Forget the diet. Just take some these common sense steps into mind and you will begin to live a healthier lifestyle without the pain, suffering, craving and starvation of a typical diet.

Pick the Right Sandwich

The lunch counter can be your friend or your enemy. Know which is which. Natural meats such as chicken, turkey or roast beef will be your best choices followed by hams and smoked natural meats. Then come the bad guys: processed meats such as salami, bologna, others whose names end in '-ola', and other cold cut meats like olive loaf. Yuck! These are packed with fat and high levels of sodium that is part of the production, processing and curing. Not good eats. Just avoid the 'Italian-style' subs that have different mixed cuts of salami, bologna, etc and opt for the roast beef, turkey or chicken. You can cut a lot of fat from your diet just by making this small choice.

Choose the Low-Fat Alternative

While still at the sandwich counter, you can make some other easy choices if you know to ask. If you are having a club or any sandwich combo that includes ham, ask if they service low fat ham. The low fat version of ham can have half, even as much as one-third the amount of fat as that of regular ham.

And that goes for the condiments as well. If you like mayonnaise on your sandwich, check with them and see if they serve a low fat mayo instead. Again, you just cut half the amount of fat you would normally consume just by asking. And low fat mayo's have improved a lot over the years. I can't tell the difference when it is on a sandwich or used as an ingredient mixed with other items.

Speaking of mayo...when you are fixing a tuna fish sandwich, don't ruin that can of heart-healthy tuna fish by drowning it in fatty mayo. Even the low-fat version has fat. Buy tuna fish packed in olive oil and made tuna salad as you normally would. Just add a little mayo and let the taste of olive oil shine through. Or add lemon juice, hot pepper sauce, diced capers, pickles or green olives. And if you are not a fan of the taste of olive oil, opt for a brand of tuna that is packed in water. You may need to add a little more mayo that before, but you are still ahead of the fat intake curve from what you used to do and that is another fat-intake removed from your diet with really trying.

Un-Grilled Cheese

Don't fry your cheese sandwich in butter. Toast your bread to your liking and place a piece of cheese between the bread as soon as it comes out of the toaster. If you want the cheese to melt a little more, just place the sandwich on a paper towel on a plate and microwave for about 10-15 seconds until it is melted to your liking. Just remove from the paper towel right away or the bread will begin to soften.