Carrying around extra body weight can affect you both physically and mentally. Along with being damaging to your joints, excess fat on the body can lead to dangerous medical conditions, including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Mentally being overweight can prevent you from being active and social and lead to a lack of self-esteem. Losing weight can dramatically change your life for the better.
Step 1
Diet to lose weight. To change your life, you first need to shed the excess pounds, and the place to start is with your diet. Eliminate foods from your meals that can easily cause weight gain, such as saturated fats, trans fats and added sugars. Add healthy foods that will help boost your metabolism, such as lean proteins, fruits, vegetables and whole-grain complex carbohydrates.
Step 2
Exercise to help you reduce your body weight. Working out will help you burn body fat and calories, and build muscle mass, which will boost your metabolism. The elliptical trainer will burn just under 300 calories in 30 minutes, according to "Fitness" magazine, or if you prefer to be outdoors, jogging for 30 minutes will burn 324 calories.
Step 3
Engage in strength training two to three times per week on nonconsecutive days, in addition to cardio. Strength training will help to tone and sculpt your body while you build muscle. Perform a series of exercises that works the entire body, such as squats, abdominal crunches, chest presses, lat pulldowns, bicep curls and tricep extensions.
Step 4
Gain confidence as you start to lose the extra body weight. When you start to see the results of your hard work and effort, your self-esteem should improve, and you may have a whole new outlook on life. Having confidence in yourself gives you a freedom to try new things or to go after goals that you only dreamed about accomplishing. Your optimistic outlook may even allow you to switch careers, if you so choose; write a book; learn a foreign language; travel to an exotic, distant land; or take up an exciting new hobby.
Step 5
Put your enthusiasm and increased energy to use by being more active. One of the benefits of losing weight is that your energy levels will rise, which will allow you to do different physical activities. This would be a great time to try a new sport, such as tennis or golf, or if you've ever had dreams of training for a marathon, your time may be right now.
Things You'll Need
- Fruit
- Vegetables
- Lean protein
- Whole-grain carbohydrates
- Elliptical trainer
- Running shoes
- Weight training equipment
Member Comments