1. If you can say no to alcoholic beverages please do. Alcoholic beverages are not good for you. Beer can be fattening and the rest of the alcoholic drinks may not be fattening by themselves but after a couple of swigs you will be in no position to watch your diet and your appetite will also be something to battle with.
2. Go ahead eat cheat food, but only for flavor. There are many things which you have to avoid from your diet but which you may have an undying craving for. Do not avoid them altogether. You could call them cheat foods and indulge in them once in a while. But take care just to tingle your taste buds. Don't hog on them. Instead, share them with others.
3. Try and adopt a vegetarian diet for at least some of your menu planning. A vegetarian diet is undoubtedly better for those of us watching our diet. There are a lot of advantages of keeping to a vegetarian diet but I don't want to sing an ode to vegetarianism now. What I would suggest is keep to a vegetarian diet as much as you can. Make a vegetarian diet a twice or three time a week event if you find it impossible to give up eating all those animals.
4. Choose low fat substitutes or no fat substitutes. There are plenty of low fat or even no fat substitutes available in the market so why not choose wisely as these can make or break your quest for contour abs. It is much better for you heart too. Many people just go for shopping and pick up whatever they can. They do not bother to find out if there are any substitutes for the thing they are looking for.
5. Most importantly, avoid crash diets. They are bad for health and you will gain what you have lost once you take a break. Crash diets are not a solution to weight loss. It might seem as if you have lost few pounds but the moment you give up on the crash diet every thing will bounce back with a vengeance.
Crash diets make a lot of promises, but very rarely do these promises come true. Crash diets are things people go on in order to wear an old dress or suit for a particular occasion. That's the only purpose that they serve as far as I can see.