according to Jones:

• Sip vegetable juice every day. No need to demonize juice for its calorie count. Research suggests vegetable juice may help control your appetite. In a study, people following the DASH diet lost four times as much weight in 12 weeks when they drank an 8-ounce glass of low-sodium vegetable juice each day, compared with those who ditched juice. Choose natural vegetable juice with no salt or sugar added. (Here’s more on the DASH diet and how it helps your overall health.)
• Have a meatless lunch. Research suggests this simple act could knock off 5 pounds or more in a year if you do it once a week, writes Jones. In a study, people who ate mushroom-based lunches instead of beef-based ones ate 30 fewer grams of fat the rest of the day and felt equally satisfied. (Experiment with these hearty Pecan and Mushroom Burgers.)
• Seek protein from the sea. A study suggests you can lose more weight on a reduced-calorie diet that includes fish rather than on a seafood-free weight loss plan. Fish packs fewer calories per ounce than beef, pork, and most skin-on poultry. And the omega-3 fats that fish contains may help stimulate fat burning in cells, researchers claim. (Try making these easy Oven-Poached Salmon Fillets.)

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Reference: Drop 5 lbs: The Small Changes, Big Results Diet. Jones, H. K., New York: Hearst Books, 2010.

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