You simply ate more calories than you burned up when you gained your weight. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, calls that a shift in your caloric balance equation. Eat too much and exercise too little, and you will gain weight. Eat less, exercise more, and you will lose it. Every pound of fat stores 3,500 calories, say Mayo Clinic nutritionists. Burn 1,000 extra calories every day to lose 2 lbs. a week, or 32 lbs. in four months.
Set Up
Step 1
Talk to your doctor about your ideal weight, weight loss goal and exercise plans. Evaluate your exercise tolerance, considering your exercise history and any other condition you may have.
Step 2
Buy your exercise gear, shoes, clothing and equipment, based on your choice of workouts from the exercise-calorie burning chart and your doctor's advice.
Step 3
Stock up your pantry. Purchase enough of the right foods and beverages for your diet. Discard everything you know you should not eat. Make your choices, based on your food-calorie chart and consistent with your doctor's advice.
Step 4
Prepare a Food and Exercise Log to record all your daily diet and exercise activities. Make spaces for total daily calorie intake, exercise calories burned up for the day, your daily weight and notes and observations about problems--what worked or did not work--and ideas to improve your next day's progress. Record your exact weight, in pounds and ounces, before kicking off your diet.
Step 5
Announce a kick-off date to your doctor and your friends. Make it public to safeguard against giving up. Gather a support team, and ask them to hold you accountable for following through on your diet.
Kick Off
Step 1
Eat a good breakfast of only acceptable foods in proper amounts on Day 1. Use your grocery and calorie chart, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Nutrient Database, to prepare your food. Follow a meal plan for the rest of the day that gives you the right calories and nutrition. Record your calorie count totals in your Food and Exercise Log at each meal so you do not forget anything by the end of the day.
Step 2
Begin your exercise plan on Day 1. Use an exercise-calorie burning chart, for instance the Mayo Clinic's "Calories Burned in 1-Hour" tables, to calculate and record totals in your Food and Exercise Log.
Step 3
Weigh at the end of Day 1. Record your exact weight. Calculate your weight loss progress toward your goal.
Step 4
Record any observations, insights or problems noted on Day 1 in your Food and Exercise Log. Use this as a resource to help you improve every day.
Step 5
Repeat Step 1 through Step 4, each day from Day 2 through the last day of the fourth month.
Tips and Warnings
- Cleveland Clinic nutrition and exercise specialists say most weight loss plans rely on a a daily intake of 1,200 to 1,500 calories, which is lower than a regular 2,000-calorie-a-day-diet, or higher if you exercise strenuously. Combined with high exercise levels, sufficient to burn 1,000 a day in excess of your intake, you can burn away daily food calories and excess body fat.
Things You'll Need
- Exercise calorie-burning chart
- Food-calorie chart
- Healthy diet grocery list
- Scale
- Log book
- Exercise clothing
- Exercise shoes
- Exercise equipment
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