31 Days of Latinas losing weight: Tip #5

__ I know this may be one of the most difficult parts of our month-long challenge, but keep going! It's only for a month and drinking water, plus following our other tips, should definitely be cleaning our your system. I hope you've been following all of our other tips, too, but now it's on to how you're going to lose weight with today's great tip.

Readmore ¿Qué más?: The truth about low-carb and low-fat diets will surprise you

Have you ever heard that thing about how it takes 20 minutes for the brain to get the message from your stomach that you're actually full? One of my best tricks to solve this is to drink a large cup of water BEFORE you start on your meal. However, there's an even BETTER trick to make sure that you realize when you're full.

Set a timer!

That's right, get out your phone (most smart phones have this feature) or simply use your kitchen egg timer and set it for at least 20 minutes. Personally, I like to do 30 minutes but you can try 20 for now. Then, eat very, very slowly. The reason for the timer is to give yourself an estimation of how long you need to eat. That's right, you better not finish that plate until AFTER your timer goes off!

It might be difficult to do, I know. Most of us these days are used to inhaling our food. I mean, I've definitely had moments where I ate something so fast that I even felt physically ill because of that. In fact, I once even had a pretty bad choking incident because I took too many quick bites of a burger. And that's not even to mention that "way too full" feeling.

That's exactly what we're trying to avoid. Instead, eat slowly for 20 minutes and stop when you get that "satisfied but not too full" feeling. Drink another glass of water and listen for your brain to tell you that you're full. If there's something left of your plate, pack it for another day. Don't feel obligated to eat it just because it's there! And make sure to come back for tomorrow's tip.

Image via Corbis