We all know how important physical changes are in weight loss, but the overall state of your mind day to day can also have a huge impact on the state of your body. This is largely due to the fact that your actions are usually inspired by your thoughts.

A negative attitude and pessimistic outlook will discourage you from taking the proper actions to improve your health and shrink your waistline, while a positive, optimistic attitude will keep you feeling motivated and empowered to do what's best for your body.

There are two main areas to consider when it comes to your attitude:

Listening to your body's needs is vital to attaining and maintaining the health you deserve. Sometimes, you can push your body too far without even realizing it. When you learn to listen to your body's cues, however, you can live a happier and calmer life.

Whether or not you can really be "addicted" to sugar like you can to drugs and alcohol is still being debated among experts. However, a secondary definition of addiction describes "the persistent, compulsive use of a substance that is known to be harmful." That would certainly describe the relationship that many people have with refined cane sugar. They know that ingesting large amounts of sugar isn't good for them, but they can't seem to stop themselves from eating it anyway.

If you have done this too and you worry that you might have a sugar addiction, take a look at the following common signs and symptoms:

There are good and bad times to start a diet or fitness program. The most common times seem to be right after the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year holiday season, and right before summer (bathing suit season). But even beyond considering the time of year, there are other times that starting a new diet may not be the best idea.

Here are a few you may want to consider. You should never start a diet when...

When you're trying to cut back on sugar, the discomfort that ensues can be incredibly difficult to withstand. One of the more frustrating aspects of sugar withdrawal is the constant, persistent cravings that keep nagging at you. Is there anything you can do to minimize these cravings, or do you just have to deal with them until they go away?

Unfortunately there aren't any "magic pills" that will make sugar cravings vanish instantly, but there ARE things you can do to help make them easier to bear. Below you'll find three good ways to help reduce cravings for sugar:

Why would you like to lose weight? Is it because you want to look good for a special day? Perhaps you have a family event or class reunion to attend this year; the reasons could be many.

However, rather than losing weight for a single day event, you may have more luck losing weight for you, because you're worth it!

Having a particular event to look forward to is a good starting point when you decide to lose weight, but it won't be enough to help you keep the weight off after that day has ended.

Sure, you may look great for your 15th high school reunion or your cousin's wedding, but will you maintain that weight loss once your old high school rivals can't be jealous over how good you look? The likelihood is that you'll go back to your old ways and gain your weight back.

Before starting on your weight loss venture, think of a way to motivate yourself to keep the weight loss going. You can't find a better motivation for losing weight than to get healthy and feel energized. This is especially true if you have health concerns that are complicated because of your weight.

Losing weight for you -- because you're worth it -- gives you a permanent reason to shed those pounds and keep them off!

Here are some action steps you can take to help you meet your weight loss goals:

You already know how important it is to make healthy food choices for you and your family. But how can you fit the best choices into your busy life?

You’ll be pleased to discover that a hectic life doesn’t mean that every meal has to be fast food on the run! Sometimes it's difficult to make healthy changes, but with a little planning and know-how, it can be done.

Here are some strategies to help you and your family make healthy choices:

Practically every one of us is an expert when it comes to losing weight. We know how to cut calories. We know how to reduce carbohydrate, fat and sugar intake. We know that we need to increase physical activity and reduce our total caloric count to create a calorie deficit.

When you consider the amount of people who know this stuff, and the number of those same people who are still overweight, it makes you wonder why more of us aren't lean, doesn't it?

There are many people who love to exercise. They jump up at the crack of dawn, dress in cute, perfectly coordinated exercise gear and are full of bright smiles and happy thoughts before they take off to the gym. You may not be one of those people. You may not ever really learn to love exercise even if Brad Pitt magically showed up at your door as your workout buddy.

You don't have to smile about it or even like it, but you need to exercise, so maybe you made yourself head to the gym five days a week. You discovered that as you learned a few tips to help you burn the fat and shed the weight you'd packed on over the years, exercising wasn't that bad after all. You don't have to be at the greatest fitness level to achieve success with this mindset. You start out as a couch potato and work your way up.

Here are 7 ways for you to work smarter -- not harder -- to burn fat:

Most of us don't think about it much, but food portion sizes have grown way out of control. When you eat out at a restaurant, have you noticed the heaping plateful of food they deliver to your table? It's enough to feed three or four people, not just one. This may not sound like a bad thing to you, because most of us love to eat. Give us lots and lots of food and we feel secure and comforted. It's an emotional thing.

The problem is that our bodies are NOT comforted by all this food - they are being overloaded with far too many calories, and this is true even when we eat at home. We've gotten used to eating such large quantities of food that we believe it takes that much to satisfy us, but more often than not much less will do.

Here are the recommended serving sizes according to the USDA: