Happy New Year! My next several blogs will treat popular New Year’s Resolutions with tips to help you succeed.

The first resolution is one of the most popular: to lose weight.

I wish I had a magic bullet for this one, but the truth is that to lose weight healthfully, a fad diet will not do the trick … you have to reconstruct the way you eat and stick to it.

That doesn’t mean depriving yourself — you can even indulge a little. It takes dedication, but I promise you it’s not that hard once you get started.

Here are a few of my favorite tips to help lose weight. These are not the typical tips you hear like stop eating fast food, eat more vegetables, stop snacking all the time, etc.

Those are important to your weight-loss efforts, but these tips might make you think deeper or may even be something new for you.

1. Slow and steady! Slow and steady wins the race. Aim to lose one to two pounds a week to ensure healthy weight loss. Losing weight too fast can take a toll on your mind and body, making you feel sluggish, drained, and sick. When you drop a lot of weight quickly, you’re actually losing mostly water and muscle, rather than fat.

2. Combine your favorite foods with something healthy. You can still enjoy your favorite high-calorie treat, whether it’s ice cream, chips, cake, or chocolate. The key is to eat a smaller serving along with a lower-calorie option. For example, add strawberries to your ice cream or munch on carrot and celery sticks along with your chips and dip. By piling on the low-cal option, you can eat a diet-friendly portion of your favorite treat without feeling deprived.

3. Drink a lot of water. You’ve probably heard this one before, but I want you to really think about it. You can hugely reduce your daily calorie intake by replacing soda, alcohol, or coffee with water. Thirst can also be confused with hunger, so by drinking water, you may avoid consuming extra calories. Do you get bored by drinking water? Try infusing it with lemon, lime, strawberries, watermelon, or mint!

4. Get good sleep. Lack of sleep has been shown to have a direct link to hunger, overeating, and weight gain. A few hormones regulate normal feelings of hunger and fullness. These hormone levels are affected by levels of sleep. When you’re short on sleep your appetite is stimulated so you want more food than normal, and you won’t feel as satisfied as you normally would, and will want to keep eating. This can lead to overeating, and ultimately weight gain. To keep your diet on track, try to get about eight hours of quality sleep a night.