Techniques

• The first and most important thing is you must love yourself and your body unconditionally whether it's big, small, or average. Think about it: you don't hate your loved ones if they have flawed bodies, do you? Then why treat yourself worse than you would treat your friends? If you love yourself, things will fall into place more readily. You would take better care of yourself and your body because you care more. Also, if you feel good, you might become less dependent on food to make you feel good.
• I take the stairs when feasible. I walk up and down escalators. I speedwalk across moving sidewalks.
• I eat a balanced diet. (When I said diet, I was not talking about a calorie/fat restriction strategy. I was talking about a nutritional habit.) People see me eat seemingly unhealthy fatty stuff, but that's because I'm trying to offset the other times when I eat low-fat food, which doesn't leave much fat on my body.
• Instead of white bread, I choose wheat. That is, unless I can choose dutch crunch. mmmm... yum.
• Instead of soda, I choose orange juice or lemonade. It must be the real stuff, not that artificial soda or punch stuff. I rarely drink soda... only when it's the only option. Today, there was no other drink besides soda. What I didn't like about it was that after eating only half a sandwich and a small bag of chips, I was so full. I know I usually can eat a full sandwich. I don't know why, but I'm guessing that the soda being mostly gas filled me up artificially. The problem with that was that although I felt physically full, I felt unsatisfied, so I quickly got the munchies and ate more later on.
• I can self-regulate. I love eating some fattening foods but once I have had enough, I get this feeling of disgust and I can't go on.
• My average caloric intake isn't that high. When people see me eat, they can't believe how I can eat so much and stay skinny. What they don't see is when I am alone. I don't eat as much sometimes because it's not easy to prepare an elaborate meal just for myself since I am single. Sometimes all I have for dinner is a bowl of cereal and milk. So I compensate at other times. If I ate out all the time, I would probably gain more weight. I do not purposely limit how much I eat; sometimes I just don't eat as much because I don't feel like it. If I feel like eating more, I eat more. Compare that to a dieter who denies herself food to lose weight. Her brain probably (unconsciously) goes into panic mode when the body is denied food, even though it wants it. So it realizes it must be frugal with what it has.
• I park as far away from the entrance as practical, if it is safe to do so. Not only would it provide me with some exercise, it is better for my car since there tends to be more space because there are fewer cars. Thus, there is a lower chance of shopping carts running into it or people opening their car doors against it.
• I eat sometimes beyond fullness. I think this makes my body realize that it doesn't have to worry about there being a shortage of food, so it doesn't slow down fuel consumption/metabolism. An example is if you know there is a lot of cheap gasoline, you would be less likely to conserve. However, I don't recommend doing this all the time, especially if you do not burn more calories than you take in, because you will just gain more weight.
• I avoid diet and artificially fat-free products. If they really worked, shouldn't Americans be skinnier since these products are so popular? Maybe these things mess with metabolism. Remember, these companies are there to make money. If you fail to lose weight while using those products, you would think you needed to buy more because you're not losing enough weight. It's a vicious cycle.
• I used to ahbor the thought of exercise. However, one day at a doctor's visit for something that I thought was life-threatening, he asked me if I exercised. I said no, since I'm already thin and don't need to lose weight. He said that because I'm thin, I am more likely to have weaker bones, and thus will be at greater risk for osteoporosis when I am older. That was the magic word to get me to join a gym. So, even if you don't like to exercise in order to lose weight, at least exercise for the sake of your bones, and your heart. I used to not like to use a treadmill, but I now look forward to that part of my regimen. I think it's because of the gadgetry of it and I'm a gadget geek. Actually, I used to spend a lot of money and time at Fry's Electronics, but now I spend money and time at 24 Hour Fitness instead. :) Anyway, the treadmill is better for me because I can run at a constant pace in a steady direction, which I can't really do outdoors, where I would have to stop at intersections, or run around obstacles. Now that I exercise, I truly enjoy it. It might be the endorphins that the body releases during physical activity. It also prevents and alleviates the PMS cramps I used to have. Also, since I'm often late, I'm in better shape to run to wherever I need to be! :)
• If you join a gym, I highly recommend getting a personal trainer. I originally got a trainer because I was recovering from shoulder surgery and wanted to learn to use the machines properly and learn helpful exercises and routines so I wouldn't hurt my shoulder and to improve my rehabilitation. Now that I've learned how to do things correctly, I see the flaws in other people's techniques, so I'm glad I didn't scrimp on getting a trainer and mimicking the people I see in the gym. I figure that I invested so much money in the membership, I might as well spend some more to maximize what I get out of the membership, and avoid hurting myself, or even compromising my efforts with incorrect methods.