For weight loss to be sustainable, it is best to have a plan that is moderate, but consistent. The most effective way to lose weight and keep it off is to incorporate exercise with calorie reduction. The goal is to lose no more than one to two pounds per week. To lose one pound of fat, you need a deficit of 3,500 calories. If you increase your caloric expenditure by 250 calories per day and reduce your daily caloric intake by 250 calories, you should lose about one pound per week.
Exercise
Step 1
Perform 30 to 60 minutes of cardiovascular exercise most days of the week. If you are new to exercise, start slow and add time or distance gradually. Start with 10 minutes of cardiovascular activity per day and build up to 60 minutes. Also, incorporate more physical activity in your daily routine. Taking the stairs and parking farther away from your destination to create long walks can add up. Get yourself a quality pair of athletic shoes appropriate for the activities you plan to do.
Step 2
Add strength training. Lean muscle tissue is often lost as a result of chronic dieting, but strength training can halt or reverse this process. Muscle is active tissue that enhances metabolism, even at rest. Incorporate two to three sessions per week, working all the major muscle groups. If you are unsure of an appropriate routine, consult a personal trainer.
Step 3
Increase the intensity. As your body adapts to your exercise regimen, increase the intensity of your activity. Interval training is an effective way to burn excess calories. A study in the Journal of Applied Physiology shows that interval training promotes fat metabolism. Try performing interval training for a quarter or half of your exercise session. For example, after a 5- to 10-minute warm-up, alternate one minute of fast-paced walking with one minute of moderately paced walking.
Diet
Step 1
Drop 250 to 500 calories from your daily food and beverage intake. In many cases, simple changes can accomplish this without feeling any sort of deprivation. Reduce the amount of salad dressing you use, choose lower-fat meats, reduce or eliminate fried foods and choose low-fat dairy products. The calories saved from reducing or eliminating excessive fat calories can easily add up to 250 calories per day. Also look at the calories consumed from beverages and determine if any modifications can be made in your drink selections.
Step 2
Keep a food journal. A recent study conducted at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research found that those who kept a food journal lost twice as much weight compared with those who didn't. The key is consistency. Keep the food journal with you and write down everything you eat as you go through your day. The success of the food journal seems to come from the accountability factor that occurs from recording everything you eat.
Step 3
Stop eating when you're satisfied, not when you're full. In addition to writing down the food you eat, use your food journal to write down your degree of hunger before you started your meal and the degree of fullness following the meal. Excessive hunger can slow the metabolism, and overeating leads to an increase in daily calories. Try to discover any patterns.
Tips and Warnings
- Consider this a lifestyle change. A weight loss diet tends to have a beginning and an end, whereas this plan should be viewed as a permanent plan to eat healthier. Also, give yourself a chance to see progress. Limit weighing yourself to once per week and check body composition no more than once each month.
- If you have any health conditions, check with your doctor before launching any high-intensity exercise regimens.
Things You'll Need
- Exercise shoes
- Food journal
- Scale
- Body composition analyzer (optional)
References
- "Journal of Applied Physiology"; "Two weeks of high-intensity aerobic interval training increase the capacity for fat oxidation during exercise in women"; Jason Talanian et al; 2006
- "American Journal of Preventive Medicine"; "Weight Loss During the Intensive Intervention Phase of the Weight-Loss Maintenance Trail"; Jack Hollis et al; August 2008
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