How to lose weight fast

September 2, 2009  
Filed under How to lose weight

If you want to learn how to lose weight fast then you need to follow certain rules that will help you lose weight in a fast and healthy way. Fast weight loss is not an easy thing to do but it can be done if you follow the techniques below.

Limit daily calorie intake .

In order to be able to lose weight fast then you have to burn more calories than what you eat. You can achieve this either through exercise or physical activities. To know that your estimates are correct your need to keep a diet journal to record exactly what you eat or drink during the day. In the journal write down everything you eat or drink, every snack, the contents of each meal. Do not forget to include the small pieces that can play a big role in your weight loss efforts like the butter on your bread or the sugar in your coffee. Try to follow this process for a couple of weeks. What you can do later is to try and translate the food and drinks you consumed into calories and see what is your average daily calorie intake.

The general idea is that if you multiply your weight by ten, this will give you an estimate of the number of calories you need to consume each day in order to stay in your current weight. Although this may not be a 100% accurate figure because everyone has a different metabolic rate, it will give you an indication of how much calories you need to cut from your diet if you want to lose weight. If you manage to reduce your calorie intake by 500 calories per day then after a week you will lose one pound!

Reducing the daily calorie intake is easier than you think. Here are some examples to give you some motivation.

If you substitute coffee (with milk and sugar) with black coffee you can lose up to a pound per week.
Stop eating salad dressings. Eat only the salad. This can help you a lot since salad dressings contain a lot of fat.
Completely avoid soft drinks, sweets (sugar) and butter.
Always look at the nutritional labels of the foods you eat and try to avoid full fat foods with a lot of fat.
Have a look at your journal and identify the unhealthy foods. Try to find alternative foods that are more healthy and have less fat and calories.
Drink more water

Eat healthy

Choose low fat meals. Instead of eating beef or pork substitute those with chicken or fish. Both chicken and fish are very low in fat. In addition some kinds of fish like salmon and tuna can act as antioxidants something very beneficial to your health.

A high source of calories that most of the time are not taken into account are side dishes. Side dishes may contain a lot of calories that you do not seriously take into account. While you may be selective for your main meal you tend to forget that side dishes also have calories. If you want to lose weight fast you should replace your high calorie side dishes (chips, pasta) with lots of vegetables and salads (without the dressings).

Do not forget breakfast

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day when you want to lose weight fast. Try to include in your breakfast low fat yogurt and low-sugar cereals accompanied by low fat milk and a fresh fruit. Skip the full fat eggs and bacon and try to eat enough but healthy. Eating a healthy breakfast increases your basic metabolic rate and reduces your desire for snacks until lunch time.

Have a schedule for you meals

Each week you should have a schedule of what you are going to eat for the rest of the week. Make sure that the meals you choose will help you lose weight by reducing the total amount of calories you eat. Do not be fooled – you will not be able to lose weight if you just consume the same amount of calories but by eating different foods! Once you have your schedule setup you can make a list of what you need to buy for these meals and head over to the grocery stock and buy exactly that. Scheduling and planning your meals does not only ensures that you have a balanced diet but also it ensures that you eat healthy.

Portion size does matter!

Portion size is important if you are trying to lose weight fast. If for example you open a packet of rice cakes and eat them all in the same day this will not going to help you lose weight. By reducing the portion size alone will help you eat less calories and lose weight fast with not much effort.

You can lose weight and eat snacks at the same time

When you want to lose weight fast and healthy, this does not mean that you should completely remove snacks from your diet. There are different types of healthy snacks that are low in fat and have less calories than ‘normal’ snacks. Select snacks that are low in calories and fat and high in fiber. Examples of such snacks are:

dried apricots
nuts
rice cakes
fruits
cherry tomatoes
Vegetables

Eat more fiber

Fiber can seriously assist your efforts to lose weight fast. It is scientifically proven that fiber helps in maintaining the proper amount of water in your intestines thus helping the digestive system to be more efficient. So by eating enough fiber may give you a feeling that you are slimmer in only a couple of days. There is research that proves that fiber can help prevent incidents of stroke and heart disease.

Drink large quantities of water

You should understand that water is very important in your process to lose weight fast. Water is essential for the proper functioning of the body and beneficial to the health. Drink as much more water you can.

Exercise and physical activity.

You will not be able to lose weight fast if you do not include exercise and physical activity in your daily schedule. Have in mind that you can lose weight either by reducing the calorie intake or increasing the number of calories you burn. If you want to lose weight fast then you should do both i.e. eat less calories than those you burn. Exercise can help you a lot in burning those extra calories. There are many forms of exercise and physical activity to include in your daily schedule. Aerobic exercises such as jogging, walking, cycling, swimming, running etc. You should set a goal to exercise for at least 30-40 minutes three or four days per week and then increase that to 1 hour per day.

Weight lifting

Weight training can help both men and women build muscles, get rid of fat and improve their metabolism. If you really want to lose weight fast then you need to include in your physical activity schedule 30 minutes of weight trainning at least 3 times per week. Several scentific researches have shown that weight training can improve the body’s metabolism by 15%. In real terms this means an average woman might burn 200-300 more calories while at rest every day!

Get enough sleep

Make sure that you are getting enough sleep at night. Lack of a good night sleep may impair your ability to lose fat.

Be patient, weight loss takes time

Do not expect that you will be able to lose the weight you want in 2 weeks. Healthy weight loss can be achieved fairly quickly, but you’ll need to be patient. Set realistic goals that you can meet. Do not set high, unrealistic goals that you will not be able to meet or goals that will create other problems to your health. Your ultimate goal should be to build a healthy body, not to achieve a number of pounds!

Believe in your self

If you want to lose weight fast and you know that this will make you feel better, then you need to have confidence. If you do not have confidence that you can make it then most probably your weight loss efforts will fail. Be prepared that you will need to make certain sacrifices if you want to lose weight fast. You should be in position to avoid temptations like chocolate, ice cream, and cookies.

You need to always encourage and reward yourself to achieve the goals that you have set. Evaluate your progress fairly on a regular basis. If for a week you failed to meet your targets then do not get discouraged. You can try harder to meet your targets for next week.

Be consistent, disciplined and motivated. How to lose weight you need to follow your weight loss program religiously so as to see results.

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Comments

One Comment on "How to lose weight fast"

  1. Resistance Training on Wed, 2nd Sep 2009 10:59 pm 

    Good tips. May I make a suggestion? If you don’t have weights, get some good strength bands for resistance. As an added bonus, you can take them with you where ever you go. Can’t do that with weights.

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