Staying on a healthy diet and losing weight are never easy. Nearly every American struggles with these problems at some time or another. This battle becomes even more difficult when it is compounded by an extremely tight schedule. When every moment is precious, priorities become the name of the game. It is easy to push weight loss to the back of the to-do list, but doing so will only exacerbate the problem. Later, when time is easier to handle, the weight won't be. Lack of time does not have to mean living an unhealthy lifestyle. There are ways to maintain control even when you can't even find the time to make toast. The following list describes some basic techniques to keep the calories down that anyone can follow even when under pressure:

Know what you are Eating

If you think counting calories is too time consuming and difficult, you are wrong. With the new stricter FDA rules about nutritional labeling on food, keeping track of what goes in your mouth has become a lot simpler. Anything that comes in a package these days must include nutritional information. That means that facts about caloric content, fat grams, saturated fat, and fiber are readily available. Start with the basic rule of calories in vs. calories out. Come up as a goal the number of calories you would like to consume each day. Try multiplying your body weight by 15 to get your maintenance number; then subtract 500. At a 500-calorie per day deficit, you'll be at 3500-calorie deficit in one week. That happens to equal the calories in one pound. You'll be amazed how quickly you'll get used to counting what you eat, because most of us eat pretty much the same things all the time. You'll quickly start memorizing how many calories are in your cereal, granola bar, tuna etc. Once you get the calorie part down, noticing the fat and fiber in food will come much more naturally. Remember that fat has more calories per gram than carbohydrates and protein, so keeping the fat content of the foods you eat to a minimum will help you conserve calories to distribute throughout the day.