This easy guide from Fitness magazine will help you melt pounds gradually by changing your lifestyle, not banishing the fun from your life.

1. The Protein Way: Get 25 percent of your calories from low-fat protein.

Why try it: Protein will keep you fuller longer. When women cut calories, they tend to eat salad. Soon after, you're starving.

Action plan: Add lean protein to meals and snacks — aim for 90 grams a day and 1,400 calories total.

A lot of women think protein means chicken, meat or fish. But some of the best choices are dairy foods, beans and nuts. Try cottage cheese, kidney beans, almonds and yogurt.

Drop 10: In about eight weeks with just this one strategy.

2. The Three-Change Way: Ban three high-calorie foods.

Why try it: Most likely there's a high-cal coffee drink, hunk of bread and piece of cheese in your day.

Action plan: Swap these foods:

Creamy, syrupy coffee drinks for tall skinny mochas to save 150 calories.

A whole bagel for a half bagel to cut 150 to 200 calories.

Cheddar on your sandwich for mustard and save 111 calories and 9 grams of fat.

Drop 10: In about three months.

3. The Eat-Breakfast Way: Consume 300 calories at breakfast and your daily total will be about 100 fewer calories.

Why try it: People who eat a morning bowl of cereal are less likely to become overweight than those who pass up their a.m. meal, studies show. Breakfast skippers tend to overeat at lunch because they're famished. They're also more likely to snack on high-cal food all day, and justify it by saying, "I didn't have breakfast."

Action plan: Try a rotation of these three healthy starts, which contain between 200 and 300 calories each.

Power cereal: A bowl of high-protein cereal or oatmeal such as Kashi GoLean Crunch!, with a half cup of fat-free milk.

Egg sandwich: A toasted whole-wheat English muffin with one scrambled egg and half a slice of melted American cheese.

Yogurt parfait: A container of fat-free yogurt with a half cup of berries and an ounce of almonds.

Drop 10: In about nine weeks, if you combine this tactic with "The Three-Change Way" (above).

4. The Eat More Way: Aim for 30 to 35 grams of fiber every day.

Why try it: You won't feel hungry. Fiber is the indigestible component of whole grains, fruits, nuts, beans and vegetables. Because you can't digest the fiber, it will fill you up on its bulk with no calories.

Action plan: Keep total calories to 1,400 to 1,600, and get 35 grams of fiber a day from such foods like Gnu Foods flavor & fiber bar, Fiber One cereal, chickpeas, pears, raspberries and baked potatoes.

Drop 10: In about eight weeks.

5. The Burn-Fat Way: Blast more calories in less time and fire up your metabolism with interval training.

Why try it: Adding several short bursts of high-intensity exercise to your walking routine can burn up to 100 calories more in the same amount of time. Doing challenging exercise also boosts your metabolism.

Action plan: Kick up your workout with this routine:

Alternate walking at moderate intensity for three minutes with speed-walking for two minutes. Do this for 30 minutes, then add five minutes of moderate walking at the end. Try it five times a week and you'll burn 500 more calories weekly than you would with a moderate walking routine.

Drop 10: In about a year. Combine it with "The Eat-More Way" (above) and see results in just seven weeks.