Quickly Lose Weight

Look around at your group of friends and you are likely to notice that almost all of them have tried some sort of diet at some point in their life, but they always seem to gain the weight back. Ever wonder why they gain the weight back? Lifestyle. Lifestyle is how we live our daily lives, not just for a few months. If you were able to make small changes that impact the future of your weight loss would you be willing to do so?

Let's start with something very simple: you will not lose weight that took you years to gain in a few weeks. That simply is not healthy at all. Instead, these minor dietary and life changes will help you shed pounds and get your body to where it needs to be in an accelerated time.

Tip 1: EAT

This article took a great turn! The goal of weight loss is not necessarily how much you eat, but what you eat. Try going over to the mypyramid.gov site and look at what your expected caloric needs and estimated intake of each food group is, then break up the groups to 6 small meals a day, or 3 moderate sized meals and 2 snacks. When you are trying to lose weight, your body automatically assumes that you starving and starts conserving all the energy it can (fat) and elimates those things which require lots of energy (muscle). Eatting constantly helps to prevent this famine response.

Tip 2: DRINK (water)

Yes, Water is critical for you to lose weight. In the brain thirst and hunger are intepreted the same way. You should be drinking water all the time 64+ oz of water a day, more if you are exercising. If you start to get hungry, drink a bottle of water, wait 30 minutes, and see if you are still hungry. Typicaly, the hunger will subside.

Tip 3: EXERCISE

Check with your physician first, but get moving. You need to burn calories, which are a measure of energy, that are stored in the body as fat. Fat is very energy-dense. It is for this reason that your body stores it when famine is suspected. The trick with exercise is to perform cardio daily and bein a resistance program to help you build muscle. There is a two-fold advantage of combining both types of exercise. Cardio burns a lot of calories in a short time. Resistance training burns fewer calories, but the added muscle requires more calories throughout the day to maintain. It makes sense to burn a lot of calories at the gym, then get your body to burn more calories throughout the day.

Tip 4: ADJUST

A very common problem with people losing weight is that they fail to adjust their diets for the lost weight. Unless you are adding a fair amount of muslce to keep up with your weight loss, at 150 pounds you no longer need to be eating like a 200 pound individual. Adjust your diet to account for the weight loss and for the activity level you are at.

Tip 5: SEEK HELP

It is worth the money to invest in a personal trainer at the gym to help you to develop a good plan and to help track your progress. Trainers also have the capacity to help explain the benefits of each food group and how you should adjust and use each group to best benefit your plan.

Tip 6: PAY UP

The last and final tip is for motivation if you are not too driven to your goals. I recommend that anyone who is trying to lose weight keep track of your pounds lost by a set dollar amount towards something you want. Let's say you want a new TV for your living room at the cost of $1,000. You want to drop from 210 to 160, that's 50 pounds. You have goals setup for what you want to lose every month, three months, and your final big goal. If you meet every montly goal, you put:

Month 1: Goal Met--> (1000-100)

Month 2: Goal Met--> (900-100)

Month 3: Goal Met--> (800-100)

------3 months of goals met----- (800-100)

Continuing this until you reach your goal, you can break it down to a dollar a pound if that helps. The other method is billing yourself for missing workouts, and having to do something with that money you wouldn't otherwise do.