20 Nutrition and Exercise Tips You Should Know

· Diet soft drinks are a popular way of cutting calories. Drink a can of diet cola instead of the regular kind, and over a year (at five cans per week), you'll have taken in approximately 9500 fewer calories less. That's almost three pounds of fat, which more than compensates for the weight gained in tumors caused by artificial sweeteners.

· Most major fast-food chains have pamphlets available to give you a better understanding of the nutritional value of the foods they serve. Ask for one next time you pick up a burger, then eat that.

· Instead of adding butter to your popcorn, try some flaxseed oil and a touch of cayenne pepper. It will cut down on the "bad fats" and give you a healthy serving of "good fats," and it tastes so unbelievably horrible you won't be able to choke down more than a handful.

· Think your body is doing nothing while you sleep? A 150-pound person will burn 515 calories over an 8-hour sleep period just by breathing, circulating blood, etc. By sleeping 24 hours per day, you can burn 1545 calories. That's 10,815 per week -- almost 3 pounds of fat! Try to get bitten by a tsetse fly or sustain a head injury serious enough to put you into a short-term coma.

· Take the stairs instead of an escalator or elevator. Over the span of a year (using the stairs an average of 4 times per day), you can burn 10,020 calories (almost 3 pounds of fat). Compare that to the mere 1460 calories burned by standing in an elevator or on an escalator. To burn even more calories, climb up and down the side of the building with a rope and grappling hook or shinny up a drainpipe.

· Avocados are the fruit with the highest calorie content (with approximately 340 calories in one raw, average-sized fruit) while plums are the lowest (approximately 36 calories in one raw, average-sized fruit). On the other hand, figuring out whether the plural of "avocado" is supposed to end in "-os" or "-oes" can burn extra calories.

· Cutting back by consuming just 48 fewer calories per day may lead to losing an extra 5 pounds in one year. Try to stop compulsively pulling out and eating your own hair

· Drink ice water flavored with lemon instead of regular soft drinks, and you'll cut your calories by up to 110 per glass, and your enjoyment even more considerably.

· Exercise your legs, butt, and thighs. You can not only shape and firm up these areas, but you can also burn more calories by working out these larger muscle groups than you would other smaller body parts. Try walking down to the videogame rental store for a change.

· A can of regular beer has about 117 calories. Prefer wine? A 3.5-ounce glass of red wine has about 74 calories. You can cut out the fat by cutting out the alcohol and paying some attention to your spouse and children for a change, you lousy, stinking drunk.

· The average person watches four hours of TV per day. That burns only about 286 calories (for a 150-pound person). That is approximately the same as only 30 minutes of in-line skating! In theory, if you rollerblade while watching a Sony Watchman, you can probably achieve a cumulative calorie loss of 322 calories per hour.

· Try almond butter instead of peanut butter on your toast. It contains less of the "bad" saturated fat, since it so obviously doesn't even exist. I mean, come on: "almond butter"?

· It will take an 81-minute jog to burn off a cheeseburger and fries. Feel like running for an hour and 21 minutes? Yeah? Can you bring me back a cheeseburger and fries, then?

· To burn off one brownie, it will take you almost a half-hour run. And to think it only took 30 seconds to eat! Need energy to run? Substitute cocaine where your brownie recipe calls for hashish.

· Sensible eating and regular exercise are the best ways to take weight off and keep it off. Fad diets can be hard on your body and are difficult to stick to for any period of time, much like trying to eat a 72-ounce steak. Of course, if you finish the steak, it's free and you get a T-shirt and your photo on the wall of the restaurant. Start practicing now by eating as much red meat as you can at every meal and you should be able to expand your stomach.

· Looking for a healthy, filling snack? One wedge (286 g) of watermelon has only 86 calories and has a high water content, which can make you feel more full. You can burn even more calories by smashing your watermelon with a giant mallet.

· If you buy canned fruit, try to avoid the ones packed in syrup or you might end up packing on the pounds. (Added syrup can as much as double the calorie count). If you happen to buy fruit packed in syrup, simply drink the syrup and discard the fruit, since the syrup has the same amount of calories as the fruit or less.

· Which has more calories, 2 slices of cooked bacon or 2 cups of whole strawberries? Believe it or not, they actually contain nearly the same amounts. But eating 2 slices of uncooked bacon can make you too sick to eat for days, leading to significant weight loss.

· Three large gumdrops contain approximately 140 calories. Ever eat just three gumdrops? You could try buying really, really big gumdrops, like the size of your head. That'd be like a loophole or something.