Dec. 17, 2012 -- Healthy snacks including veggies and cheese can help take the edge off of kids’ between-meal hunger pangs, and may help put a dent in rates of childhood obesity. In a new study, children who were given cheese and vegetables as a snack ate 72% fewer calories than children who snacked on potato chips, and this effect was even more pronounced among kids who were overweight or obese.
What’s more, these kids needed fewer calories to feel full than those who ate chips. The study included about 200 kids entering third or sixth grades. They were given chips, cheese, veggies, or a combination of veggies and cheese, and allowed to snack freely while watching a 45-minute TV show.
While children offered the veggies-only option took in the fewest calories, those offered the combo snack or only cheese took in about the same number of calories. But either option meant far fewer calories than those who were served potato chips, suggesting that replacing potato chips even with cheese alone may also be an option.
“Eliminating snacking altogether is impractical, and in some cases can backfire,” the researchers write. But replacing unhealthy snacks with more nutritious choices such as cheese and veggies may result in less backlash. The study appears in the journal Pediatrics.More...
Setting goals - When you make a plan with long term as well as short term goals, it tends to win through quite easily. Moreover, you can measure the tangible improvements you are experiencing at every stage. This can help you to stick to your weight loss plan without losing momentum. You could set long term goals say “weighing and measuring so much in so many weeks”. You could make your short term goals as smaller versions of your long term goals. This means you could work on the final goal say for 54 weeks later and you could also have weekly goals in the meantime. Maintaining a diary – Your special weight loss diary could be hand written or digital and have all your goals neatly filled in. You can have 
spaces for every day where you can enter what and how much you ate that day and the duration and details of the workouts you completed. You can even have a column to vent your feelings of annoyance or irritation arising from forced exercise and staying away from several favorite foods. A diary certainly helps release any stress relating to your weight loss plus it gives you an idea of how you are faring. It also provides an opportunity to correct any slackness quickly and consistently.
At the end of every short term goal period, say weekly, you can weigh and measure yourself and fill that data into your diary or a diet chart pasted in your room. You could even have a cheerfully colored graph to show the decrease in weight and waistline! Using the same weighing scales and measuring yourself at the same spot every time is necessary to keep the measurements realistic and precise. Change workouts – Ideally, you should change workouts to have a mix of exercises that can target your entire body and not just specific portions. Else, there is the risk of getting unsightly muscle plateaus which is a concentration of muscles in disjointed parts of the body. Resting is A must – You can give yourself little treats when you meet or exceed your goals, like having a favourite dish at lunch or taking 
complete rest from vigorous workouts in a day. You should ideally never over exert or starve yourself if you want an effective weight loss.