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StepsDetermine your daily calorie intake . Losing weight is simply a matter ofexpending more calories than you take in, through exercise and your dailyactivities. To win the battle, it helps to know how many calories you areconsuming in a day.Write down all the things you eat on a typical day. Carry a small notebook withyou and write down every snack, every drink, and the contents of every meal. Thereare also great websites that you can use to keep track of calories, get recipes,and help achieve your goal. Don't forget to include the pats of butter or thespoonful of sugar in your coffee. It's best to do this for at least a coupleweekdays and a weekend; it's even better if you can go a full week. There are alsocalorie tracking websites that can help you to do this, for example the USgovernment website, My Pyramid Tracker or the largest free health & weight losswebsite SparkPeople.com.Do an itemized calorie count. When possible, write down the number of calories ineach thing you eat as you eat it. Keep in mind that the recommended serving sizeis often considerably smaller than the serving you actually eat. Look up thecalorie count on the internet for foods that don't have calories listed on thecontainer or for fast food meals. You don't have to be 100% accurate, but you dowant a good estimate of the number of calories you're taking in. There is an ideathat multiplying your own weight by ten will produce a rough estimate of thenumber of calories you need to eat per day to maintain your weight. This is NOTtrue, you may wind up grossly under (or perhaps over) estimating the number ofcalories you should be eating. Use a scientific or health website to determine thenumber of calories you should eat a day or consult your doctor. Everyone hasdifferent metabolisms and there is no blanket rule that covers everyone'srecommended calorie intake. Reducing 500 calories per day from the calories youeat to maintain your weight can help you lose a pound of fat per week.[2]Go over the list and decide which foods to cut out or reduce. Cutting calories isusually a lot easier than you might think. For example, that daily tall latte inthe morning may pack 500 calories. Since a pound of flab (lost or gained) isroughly equivalent to 3,500 calories, replacing that rich beverage with blackcoffee can help you lose a pound a week. Other easy cuts include salad dressing(salad dressing is the number one source of fat in the average American woman'sdiet) soda pop, candy, and butter. Look at the nutritional information for thefoods you eat, pay special attention to your intake of saturated fats and emptycalories (high-sugar foods). You don't need to cut these things out entirely, butif you reduce your intake of high-fat, high-calorie foods you'll lose weightfaster.Seek out alternatives to the unhealthy foods you've identified. You can simplyreduce the amount of soda you drink or mayonnaise you put on your sandwiches, oryou can substitute healthier choices. Drink water instead of soda, for example, oruse mustard instead of mayo. Low-fat and low-calorie options are also availablefor most foods, and many of these are natural, (although some are made withstrange chemicals), and tasty. Start trying to eat healthy in most meals:Choose lean meats. Chicken and fish are both very low in fat (and certain fishlike salmon, sardines, and fresh tuna are an excellent source of antioxidants,which are also beneficial to your health), so aim to replace some or all of thebeef or pork in your diet with these foods.Replace high-calorie side dishes with healthier alternatives. Many people get aton of calories from side dishes such as macaroni and cheese, French fries, orpotato salad. You can eat healthier and lose weight by replacing these with freshvegetables and salads. Pre-made salads are practically effortless, and whenaccompanied by a reduced-calorie dressing or no dressing at all, they're weight-loss gold.Start your days off right. A fattening breakfast of bacon and eggs or a pastry canbe replaced with yogurt, oatmeal, high-fiber, low-sugar cereals; or fresh fruit
 
for fruit smoothies. However, for those on a low carb diet bacon and eggs are agreat combo for breakfast, since neither have carbs. But don't fall into the trapof skipping breakfast. Eating a healthy breakfast increases your rest metabolicrate earlier in the day, and reduces snacking before lunch.Plan your meals. Look for healthy, delicious meals online or in your cookbooks,and create a menu for the week. Make sure that your meal plan reduces your totalcalorie intake: you're not going to lose weight if you consume the same amount ofcalories by eating different foods. Make a list of what you'll need for thesemeals, and -- except for a few snacks, of course -- don't stray from your listwhen you get to the market. Planning your meals helps ensure you get a balanceddiet and reduces the temptation to stop off for fast food or order a pizza.Remember, it's easier to stick to your shopping list if you shop when you aren'thungry.Watch your portion sizes. Opening a bag of rice cakes and eating all of them inone sitting isn't going to help you lose weight. When eating chips, nuts, or driedfruit put a portion in a small bowl and then put the bag away. That way you won'tmindlessly eat a larger portion than you had intended. Even if you only makeminimal changes to your diet choices, reducing portion size will inevitably reducecaloric intake. A great way to watch portion sizes while snacking is to buy oneserving 100 calorie packages - and they come in many favorite snack food items![3]Graze on healthy snacks. Just because you're getting healthy doesn't mean youcan't snack. In fact, eating small meals and snacks throughout the day, orgrazing, has been shown to aid weight loss, (compared to eating three large mealsa day), by keeping metabolism steadier. Pick snacks that are low in calories andfat and high in fiber (dried apricots, nuts, rice cakes, fruits, baby carrots,cherry tomatoes, and so on). Vegetables are generally very low in calories, veryhigh in fiber, and full of flavor and nutrition. Avoid starchy vegetables likepotatoes, and try to eat vegetables plain, without fatty dressings or dips. Fruitalso makes a good snack. Fruit contains more soluble fiber than vegetables, whichslows your body's absorption of carbohydrates, thus releasing energy more slowly,(preventing sugar highs), and keeping you feeling full longer. Fruit juices arenot a replacement for the real thing. You need that fiber, and juices often havemore calories than the equivalent serving of fruit -- as many calories as soda! Becareful with dried fruits, because without the water, you tend to eat more, andfruits, when dried, are calorie-rich per ounce. With any dry or dried food, besure to drink plenty of water.Get more fiber. There are many myths about fiber, but there is science to back upits helpful role in the diet. Fiber keeps the right amount of water in yourintestines, making your digestive system work more efficiently and helping to keepyou regular. Thus, just eating enough fiber may help you feel slimmer in just aday or so. There is also evidence that fiber in the diet can help prevent strokeand heart disease, ease the effects of diabetes, and may even directly help inweight loss.Drink plenty of water. Adequate water is essential for health, and a great manypeople simply don't get enough. What's more, if you're chronically dehydrated,your body will retain water in unflattering places, so if you make sure to getplenty of fluids you can start visibly trimming down in as little as a day.Remember, the more you exercise, the more water you'll need. See the relatedwikiHow for more details on how much water you should be getting.Exercise. Remember, you can lose weight either by decreasing your calorie intakeor increasing the number of calories you burn. Any health strategy should includeboth, but if you want to lose weight fast, exercise is essential.Perform high-level aerobic activities. Moderate aerobic workouts incorporatingjogging, brisk walking, cycling, aerobic machines, or classes not only burncalories -- they also keep your heart healthy. Swimming is also great, especiallyif you are quite overweight or have joint problems, because you can get the samebenefits of running -- typically burning even more calories -- with much less
 
stress on your joints. Try to get at least 30-40 minutes of aerobic exercise atleast three or four days per week.Pump some iron. Resistance training, (weight training), can help both sexes staylean by building muscle and raising metabolism. The fact is, hours and hours ofaerobic exercise won't help most people lose weight fast because your metabolismdrops back to normal fairly quickly after stopping the exercise. If you gainmuscle, however, your body's resting metabolism, (the amount of calories you burnwhen you're just sitting still), increases, because muscle requires a lot ofcalories to maintain. Studies have shown consistent weight training to raise thebody's metabolism by 15%. This means an average woman might burn 200-300 morecalories at rest every day! Resistance training is the gift that keeps on giving!Although, keep in mind that muscle mass weighs more than fat (don't be surprisedif you gain weight but look slimmer).Rest properly. This means not only taking at least 24-48 hours between strengthtraining the same muscles, (and taking 1-2 days off from exercising each week); italso means getting enough sleep at night, since sleep deficiency impairs yourability to lose fat.Be realistic. Don't expect a miracle. Healthy weight loss can be achieved fairlyquickly, but you'll need to be patient. In addition, be sure to set realisticgoals. Make sure that the weight you're trying to reach is a healthy weight foryou, and keeping in mind that gaining pounds of muscle will help you lose fat, betrimmer, and look better even though you don't actually lose any weight. Your goalshould be a healthy body, not a number of pounds! Everyone looks good at adifferent weight. A short person may look really good at about 112 pounds, but aperson of a taller height would just look unhealthy. Keep yourself at a weightthat makes you look good, not at a number that sounds good.Make adjustments. A successful weight loss strategy based on reducing calorieintake and increasing activity can be adjusted to maintain your desired weightonce you reach it. Unlike typical diets, this method is sustainable -- it is alifestyle change, not a binge-and-purge exercise. Slowly adjust your diet andexercise to include more weight training and calories, as much as is comfortablefor you. If you do gain any weight back, you want that weight to be lean, tonedmuscle, not fat. In addition, weight training, no matter what your age, preventsmuscle atrophy and can help stave off osteoporosis.Instead of thinking of it as losing a certain amount of pounds, think of it asbeing a certain weight. So if you are 145 pounds, and you would like to lose 10pounds, think of it as being 135 pounds. This helps you think about it as a long-term goal and not just losing the weight to gain it back again.Be confident. You need to believe in yourself! If you want to diet, and you knowthat it will make you feel better, then you need confidence. Otherwise, thetemptation to cheat on your diet will make it harder, and you will not feel betterwhen you do lose weight. Avoid temptations like chocolate, ice cream, and cookies.They may taste good, but there are other foods that taste delicious, too, withoutbeing unhealthy. You need to always encourage yourself to achieve the goals thatyou have set. Learn to evaluate your efforts fairly and objectively. If you failto achieve your target for the week, find out why is it so. Is it because you havemissed a jogging session? Or you have been eating junk food for one of the days?After evaluating, look ahead to next week and try your best to stick to yourplan.[4]Be consistent and disciplined, and have self motivation. To lose weighteffectively, you need to stick to your weight loss plan religiously so as to seeresults. When you have the thought of giving up, visualize how good you will lookwhen you manage to slim down successfullyTipsDetermine your objectives to lose weight. To succeed in doing something, you needto have a very compelling objective or reason so that you will not lose track ofyour goal. Losing weight just for vanity's sake is usually less helpful thanlosing weight to improve health. Other than just exercising, you need to have a
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