Pills used for weight loss, whether over-the-counter or prescribed, can have dangerous side effects. They can cause nervousness, anxiety, and spike your pulse and heart rate. The healthiest way to lose weight, according to the American Association of Family Physicians, is to diet and exercise. The National Institutes of Health reports that to lose one pound a week, all you need to do is reduce your calorie intake by 500 calories a day, or burn through the same number of calories through exercise.
Step 1
Count your calorie intake. Before you can create a dietetic deficit of 500 calories, you need to know how many calories you consume on a daily basis. Go to ShapeFit's Calories Per Day Calculator. Choose your gender, height and activity level, and type in your weight and age. The website will calculate the number of calories you need to maintain your current weight.
Step 2
Set a calorie goal. If, for example, you're a 35-year-old female who weighs 170 lbs. and is moderately active, you need to eat 2,283 calories to maintain your current weight. To lose one pound a week, she would need to eat 500 fewer calories each day. So her goal would be 1,783 calories a day.
Step 3
Keep a food journal. Write down everything you eat. Don't forget condiments such as ketchup and barbecue sauce, which are high in sugar. When you eat a sandwich, you'll need to include the bread, pickles, cheese and spread (mayo, mustard) in your journal. Calculate the number of calories each food has at the USDA's National Nutrient Database.
Step 4
Exercise daily. The good news is that you don't have to only decrease your food intake to reach your goal. You can burn calories through exercise as well. Based on a 170 lb. female, you could burn 348 calories with moderate effort on a treadmill for one hour. Go to CalorieLab's Calories Burned by Exercise Form to calculate your activities based on your weight. CalorieLab doesn't just analyze workouts; it will estimate the number of calories burned when you walk your dog, do chores and even partake in sexual activity.
Step 5
Drink water or carbonated water. Sodas are full of sugar, which causes weight gain. In 2007, a meta-analysis of 88 studies was published in the American Journal of Public Health. Lead researcher Lenny Vartanian found a direct association between soft drinks and weight gain and obesity. A pamphlet based on the meta-analysis, published by Yale University, indicates that people in the studies who drank high-calorie beverages did not eat fewer calories to compensate for their intake. If you eliminate two cans of soda a day, at 100 calories per can, that's 1,400 fewer calories you'll be consuming per week.
Tips and Warnings
- To lose two pounds a week, the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, recommends eating 500 fewer calories and burning off 500 calories each day. Be sure to calculate your calories throughout the day. If you wait until the end of the day, you can easily consume more than you planned to consume.
- You can lose up to two pounds a week if you drop 1,000 calories a day through eating and drinking less, plus exercise. Any more than that, and you may be burning lean muscle mass rather than excess fat.
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