Do you long for the days when you used to smooth your hand down your side and feel the inward curve of your waist? It's all too easy for that cinched space between the breasts and hips to podge out over time - particularly when you're living a hectic lifestyle that leads to frequent fast-food meals, and less time at the gym.

Fortunately, there are ways that you can go about reclaiming your tiny waist if you're willing to make a few changes to your lifestyle. Exercise and diet may seem like obvious solutions - but simply committing to regular workouts and reducing the amount you eat requires a little bit of care and research if you want to see results fast. For instance, adding a waist-trimming belt to your routine can help to focus your exercise efforts, while establishing your ideal caloric intake will give you a foundation for your diet.

Step 1: Be Realistic About Your Body

Before you start visualizing your future body (tiny waist included), it's important to recognize what's realistic for you, and your shape. Some people will never be able to achieve a miniature waist - regardless of how much dieting and exercise they do - and if you convince yourself that you need to get to a certain level that's simply unobtainable, the chances are you'll suffer from periods of depression, and may even take unhealthy steps towards an impossible goal.

Step 2: Build the Foundations of a Healthy Diet

Once you've gotten a good idea of what your ideal goal should be, you'll be able to start making lifestyle changes. Usually, the best place to start is with a good diet - as even if you do hours of cardio and strength training every day, a habit of eating junk food will mean that you keep piling up on the stomach fat. Reclaiming your tiny waist starts with calculating the number of calories you should consume each day to achieve weight loss. Usually, this is a very specific number that depends on your activity level, current weight, sex, and age.

Most of the time, the average woman needs around 1,500 calories a day to lose weight, while the average man should eat around 2,000 calories. The idea is to find a caloric deficit, which means that you take in less calories every day than you use.

Step 3: Burn Away the Excess with Cardio

Once you've started making changes to your diet, and you know how to reduce your caloric intake, you can begin to burn away the excess with cardiovascular exercise. Reclaiming a tiny waist is often more dependent on food than your workout, but regular exercise is great for a healthy heart, and can be particularly effective at burning off stubborn areas of fat.

Your aim should be to connect your reduced-calorie intake with jogging, biking, swimming, and other activities that are specifically designed to get you sweating and boost your heart rate. According to research, a thirty-minute bout on an elliptical machine can be enough to burn around 335 calories. Of course, it's worth noting that lighter people burn fewer calories than heavier people.