You arrive home after a grueling day at work. You kick-off your shoes, drop your briefcase and head for the refrigerator. As you grab the handle, thoughts of “what to eat” overwhelm your brain and as the fridge door swings open you hear a collection of voices yell out… SURPRISE!

[Anytime I stand in front of an open fridge for more then 10 seconds it usually leads to poor eating decisions...]

Not exactly the next Oscar nominee for best screen play, am I?

That’s OK – because what I really want to convey to you today is the surprising food choices you can make to lose weight faster and more effectively.

And don’t worry, I’m not going to get all exotic here and send you to some overpriced health food store looking for an African fruit berry. We’re keeping it simple and straight forward so pay close attention.

#1 – Scratch The Starch

When people hear starch, they think pasta and white bread and well… that’s it. But did you know starches include rice, potatoes, some veggies, oats, and the list goes on?

What’s even a bigger surprise to people is that the starches above are often considered “health foods”.

While they can be healthy, they can also pack on the weight very quickly if you’re not careful. Here’s a simple approach to get a handle on your starch intake:

A. Cut out starch entirely for 4-6 weeks.

B. Then slowly add them in a few days a week.

It’s a temporary sacrifice to help you understand how much starch is really in your diet and how to best manage it going forward.

#2 – Can The Sodas

Why sodas? I picked this tip apart in greater detail here but let me summarize the idea again. A recent study has revealed that people who drank diet-sodas actually increased body-fat when compared to those who drank sugar-sodas.

Huh? Come again?

You read it right the first time but if you need the whole effect here it is… SURPRISE! Your body cannot be fooled by aspartame and chemicals. Sorry, but that’s the truth. I can’t think of one nice thing to say about sodas so here’s a quick story:

I bumped into a friend from my university days last week and she looked great. When asked about how she dropped the pounds (obviously this was done with more tact and discretion:) she said her easiest food change was cutting out all sodas – diet, low-calorie, all of them.

Water was her new beverage of choice and if she needed to spice it up, she would throw in a lemon or a bit of Stevia (an herbal sweetener). Simple yet effective!

#3 – Raw is right at night

My grade school teacher would be doing cartwheels over this rhyming scheme right about now:)

Seriously though, raw veggies with your last meal or as a snack before bedtime will really help you propel towards your fat loss goals. One of my personal faves is red peppers because they’re sweet, but I also like variety. Carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers have all been in my rotation.

Pretty quickly you’ll learn to enjoy these natural foods and the resulting fat loss makes it that much better.

#4 – Stay Hungry My Friend

I’m still waiting for “the most interesting man in the world” to do a fasting version of these commercials.

[Bench pressing women and arm-wrestling soldiers is just another day for this guy]

It takes a special person to be hungry, especially in a world of constant food advertisements. But intermittent fasting is something that really has helped me shed weight without the struggles of counting calories or following the next big diet program.

If you’re interested in losing weight but not tossing aside the foods you enjoy, then check out this article for a primer on fasting for fat loss.

And before you start labeling this as simply starving yourself, take two minutes to read up on what exactly intermittent fasting is and how it fits so well with your weight loss goals.