The easiest weight-loss program is also the healthiest and most sensible: cut calories and burn some off through exercise. Many fad diets promise dramatic results in a short period of time but the bottom line is always taking in less calories than your body needs each day. When you do this, weight will steadily come off without too much deprivation. Severely restrictive diets can make you feel miserable and may be difficult to sustain long term.
Calories
One pound of body fat is equal to 3,500 calories, so you can lose a pound a week, every week, by simply shaving 500 calories per day off the number of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight. To figure out what that number is for you, multiply your body weight by 10 if you are a woman and 11 if you are a man. If your body requires 1,700 calories a day but you only consume 1,200 a day, you will begin to lose weight. If that sounds difficult, a 1-oz. serving of plain corn chips has about 147 calories and the same serving of plain potato chips has about 155. Most people can eliminate close to 500 calories a day just by eliminating unhealthy snacks.
Carbohydrates
Some diets advise restricting carbohydrates to lose weight on the theory that your body turns carbs to glucose for energy. Burning your fat for energy is your body's second choice. If you don't give it ample carbohydrates, it will burn your fat instead to keep you going. Low-carb diets limit your carbohydrate intake to anywhere between 50 and 150 g a day. If you're not a carb-lover, this might be an easy way for you to lose, but there are drawbacks. Carbohydrates tend to contain a fair amount of water content, so the initial pounds to lose will just be water weight, which comes back quickly if and when you resume your old eating habits. If you deprive yourself of the healthy carbohydrates found in fruits and vegetables, you also limit fiber content.
Exercise
If eliminating 500 calories a day from your diet is difficult for you, you can burn some of them away instead. In fact, given all the health benefits of regular activity, you should do this even if you're not trying to lose weight. Half an hour of high-impact aerobic activity can burn more than 200 calories per day, 1,400 in a week. Half an hour of low-impact aerobic activity daily can burn off approximately 160 calories per day, or more than 1,100 of the 3,500 calorie deficit you are trying to create each week. Strength training builds muscle, and the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism will be -- the daily calories your body needs to function and maintain its weight.
Lifestyle
Simple lifestyle changes can effortlessly burn away some of those 3,500 calories you need to get rid of each week to lose a pound. Any activity you engage in burns calories, from making your bed in the morning to walking your dog. If you find a way to do more of them, or if do them more energetically, you'll burn additional calories. You can burn more than 140 calories just mowing your lawn for half an hour.
References
- Mayo Clinic: Low-Carb Diet
- American College of Sports Medicine: Metabolism is Modifiable With the Right Lifestyle Changes
- Marquette General Health System: What is "Resting Metabolic Rate?"
- Mayo Clinic: Metabolism and Weight Loss --- How You Burn Calories
- CalorieLab: Chips Calorie Counter
- American Council on Exercise: Caloric Cost of Physical Activity
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