Anyone else out there in a food coma from Easter brunch yesterday? My jeans are a little pinchy in the waist today because who can resist those little cheesecake squares? Certainly not me. Yes sir, time to cut back my food intake for awhile.

And it's always time to cut back on unnecessary words.

Okay, so that was a lame-oh segue, but the point is that all of us can stand to go on a word diet and I'm here to help you get your writing bikini ready.

TOP 10 WORDS TO CUT FROM YOUR WRITING DIET

1. Very
2. Really
3. Got
4. Just
5. Perhaps / Maybe
6. Literally
7. Stuff
8. Things
9. Amazing
10. Quite

These are the fluffy words, the high calorie, empty nutrition kind that do nothing for your writing. I'm not saying you can't ever use these words, but use them sparingly. Go ahead and put them in your first draft to keep your flow moving, then when you return for a final edit, be ruthless. You'll be a svelte prose writing babe in no time.