Believe in magic? 10 of the latest diet tricks

Wishful thinking is a gluttonous beast, just like many Americans.

Perhaps that's why it's tough to tour the Internet in the month of New Year's resolutions without tripping over all sorts of pain-free diet tips. Search a bit, and it's easy to whip up a list of 10 ways to shed some pounds without strenuous diet or exercise.

This does not constitute endorsement.

Remember, experts generally say, if you really want to lose weight and keep it off, do so gradually by exercising more, switching to more nutritious foods, and consuming fewer calories.

Fortunately, unlike some extreme diets, the following tips seem relatively harmless.

1. Eat with your other hand. If you're right-handed, dig into that movie popcorn with your left. Apparently, it helps you pay attention, so don't mindlessly keep eating stale stuff, say researchers at the University of Southern California.

2. Try the Twitter diet. By posting a kind of diet diary through the social media service, weight watchers have taken advantage of public support - and fear of humiliation. Deadspin blogger Drew Magary posted his weight daily and lost 60 pounds in five months. Brian Stelter wrote in the New York Times how Twitter helped him lose 75 pounds in 25 weeks.

3. Visualize eating. Contrary to popular belief, thinking about eating can make you eat less, according to research at Carnegie Mellon University. When presented with a bowl of M&Ms, those who previously visualized eating 30 of them ate fewer than those who visualized eating three. Theory One: Imagination creates some satisfaction. Theory Two: Repeated thought undercuts the actual thrill. Be sure to focus on the coveted reward, however. Visualizing M&Ms won't help if you really want french fries.

4. Consume foods that cut cravings. Try pine nuts as a snack, green tea between meals, a tablespoon or two of red wine vinegar mixed with sparkling water during meals. Suggested by nutritionist Julie Daniluk at Dr. Oz's website, www.droz.com.

5. Stand more, sit less. While talking on the phone, watching TV, typing on a laptop, or talking at a party, stand up, don't sit. It burns twice as many calories as sitting, which one study suggests, shuts off production of fat-burning enzymes, according to a University of Missouri researcher.

6. Boost the smell factor. Some smells apparently can cut appetites. Banana, strawberry, raspberry, cocoa, spearmint, malt, taco, cheddar cheese, parmesan, ranch dressing, horseradish and onion were scents included in testing by Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. When they were added to foods, sprinkled on in the form of scented crystals, people ate less, enough to lose an average of over 30 pounds in six months. Articles suggest a do-it-yourself approach, sniffing some of these aromas when hunger strikes, say by chewing gum, or while eating, perhaps by sniffing tea or using ready-made powders. The foundation markets packets of these crystals, called Sensa, through www.trysensa.com, and they're sold at GNC stores for $89.99 for a 60-day supply.

7. Pick contrasting plates. Plate color matters. When food and plate are of contrasting colors, like spaghetti with red sauce on a white plate, people tend to take less, because of an illusion that the portion looks larger, according to the Journal for Consumer Research. Perhaps that explains the idea that blue plates are best for dieters - they contrast with almost all food. People also perceive portions as larger on small plates. A blog called Skin Beautiful goes so far as to tout the small square blue plate, citing "symmetry" that "helps stimulate the part of the brain that seeks balance according to feng shui."

8. Sleep more. Obvious: Can't eat while snoring. Not obvious: Lack of sleep messes up levels of hormones that regulate appetite, making people more susceptible to crave energy foods while tired, according to Forbes.com. Research also supposedly shows we burn more calories than we think while sleeping.

9. Write about a cherished value. A single 15-minute journaling exercise seemed to contribute to weight loss in a study of 45 female undergrads. Each got a list of important values and wrote for 15 minutes about one of the values. The group that wrote personally about the value they prized most lost about 3.4 pounds on average over one to four months. The other group wrote about a value they ranked low and how why other people might cherish it. They put on weight, an average of 2.76 pounds. Affirming self-worth may help ward off stresses that trigger eating, according to the report in Psychological Science.

10. Photograph your food. Writing down exactly what you eat is a much-recommended trick, because it teaches you where the extra calories come from. But if that's a chore, try taking pictures of everything you eat, say with a cell phone, advises Reader's Digest. After you look at all that intake, not only might you notice troublespots, you might wonder if you were really that hungry all day.