Keeping ‘stay fit’ resolutions

PANAMA. Raise your hand if one of your new year’s resolutions is to get fitter. Three days into the year, here are some useful guidelines for those with the will power to see through their 2009 plans.

Surprisingly, they don’t require starving. All they ask for you to do is to outsmart your diet, manipulating it to maximize your metabolism’s efficiency and raise the intensity of your exercise.

1. Don’t skip breakfast. If there was ever such a thing as eating to lose weight, it would look like a healthy breakfast. People skip this very important meal thinking the less they eat, the better they will be, without knowing that they are putting their number-one fat-burning tool in time-out. It takes calories to digest calories, so eating in the morning fires up your metabolism.

2. Return of the snack. Whoever said eating between meals made you fatter clearly did not know what he was talking about. If breakfast stokes up your metabolic fires, then snacks keep them going between meals. And planning your snacks in advance keeps you from making a mid-morning junk food run.

3. Eat more fibers Fiber-rich foods are about the only free pass you'll get in the nutrition world. They have few calories and make you feel full. Find fibers in veggies fruits, and whole-grain breads.

4. Fat is not always bad. Yes fatty foods are a big no-no, but unsaturated fats found in fish, nuts, avocados and olive oil have great health benefits. Besides, your body digests it slowly, making you feel more satisfied after a meal. To our advantage, in Panama it is easier to find fresh fish in supermarkets and in restaurants than to, use public transport.

5. Water it down. The importance of drinking water, especially under the Panamanian sun, cannot be overestimated.

6. Down with the booze. So here comes the hard part. Alcohol puts on pounds in more ways that can be listed, so any real attempts at losing weight have to start with at least drinking less beer, wine, or the booze of your liking than before. Even a light beer has more than 100 calories.

7. Your new cup of tea. If you’re not a big tea fan, it’s never too late to become one, especially when it comes to green tea. Sipping green tea, the kind served at Japanese restaurants, revs up your metabolism.

8. Great to meat you. We’ve all been there: choosing between a juicy hamburger and a salad. Sure, the salad will have fewer calories, but only if you limit what you put on it. Plus, the burger will almost certainly make you feel more full. So stick to the burger sometimes? just say no to the side of fries!

9. Too much of a good thing is, well, not good. You can eat anything and lose or maintain weight, as long as you don't eat too much of anything.

1 0. And the winner is: Last but not least, exercise, exercise, exercise. The people who lose the most weight and keep it off the longest tend to approach both sides of the equation with equal fervor. Repeat after me: Eat less. Exercise more.