I recently refined some eating and drinking habits and dramatically proved it's what we do daily that counts when losing weight and keeping it off. As a weight loss and fitness professional, I am always looking to improve. I took a fearless, honest look at my eating and drinking habits. I found the following four things and changed them. Check what happened as a result.

During one recent four-week stretch, I went from a high of 207.8 pounds to 200.7 pounds by taking one simple action.

Before I tell you what that was, understand that this was a very impressive weight loss. First, because it is challenging for me to lose weight, like almost everyone over age 40. It is true for me, even as a weight loss professional.

If we went through your trash thoroughly, what would we find? Your garbage can be a treasure of dietary information.

I had a house guest recently. He is overweight and the extra 18-20 pounds he is carrying around on his gut really bugs him. He threatens to do something about losing weight, but so far no action. That is, cleaning up his bad eating and drinking habits and getting daily exercise.

There is just nothing like daily aerobic exercise, like walking, jogging, biking, aerobics. Yes, strength (or resistance) training should be a regular part of your exercise week, but for me, the foundation of all fat loss and fitness is daily aerobic exercise.

Like many people, I long ago got to a point in my life where if I do not get at least some form of pretty vigorous, aerobic exercise during the day, I miss it, big time.

It is almost universal: The first thought that occurs to anyone who decides to lose weight is, I have to join a gym. This is nonsense, and here are just four reasons why.

1. You do not need to join a gym or any other type of health center to immediately, healthfully and effectively lose weight and improve your fitness. Strength training, which is great for losing fat, does not require weights, exercise machines or anything else you find in a gym.

Here is a simple four-point plan to lose fat healthfully. If you add just one of these tactics to your overall fat loss strategy, you will improve. Add two or three, even better. Do all four and you will definitely see great results as I did.

I went from 200 pounds to 191 pounds by following this plan, with absolutely no sense of deprivation or any other hardship.

That someone might be overweight because they eat too much may sound like a duh, but overeating is so common that it cries out for exposure and discussion.

A scenario I see repeatedly are people who are challenged with a weight problem eating and saying how hard it is to lose weight. They say they watching what they eat and are exercising regularly, going to the gym, walking, jogging, doing aerobics, stair stepping, Spinning, kick boxing, whatever.

A reader asked about my article describing the contents of the trash of my overweight houseguest who stayed with me recently. The article showed how trash contents could reveal precisely why someone is overweight, like my houseguest is.

The contents of his trash were all wrappers from meal replacement bars, fast food meals and beverages. In short, virtually all processed food, junk food and fast food, and the same kind of beverages.

Recently I read an interesting report on the advisability of weighing in daily as a fat loss tactic. For at least one group of people, adolescent females, this is not a good idea, the report said. A good number of these young women were likely to cause themselves to vomit if they did not like the reading on the scale. And forcing oneself to vomit is definitely not a healthy habit.

Seeing my old friend Penny recently after many years was an eye opener.

Penny (not her real name) got a mention in my book, as the wonderful woman she is, a woman with a chronic overweight problem. She belonged to a professional group I was part of. She was a personable gal, and readily shared with us her frustrations at exercising faithfully, going to the gym, walking mini marathons regularly, yet she just could not get the fat to go away.