Small Changes for Big Results?

Does this sound like you?

5 small changes to help you lose weight - CNN.com: "Inspired, Kassouf made radical changes in his diet.

'That would last about a day,' he said.

So he moved on to Plan B: small changes. That worked. Four years after he got mad at his girlfriend, Kassouf weighs 200 pounds, down from 245, mostly by focusing on a few parts of his diet without changing everything.

'What I started to realize is, it didn't have to be all or nothing,' he said.

There's actually a name for what Kassouf did: It's called the 'small changes approach.' James Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, is the father of the movement, and in this month's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, he writes about how 'small changes are more feasible to achieve and maintain than large changes.'

For Kassouf, small changes started with soda.

'I was probably drinking 10 Cokes a day,' he said. By switching out those Cokes for water, Kassouf saved 1,400 calories a day."

Alas, it sounds nothing like me. If only weight loss were as simple as switching from Coke to water.

Giving up sugary drinks is too often cited by women's magazines and soft news stories like this as a quick route to weight loss, but honestly, how many people striving to take off five pounds are still drinking Dr. Pepper?

Of course, if I'm being entirely too judgmental about this, and there are some tips that apply to you, please forget everything I just said.

Small changes do make a big difference to people who haven't considered weight-loss strategies before. It helped my husband to give up Coke in favor of Coke Zero and sugarless iced tea. As for myself, I don't think I've consumed sugary soft drinks more than once every few months since high school.

If you're searching the web today for inspiration for first-time New Year's weight-loss resolution, though, go check this article out!