Regardless of whether you are 10 lbs. overweight or 100, it is unlikely that you gained that weight in a short time. Gaining weight takes time, and, unfortunately, so does losing weight, because you need to eat and as long as you need food, there is the opportunity to overindulge.
Healthy Weight Loss
The Centers for Disease Control recommends losing weight at a rate of 1 to 2 lbs. per week, saying that a slow, steady weight loss leads toward successful weight maintenance over time. While losing weight at this rate may seem slow, losing 2 lbs. per week is equivalent to over 100 lbs. in a year, which is a significant amount of weight. Consider that 1 lb. of fat is equal to 3,500 calories. It takes time to remove that from your body in a healthy manner.
Deitary Changes
You can start losing weight by reducing the number of calories you eat daily. Eliminating 500 calories from your food intake will help you lose 1 lb. per week. This can be accomplished by eliminating several small items. One 12-oz. can of soda has 150 calories, a tall latte with skim milk contains 100 calories and a small order of French fries has 231 calories.
Replacing foods that are high in fat and calories with a balanced diet will provide nutrients your body needs while also reducing calories. Starving yourself to reduce calories for faster weight loss is unhealthy and causes your metabolism to slow down to conserve energy, which causes weight loss to stall.
Exercise
Exercise helps burn calories as well. If you haven't been exercising, start slowly. Walking is an excellent form of exercise that is easy to do, low cost and low impact. If you weigh 200 lbs. and walk 3 mph for one hou,r you will burn almost 300 calories. Over the course of seven days, you'll have burned over 2,000 calories.
By increasing your walking speed to 4 mph you'll burn over 450 calories, increasing your weekly burn to 3,150. If you exercise along with reducing your calorie intake by 500 calories per day, you will lose nearly 2 lbs. per week.
Basal Metabolic Rate
The unsung hero in effective weight loss is your basal metabolic rate, or BMR. This is the predetermined number of calories you need per day simply to survive. Use your BMR as a guide to a healthy number of calories you need per day based on your activity level.
Drastically cutting calories or exercising too hard or long to burn more calories to lose weight faster can dramatically and negatively affect your health. Losing 1 to 2 lbs. per week is realistic, attainable and the healthiest way to lose weight.
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