6 secrets to get diet back on track

You tried. You really tried.

But the long Thanksgiving weekend (and Dad's secret-recipe pecan pie) left you with a couple of extra pounds. Here are some secrets from experts for losing that weight quickly but safely before the next round of holiday eating begins:

Pick up the pace. In the week before a holiday feast, Theresa Arrieta, aerobics instructor at the Lincoln Family Phoenix Downtown YMCA, adds five to 10 minutes a day to her cardio workout.

And she keeps it up for several days after, sometimes in a separate workout session later in the day if she's pressed for time.

"Cardio is the fastest way to get rid of the extra pounds," she says, "and it needs to be fast-paced. If you're walking, you should take at least 120 steps per minute or more. But don't push yourself so hard that you give up."

Check with your doctor first if you're not already an exerciser, keep a positive attitude and enlist a buddy or family member, she suggests.

"Having someone to work out with is motivating."

Arrieta also is consuming extra helpings of vegetables this week.

"I cook lots of them for Thanksgiving and hold onto the leftovers," she says. "All the other leftovers I send home with everybody else."

Set limits. Life coach MariAnne Dolack of Bearing Point Coaching and Consulting in Scottsdale is not about to undo her progress of the past year, a loss of 150 pounds.

She puts tape on her scales at a maximum weight she'll allow herself to reach before she takes action.

"It's a learning process," she says. "I don't beat myself up. I ask, 'What did I do during the holidays to cause the weight gain? How can I fix it?' "

Use tried-and-true tools. Dolack intensifies her journaling and looks at past journal entries to discover what she was doing right when she was losing weight and maintaining her loss. Then she begins to re-create that pattern.

"Some people don't like writing in journals," she says. "In that case, I suggest they just draw happy faces or other symbols in their journal."

Get back on plan. Quickly. "Holiday weight is a fast weight gain," registered dietitian E. Kresent Thuringer of Phoenix and Peoria says. "It hasn't been sitting there for years, and it will come off if you adhere to the eating plan that was working for you before."

Plan ahead. "We develop our eating strategy for Thanksgiving Day or the day of other big occasions," says Cheryl Sopcich, member services manager for Weight Watchers of Arizona, "but we don't ever think about what we're going to do about the day after."

It's not enough to say vaguely that you're going to get back on track. Write down exactly what you will eat, and how much, for the entire next day. And the next.

"I always make sure I have breakfast," she says, "either oatmeal or Malt-O-Meal or yogurt and fruit. Overweight people tend to skip breakfast, then overindulge by the time they have lunch because they're so hungry."

Don't put it off. Sopcich has maintained a 110-pound weight loss for 33 years in part by dealing with setbacks immediately instead of waiting for a "magic" moment such as the New Year or a Monday to arrive.