Some people just never give up - they are just persistent, determined and never stray from their goals. These people are like a bulldog that refuses to release its teeth-hold on a bone. The harder you try to pull the bone out of his mouth, the harder the dog chomps down with a vice like grip. Now that’s the kind of focus you should have when trying to reduce body fat.

And don’t fall into the trap of wanting to lose 20 pounds in 3 days - heck, just cut off your legs - but seriously, it’s not healthy and not manageable. Your aim is to reduce body fat progressively. Here are 6 tips on how to lose weight and keep it off for good -

1. Make Smart Swaps in Your Diet : Eat smart, eat more fruits and vegies, eat steamed or grilled food - and avoid the fried foods. Look at having brown rice instead of white rice, grilled rather than fried chicken, avoid pouring dressing all over the salad, and a light frappuccino in place of the regular version.

2. Sweat It Out - When you train, it’s not about chatting about your weekend, or taking it easy on a treadmill- it’s all about training hard (with very little rest between moves). Fact is, if you want to shed more pounds, high intensity workouts burn more calories than easy, chat on the treadmill routines.

3. Make Your Workouts Count - If you face plenty of obstacles that conspire to keep you away from the gym such as work deadlines, sick kids and the occasional lack of enthusiasm - you’re not alone. However, you can help yourself by planning an excuse proof schedule with time efficient fat burning workouts using interval training and a combination of lower and upper body moves. There require very little time, but challenging enough to stimulate your fat burning hormones. More importantly, for females - weight training is essential and you are better off doing strength training to sculpt your body, and interval training to burn the fat.

4. Embrace Fat - You won’t store it if you aren’t eating too many total calories. Research shows that 50% fat are just as effective for weight loss as those that is low in fat. Fat is filling, and adds flavor to your meals - so it helps you from feeling deprived, and wanting more of other food! So go ahead, enjoy the fat in meat, dairy, avocados, olive oil and nuts. Shoot for half a gram of fat for every pound of your desired weight.

11. Eat Foods That Help You Lose Fat - Eating is a powerful drive so don’t starve yourself. Try eating more lean protein , healthy fats and less processed carbs like white bread and chips. The key to a flatter stomach is dropping overall body fat with a healthy diet and regular intense exercise.

6. Eat Well - Regardless of how much exercise you do, you still need to follow a healthy eating plan in order to reduce body fat and keep it off. Avoid being famished after exercise by eating a light meal or healthy snack an hour or two before you start.

A tip to always keep in mind - When it comes to losing the weight; WHAT YOU REALLY WANT IS TO BURN THE BODY FAT, WHILE KEEPING THE MUSCLE! “FAT LOSS is what you want, not weight loss.” If your body was 100% rock-solid muscle, would you care how much you weighed? Probably not. Start reducing your body fat with the 6 simple tips now.