A trick to lose a couple relatively quickly.

I dunno what your soda drinking habits are...but stop. Seriously. Cold turkey, give what you have away, and never touch another drop. I did this about 4 years ago now. For the first 6 months, I was losing over 5 lbs a month that I was keeping off. Just from that. No noticable change in my activity level, no other changes in my diet. Every time I had a craving for soda, I'd get a HUGE glass of water. Water is REALLY good for you. It not only hydrates, it flushes unwanted toxins and leftover "stuff" through your body. The good men at the government recommend like, 8 glasses a day, or something like that. Double it. Sure, its kinda a pain in the butt, cause ya gotta pee slightly more than normal, but its REALLY healthy. Soda, on the other hand, even DIET soda (there's an oxymoron), is incredibly bad for you. All of it spikes your insulin levels, encouraging your body to store energy as fat. This is bad. You want to keep that down as much as possible.

Another thing to do is dramatically increase your protein intake. The easiest and cheapest way to do this is protien shakes. Don't buy the pre-fabbed ones like Slimfast or Ensure or whatever. Go to a GNC or similar health suppliment store and buy a big 3# canister of like Chocolate (bout $40-50, or ~$0.40 a shake). Also, buy 1-2 of the 12 oz blender bottles (8-9 dollars each, reuseable), they are amazing and really make a difference. Now, mix up and drink 2 of these a day. The much of the extra protein will be passed through your body, but enough of it will stick. Protien builds muscles. Even the activities you do every day like going up stairs or walking through your house will help. Now, extra protien has some...side..effects...so you might also want to buy a powdered fiber suppliment like Benefiber or similar (bout $6 for enough to last a long time). Mix in 1-2 table spoons with your shake, you won't taste it (heck, I can't even taste it in water).

Lastly, try to do one thing that gets your heart rate up over ~100-120 beats per minute for even a couple minutes. Provided you aren't gonna get in trouble for jumping, something as simple as jumping jacks while watching a TV program is amazing. The program takes your mind off the fact that you are doing physical exercise. Even as little as 5 min of this a day will REALLY help, especially with an increase in protein intake. If you feel like doing more? Great. It'll only help.

If you have some real cash to burn, get a trainer. I'm serious. I was in decent shape, but wanted to improve. I worked out with a trainer 2 days a week and on my own once a week, and I had 6-pack abs in about 6 months. I was paying about $30 for a 1hour session, but he also gave me nutritional advise and the real kicker? I'm freakin paying $30 a session whether I go or not...thats too much money to throw away, so it wasn't hard to motivate myself! No "oh, I'm tired, I'll go to the gym tomorrow". Nope, tired or not, you go and get your butt kicked cause you already paid for it. But really, a pro trainer can kick your ass WAY harder than you can possibly by yourself unless you are INCREDIBLY disciplined, and even then, there's still a great degree of improvement. The cardio workouts I did were so intense, I was dripping sweat in seconds, and he pushed my weight training to a level I didn't think was possible. Trust me, I was skeptical at first, but my first month was AMAZING and I kept up with it until I got the results I wanted. I still went to the gym after I stopped training, but it was more to maintain than it was to improve. It is expensive, but if you can afford it, its SO worth it.