Whether you've got a lot of weight to lose or just a few pounds, getting started might seem intimidating. Building healthy new habits means coming face-to-face with the old habits that got you overweight in the first place, then persevering to change them. But you can do it if you're determined -- especially if you remember to keep things simple and stay focused on the basic principles of weight loss.
How it Happens
Calories are a measurement of energy. You take in energy in the form of food, then your body breaks it down and parcels it out to your cells for use as fuel. If there's any fuel that doesn't get used, it goes into storage as fat. In order to lose the fat, you must make your body burn more fuel than it's taking in. Your cells then have to use up the stored fuel, or fat. Burning more calories than you take in is known as a caloric deficit.
Choose Your Diet Tactics
Your body burns a certain number of calories by performing everyday maintenance and involuntary functions such as breathing and maintaining your heartbeat. This number is called your basal metabolic rate and can vary enormously depending on your genetics, age, gender, body composition and activity level. The calories you consume fuel this process and any additional activity you engage in throughout the day. You shouldn't starve yourself to establish a caloric deficit, because you'll deprive your body of the nutrients it needs to stay healthy. Instead, eat nutrient-dense foods such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables. You'll end up consuming fewer calories, but receiving more nutrients. Think of eating a well-balanced diet as switching from using a high volume of "regular" fuel to getting far better mileage with "premium."
Kick in the Burn
Although you can lose weight from diet alone, exercise will speed up your weight loss and help you create a strong, healthy body you can feel proud of. Aerobic exercise is the most efficient way of burning calories; aim for 60 to 90 minutes of aerobic exercise every day, with one day off a week for rest.
A well-rounded exercise program should also include twice-weekly strength training sessions to build muscle mass, which not only burns more calories, but also helps to shape the slim body you're discovering beneath the extra weight. Incorporate a brief stretching session into every workout to decrease soreness, increase flexibility and increase performance.
Types of Aerobic Exercise
Joining a gym -- if you actually use it to work out regularly -- gives you ready access to a variety of cardio machines, weight machines and group classes. But you can lose weight outside the gym, too. There are plenty of calorie-busting activities you can pursue for free once any initial gear investment is made, such as running, biking, walking, hiking and inline skating. You might also be able to use alternative exercise venues, such as swimming laps in a high school pool or attending a dance or martial arts class.
Slow and Steady
If a weight loss program offers quick, dramatic results that sound too good to be true, they probably are. Sustainable weight loss focuses on changing lifelong habits so that the weight doesn't come back. The types of changes made in dramatic weight loss programs are often hard to sustain. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that if you lose weight at the rate of one to two pounds a week instead of crash dieting, you're more likely to keep it off in the long run. So, instead of setting unsustainable sudden weight loss goals, aim for the rate the CDC recommends. Losing 1 lb. a week still adds up to more than 50 lbs. a year, and 2 lbs. a week yields an impressive total of 100 lbs. of weight lost in a year -- something anybody can be proud of.
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