There are all kinds of diets out there to help burn tummy fat faster. Some work, while others are actually bad for you if you stay on them for any length of time.

But regardless of what kind of diet you are on, there are three huge tips to help get you to a thinner waistline:

1. Keep a food journal.
2. Learn how big a portion is.
3. Read ingredient labels.
   

Learning to keep a food journal will really enlighten you and show you your eating habits. Sometimes it is not enough to say to yourself, "I shouldn't have eaten that bag of potato chips last night." When you have to physically enter the data in your food journal and have that stare you in the face, it makes a much larger impact.

When I first started, I didn't enter everything I ate during the day, mainly because I didn't want to admit to myself that I was actually consuming that many calories. After about a week though I was able to enter foods (even when it proved I went off my diet). The one thing I had to keep telling myself was that I was the only one looking at this and I was the only cheating myself.

I found that I didn't really like keeping it in a traditional paper journal though. So I made a very easy spreadsheet that I just kept up on my computer. I researched the carb, protein, sodium, fiber, mono/poly/sat/trans fats for all my food and kept them in the spreadsheet. Then I would just copy and paste into my daily journal.

What I loved most about the food journal spreadsheet was I could experiment with different combinations of food for the day. If one food brought me over my limit of carbs, for example, I could either lessen the quantity, remove it, or adjust another food on my menu.

A food journal, whether paper or spreadsheet, is a MUST to burn tummy fat. Without one you really just won't have a grasp on how many calories you really consume.

The second tip to help burn tummy fat is to learn about portion control. This is much easier said than done.The best investment I made to do this is purchase a food scale (I got mine from Target for around $12). After a month or two of measuring all your different foods, you will have a good idea in your head just how big a portion really is.

For instance, you might be surprised at how much is a tablespoon of butter. Maybe you put in your food journal that you had 2 pieces of whole wheat toast and 1 Tbsp of butter. But have you ever measured out that butter? It's possible that you are using closer to 2 Tbsp of butter.

Now the good thing is once you realize this, you won't slather the butter on quite so thick. But even with only half as much, you still get the butter flavor on your toast.

Portion control can get hard, dinner time is especially hard for me. If your plate seems too empty because you have the correct portions of each dinner item, then use a simple psychological trick - use a smaller plate. Even though you know the plate is smaller, your brain still "sees" that the plate is full.

The last tip to burn tummy fat is to understand and READ ingredient labels. Read the ingredient label on every food you consume. In some instances this can really help curb a craving for a food that you know has a bad ingredient!

For instance, your brain knows that trans fats are BAD for you. One of the biggest offenders, still, with transfats is refrigerated biscuits and rolls. But if someone tells you this, it will not make as big an impact as if YOU read it on the actual product.

Another tactic that I use when looking at the ingredient label is I think to myself, "Do I really want my kids eating that?" We all know it is much easier to fix someone else instead of ourselves. So use your kids, use your partner, use your dog if you feed him tablescraps. If unhealthy foods are not in the house because they are bad for them, then you won't be eating them either!

I am currently on a diet that I have been able to stay on for over two months so far with no problems. In fact, I see no need to ever leave this diet. My current diet system allows me to enter the foods I like to eat, and creates a diet using these foods. It figures out how much of the food I can eat and when, which makes it much easier to stay on the diet.

Imagine -- a diet with foods you enjoy!

It can happen, and it can happen to YOU!