Warning: Not for vegetarians or vegans! If you don't eat meat, read this article instead.

One of my favorite lean proteins is chicken. It's easy to cook; you can toss it into a salad, add it to soup, eat a serving with a plateful of vegetables or make a yummy chicken sandwich loaded with spinach and tomatoes.

But when you eat the same kind of food over and over again, you run the risk of getting bored. And what happens when you get bored? You make bad food choices, that's what.

Losing weight or going on a 'diet' doesn't mean eating plain food. You need to take advantage of the abundance of flavors available to you.

What I do is marinate my chicken to give it a different flavor each time. Plain, flavorless chicken? Not in this house!

Here are five chicken marinade recipes that will have you asking, "Please, sir, can I have some more?"

When it comes to counting calories, what do these words have in common:

• Bowl
• Glass
• Plate
• Bag
• Scoop
• Handful

Give up? These are typical serving sizes used by most people. People who underestimate how much they eat in a day.

I bet you use these serving sizes, too. How many times have you served yourself a bowl of cereal, a glass of wine, a plate of spaghetti or a bag of chips?

Hate to break it to you, but these are just words; not serving sizes. Not in this universe, anyway!

When it comes to cutting calories to lose weight, you need to know the proper serving size for the foods you eat. And once you know the right serving size, you need to take it one step further. You need to measure out your portion of food each time until you can estimate the right amount of food to serve yourself.

Bottom line, you need to stop mindlessly dishing out the food and know the actual serving size instead.

Here are six foods where you need to get the serving size right if you're going to drop the pounds:

One of the best ways to drop the extra pounds is to reduce the amount of food you eat, especially if you tend to overeat. If you're used to eating more, then eating less may not be that easy. If you try to reduce your food by too much -- or too fast -- you'll end up feeling hungry and deprived. Here are 5 ways to eat less without feeling deprived:

When you're trying to lose weight, it's easy to fall into a rut with your meal plans because it seems like there are so few foods that you're allowed to eat. However, if you just get a little creative, you can come up with dozens of delicious and easy low calorie meals.

One of these creative dishes may surprise you: sandwiches! Eating sandwiches to lose weight? Wait -- what??

You may be used to thinking of sandwiches as being high in calories, and it's true that some are. But they don't HAVE to be.

Here are 4 secrets to making your sandwiches low calorie and delicious:

Persistent hunger pangs are enough to make even the strongest dieter want to quit - that hollow, empty, growling feeling in the pit of your stomach is not only distracting but annoying!

You'll be glad to know that there are many good ways to stop feeling hungry while dieting, and we've rustled up five great ones to share with you today:

When you go on vacation, you may find that it's extremely tempting to abandon your healthy eating habits and start eating everything in sight. Despite your best intentions to stick to a healthy eating plan, you may be lured in by the sights and scents of delicious restaurant meals, fast food, and rich, home-cooked meals prepared by well-meaning family members.

If you are planning a trip and you're worried about how to stick to a healthy eating plan on vacation, take a look at the helpful tips below.

Healthy Eating on Vacation Tips:

Do you feel a bit of resistance about traditional diet plans? If so, you may be looking for a more relaxed approach to healthy weight loss. But without a diet, how do you know what to eat and when, while still being able to lose weight?

The following tips will provide a sample "snapshot" of a daily eating plan for weight loss. Keep in mind that this just an example and you may want to adjust it to better suit your own needs and goals:

Eating smaller portions is an important part of any weight loss plan, but sometimes it's challenging to do so. You're hungry, you want to eat enough to feel satisfied, but those little servings of food on your plate seem too skimpy.

Here are some painless ideas for eating smaller portions while still feeling satisfied:

If you think you have to make huge sacrifices to lose weight, think again. Sure, you want to eat unhealthy food less often, but you can still eat foods you love. One strategy is to make smaller, more subtle changes to your food habits --- changes so small, you don't really notice the difference.

Here are seven easy ways to cut calories and not even notice:

With most weight loss plans, there is a real danger of getting bored with the food choices. Somehow unhealthy food is so much more exciting, isn't it? Hmm, a fresh green salad, or a big plate of fried chicken with all the fixings? No question as to which makes your mouth water more! Obviously, if you want to stick to a healthy eating plan for the rest of your life, you've got to find ways to make your meals and snacks as exciting and tantalizing as your former guilty pleasures. But how?

Below are three great ways to spice up your meals on a weight loss plan: