Menopause brings on changes in muscle tissue and bone density, which can mean looking less toned. Adding weight training can help strengthen bones and increase body tone.

If you're having a hard time dropping unwanted pounds, you may want to consider other options, such as diet pills. While some of these over-the-counter pills contain the "best" ingredients at promoting weight loss, they don't produce dramatic results.

The medical community uses the terms "desirable weight" and "ideal weight" interchangeably and assesses both via weight-for-height tables such as the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's weight-for-height table and the body mass index table, according to the textbook "Essentials for Health and Wellness."

Baked beans are a protein-rich, low-calorie food, and as such are an appropriate part of a weight-loss dietary regimen. The U.S.

Adding extra protein while on a reduced-calorie plan helps you retain lean mass while lowering your body weight. It may even help you burn more fat and gain muscle. You'll need to make good choices so that you're not eating too much saturated fat when adding protein to your diet, however.

Toning up and losing weight aren't quite the same. Weight loss is straightforward as it simply involves lowering your body weight, which can be done by dieting alone. Toning however is a different matter. For a toned physique, you need tight, defined muscles, which means hitting the gym for some resistance training.

You can convert the percentages of fats, carbohydrates and proteins of your diet into the number of grams of each of these calorie sources. This will also require you to know the number of calories you can consume each day.

You've heard that to lose weight, you must eat less and move more. But understanding just how much more to move can be confusing. The exact number of calories you must burn weekly to lose weight depends on many factors -- including your weight loss goal, how much you're eating and how you're burning those calories.

Fat is no longer the nutrient to avoid when you're dieting. Healthy fats -- such as those found in nuts, avocados and olive oil -- have a place in a weight-loss plan. Carbohydrates, though, are the dieter's new enemy.

The diet industry is exploding with fad diets, where you might eat only one kind of food, such as soup, or limit yourself to “detox” beverages to lose weight fast. When you want to drop 20 pounds, a quick fix may look appealing, especially with all those “before” and “after” photos to wow you.

A vegetarian diet isn't a guaranteed way to lose weight. You can very well eat processed chips, cereal, energy bars and pasta as the bulk of your diet and still be heavier than someone following an omnivorous diet consisting of lean meats and leafy greens.

While there's nothing you can do about loose skin outside of surgery, you can take control of the underlying muscle. Building muscle through weight lifting will provide some lift.