How to Lose Weight Successfully

It's really quite simple. It all comes down to how determined you really are to lose weight, and how much you're willing to commit. There are no excuses to get around this plan! It's completely bulletproof.

Fact is, no matter how much you think about it, to lose weight there are no shortcuts. There is no magic pill to take, no way to make ugly fat disappear... the easiest and only way to get rid of body fat and lose weight is by doing something about it. Yes, sounds obvious, and a bit cliché, but, aren't clichés the best pieces of advice anyways, hence making them so prominently repeated generation to generation, catapulting them to achieve this cliché status?

The answer is YES. And an even more useful, albeit cliché piece of advice is that to lose weight, those 5, 10, or 15 lbs, the only (and I mean 1 and only) real way to shed the extra baggage is following a sensible diet while keeping an active lifestyle... who knew! A healthy range to lose weight is between 1- 2 lbs a week, and I'll tell you why it's easier than you ever thought possible.

Here are the basics. One pound of fat is equal to about 3500 calories. Seems like a lot, right? You'd be surprised at how easy it is to "accidentally" eat those 3500 calories and how quick it is to gain as opposed to lose weight. This is why people start struggling and making excuses for their dieting failures... because eating the 3500 calories goes almost unnoticed, but going to a gym and hitting a treadmill for an hour and not burning even half that will make anyone frustrated!

Then, as I'm sure you have experienced, once you hit that frustration point, you feel as if your goal to lose weight is unreachable, that the 1-2 lbs are just not worth it, and that you're gonna be fat anyways... well, you're not... it's easier than you think, and here's why.

If you are a woman, in your 30's, 5'5 and weigh 145 lbs, your estimated Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR; this is the amount of calories your body burns all on its own just going about the basic functions such as breathing and pumping your heart to keep you alive) is around 1,450. That means that to achieve a goal to lose weight at a rate of 1-2 lbs a week (eating a healthy balanced diet of 1800-2000 calories a day) you would need a daily calorie deficit of 300-500. That's not so much!

The daily calorie deficit is the amount of calories you burned in a day (BMR+ Exercise) minus the calories you ate... so if you ate 2000 calories, and did some light activity for 2 hours (this can be walking around the office, commuting to work, doing basic housework, etc), you'll have achieved your calorie deficit to lose weight! No gym, no time wasted, just watching what you eat and not cheating yourself (and this is where many people fail, yes, that cookie counts, no matter how small it is, it's probably 100 calories, a HUGE dent on your deficit!) is enough to lose weight while going about your daily life. This already equals losing almost 5 lbs in one month, without heavy impact or change in your daily routine! See? To lose weight, you need nothing more than will-power!

Now, imagine if you added a bit of exercise into that routine... you could double your daily deficit and lose weight, by say, walking at a slight incline on a treadmill for 30 minutes, doing a workout video (so many online!), taking a yoga class (relaxing and you'll feel so much healthier all around), taking the stairs (no matter how few of them, they make a difference because you use your muscles, and using strength burns up more calories)...

With these minor improvements on your quest to lose weight, you could be doubling your deficit, and 6 to 8 pounds can be gone in only 4 weeks! Imagine that, how great you'll feel, and it is that easy. The hardest part is the struggle to not give in to your own negativity, and to justify eating that cookie because dieting is "difficult". It's not! So stop thinking that way. Help you help yourself, and that's truly the one and only way to make your goals to lose weight happen for real.

Great luck!

These websites have helped me heaps with my dieting and weight loss goals:

Caloriesperhour.com (use their calorie deficit calculator to figure out what yours needs to be in order to lose the weight.)

Fitday.com (this is a great online food journal that tracks your food intake and nutrition information, as well as exercise, and provides great tools, such as charts that show your weekly habits like calories eaten vs. burned, etc.)