It’s no big secret that people have different taste preferences. Some of us gleefully devour arugula salads for lunch, while others won’t touch greens unless they’re baked and smothered in cheese (and sometimes not even then). Some people gulp down pumpkin spice lattes; others go into sugar shock after just one sip.

“When it comes to taste, each one of us is hardwired differently,” says Valerie Duffy, RD, professor of nutritional science at the University of Connecticut. And emerging research is showing that our flavor preferences may affect our waistlines and health in surprising ways. Check out the fascinating scoop on exactly what’s going on inside your mouth and how to tap your taste buds to dump unwanted pounds.

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Sometimes it comes from excess air trapped in your digestive tract. Other times it feels like a basketball is stuck in your abdomen, or your entire midsection has been flooded with water. Whatever bloating feels like to you, one thing’s for sure: it’s uncomfortable. And though bloat rarely signals something serious and typically goes away after several hours (eased up by moving around, drinking water, and just waiting it out), a distended middle can make you feel lethargic, clumsy, and suspecting you’ll never be able to button your jeans again. Welcome back your flatter belly by saying goodbye the habits that are prone to puff you up.

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Getting rid of your belly bulge is important for more than just vanity’s sake. Excess abdominal fat—particularly visceral fat, the kind that surrounds your organs and puffs your stomach into a “beer gut”—is a predictor of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, and some cancers. If diet and exercise haven’t done much to reduce your pooch, then your hormones, your age, and other genetic factors may be the reason why. Read on for 11 possible reasons why your belly fat won’t budge.

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Take your average guy or gal that decides they’re committed to finally losing that extra weight that’s crept on over the years. They’re going to eat healthy (primally, of course), start working out, and stop all the nonsense they know to be unhealthy. This might be you.

A few days go by, then a week. The scale is budging, but barely. “This is going to take forever! How long is this going to take?

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While they often begin as logical and innocuous, “I’ll start Monday” and numerous other overused cliches stall fat loss and inhibit us from reaching our full potential.

Any of these seven self-sabotaging sayings sound familiar?

“I workout rigorously so I metabolize sugar better than other people.”
During my personal training days, I heard this often, usually from clients who treated themselves post-workout to fro-yo or some high-sugar impact smoothie.

“I do intermittent fasting and so I can eat whatever I want during my ‘feeding phase.’”
You’ve diligently fasted for hours or even days, and that ravenous aftermath means you’ll devour anything within eyesight.

“I eat healthy all week so I can splurge on the weekends.”
Sorry, but your body is a biochemistry lab, not a bank account. You can’t “save” calories and spend them elsewhere.

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Most people take a common set of steps when preparing to lose weight. Pick an activity. Pick a diet. Cut out junk food. Pick a start date. Recruit support. One step, however, is typically missed, and recent research suggests it is as important as anything: Review your sleep habits.

We all know how sleep can affect us. A poor night often results in complaints of low energy, poor work performance, and irritability. We may even recognize that we tend to be less active after a night of poor sleep — but most of us do not pay much attention to how sleep may affect our eating behavior.

Think carefully — do you ever crave certain foods after poor sleep? Continue reading

How you set up your kitchen—from décor to utensils to where you keep treats—can make a substantial difference when it comes to losing weight. There’s a reason Google “strategically designed” their campus cafeteria using behavioral economics to “make it easy for people to make healthy choices.”

You don’t need an entire kitchen overhaul to make a difference. Many revamps take just a minute. Here are simple ways to start:

Make It Easy to Reach for Healthy Foods
Make healthy snacks like nuts, pre-cut veggies, fruit, and Greek yogurt easy to grab when you’re hungry.

Hide the Junk Food
If you must keep treats in the house, stash them where you don’t see them all the time.

Stock Your Spice Rack
Spices and herbs are bursting with flavor. That’s why research shows getting creative in the kitchen and adding them to foods (cumin on your carrots, red pepper flakes on Brussels sprouts) can help replace some fat in your cooking—without you even realizing it’s missing.

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We would all love to consistently have a perfectly healthy diet, but life often seems to get in the way and we are quick to forget our commitment to improving our diet.

Maybe you’ve set ambitious healthy eating goals in the past and you know how overwhelming it can be. But eating healthy is certainly not about being perfect. Most people tend to get much better results when they start small and make incremental changes to their current diet.

Here are five ways you can start eating healthier even when you’ve failed before.

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