The New Year is finally here! It’s time to leave all of the nonsense behind in 2015 and start fresh. All of us make goals for ourselves so we can have a hopeful attitude that 2016 will be great. Many New Year's resolutions come into play around this time like finding love, having better financial success, self-love, reading more and probably one of the big ones losing weight.

That’s probably my goal almost every year and in the past; I would always flake out on it within the first week or two. I would always tell myself I would start on Monday (I don't know) and when that day came, I would most likely eat half of my calorie intake every day and by the next week, I would wind up in a corner covered in Butterfinger wrappers and empty Chick-fil-A fry cartons crying.

However, my past two years have been pretty successful for my weight loss goals. And since my weight loss has been successful I want to share some tips with you on how your dream body could become a reality.

1. Stop drinking soda

There’s a lot of unhealthy stuff in soda, including the massive amounts of sugar and caffeine. I know you’ve probably heard this already from many other websites/blogs, but where is the lie? If you seriously don’t like drinking water or in my case get tired of it easily, buy the little packets or liquid flavors to add to your water so you have a variety of flavors to drink. In the beginning, that’s what I would do and it seriously helped. Now all I drink is water because I’ve gotten used to drinking it so often, so who knows, you might too!

2. Try to substitute unhealthy things

I’m a type of person that loves to dip things in ranch. This is going to sound hella weird, but you need to bear with me when I say this. Try to substitute an unhealthy dipping sauce with hummus. There are many flavors of hummus out there and guess what? It’s healthy! If you can’t do hummus, I would look into making some type of dip out of a veggie that isn’t high in calories so you can eat a lot more of it.

3. Don't eat late at night

I know we all have crazy schedules and sometimes it’s hard not to eat at night, but for the people who can help it try to set a time where you don’t eat after that. In the beginning, it’s going to be one of the hardest things ever I would know because I was a night eater, but once you break the habit you’ll never be hungry after that set time you make.

Also, for the people who don’t have a choice but to eat at night due to your crazy schedule, try to do something a little active after. I’m not saying go to the gym and do a full workout; just do something that involves movement for at least an hour. Maybe clean your apartment/room, watch and do some jazzercise on YouTube or just walk around whether it’s with your dog, talking on the phone with a friend or family member or just listening to some music.

4. Get into a hobby

If you get into a daily hobby, you’ll distract yourself from getting into the realm of boredom, which leads to being hungry. It could be video games, watching a television series, reading, playing music, etc. I had a couple of hobbies; they included watching movies/TV shows and also dancing. I would put my ear buds in, blast my music and just dance whatever I was feeling. It’s even better if you try to get into a hobby that’s more active because then you’re burning calories and you’re having fun at the same time!

5. Don't deprive yourself

Please do not do this. If you want the cookie, eat it. If you want that slice of pizza, eat it. If you want to drink the queso straight from the bowl... Don't — don't do that. But you can have some if your heart desires it.

Seriously, though you can eat whatever you want. Just eat everything in moderation. Instead of having a lot of somethings just have one of it. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy in the beginning, but it’s way better to have a taste of whatever you want than not having it and eventually binge eating later on and feeling like complete shit afterward. I’ve been down that road multiple of times, and it's not fun at all.

6. Track your calories

This is a personal preference of mine. For some of you this might be a turn off because it sounds awful, but since we have smartphones, it makes calorie counting less painful. There are plenty of calorie counting apps, but I personally use MyFitnessPal. When you set up your account with MyFitnessPal it asks you for your age, height, weight and also asks how active you are. From there you just type in everything you eat (or scan the barcode if there is one) and the app will do the counting for you.

You can also add in the physical activity you do as well, which is good because the more physical activity you add on the app the more you can eat for the day, so try to stay active!

7. Exercise

Ah yes, here it is. The dreadful word that is slapped on anything that has to do with weight loss. However, in order to get the body you want, you need to do some sort of exercise. What I personally started out doing was just cardio. I would run a mile a day for a certain amount of time and then every week I would push myself to run further and faster. There are other forms of cardio you could do besides running, like Zumba! I’ve done it a few times and in my opinion, it’s one of the most fun ways to exercise.

Now that you know my tips of how I’ve lost weight, I hope they'll help you reach your weight goals for this year. When I first started my weight loss journey, I weighed 260 pounds and because of all of the steps I now weigh 195. Did this happen overnight? No. Will this be easy? Hell no. This will be a huge challenge for you in the beginning, but if you’re determined, optimistic and patient, you will cross the finish line looking like the person you’ve dreamt of being.