You want to lose weight, and you want to lose it fast. Crash diet advocates assure you you'll lose 10 pounds a week or even more if you eat the hot new fat-burning food or rigorously restrict calories. But the wise dieter has a different definition of "fast" that conforms with what medical and fitness experts recommend. For healthy, permanent weight loss, aim to lose no more than 2 pounds a week.
Setting Goals
Information from the Weight-control Information Network, or WIN, indicates that losing more than 3 pounds every week is not only harmful to your body, but it's not likely to be lasting. Particularly dangerous are fad diets that promote eating fewer than 800 calories. According to WIN, a frequent complication of diets very low in calories is gallstones. Crash diets also cause you to lose water weight and muscle mass, yielding the illusion of success. Weight loss of 2 pounds a week might not be the fast results you hoped to achieve, but by taking a moderate approach -- while adjusting your diet to your liking and engaging in sports and physical activities you enjoy -- your final results are far more likely to stay with you for life.
Calorie Cutting Made Simple
To kick-start your diet the healthy way, the Mayo Clinic suggests trimming the calories you get from snacks and treats by forgoing them entirely or choosing a lower-calorie equivalent. A 3-oz. bag of ranch-flavored tortilla chips weighs in at a hefty 426 calories, compared to 3.5 cups of air-popped popcorn, which has only 100. Sugary beverages are yet another way calories creep into your diet. Harvard Medical School indicates that 12 ounces of cranberry juice cocktail contains 200 calories, even more than a cola-flavored soft drink, which has 150. The consumer advocates at the Center for Science in the Public Interest point out that the 20-ounce mocha frappuccino you enjoy each morning can contain a walloping 650 calories, compared to the 12 calories you get from a regular cup of black coffee with one packet of sugar.
Reduce Portions
Successful weight loss may require changing the way you look at food -- literally. If your eyes are bigger than your stomach whenever you dine out, blame this on overly generous portions served by restaurants. A portion is how much you can eat in one sitting, and it quite different from a serving size. According to the Mayo Clinic, a 3-ounce serving of meat is only the size of a deck of playing cards. A side serving of pasta is around the size of a hockey puck, or 1/2 cup. When dining out buffet style, put smaller portions on your plate and only go back for seconds if you're still hungry. Take to-go orders out of the bag and put them on a plate to see just how much you're actually eating. And don't pressure yourself into finishing everything on your plate, says the Mayo Clinic. Share your order with a friend, or take home a doggie bag.
Calorie Counting
Losing weight still is all about the calories. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, research gauging the success of various popular weight loss plans such as the Atkins, Ornish and Zone diets suggests that the form of the calories you get in your food matters only insofar that it helps you stick with your eating plan. Choose a reduced-calorie diet that appeals to your palate. If you gravitate to protein, choose a diet higher in protein, advises Harvard. Similarly, if you believe that carbs or fat are your enemy, choose a diet that's low in these nutrients. But keep in mind that ultimately, it's about the numbers: a pound of body fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories. To lose the 1 to 2 pounds of weight recommended by medical experts, you must create a calorie deficit of between 3,500 and 7,000 calories every week through diet and exercise.
Exercise Daily
If you have a lot of weight to lose, one of the most essential lifestyle changes you can undergo is to make exercise a daily habit. Physical activity burns the extra calories you can't by trimming them from your daily meals. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, you'll experience the best results if you exercise for more than 250 minutes a week at a moderate intensity. However, WIN points out that you might need 300 minutes of exercise each week or even more to meet your goals. Walking, water aerobics and bicycling are activities from which you can choose -- pick the one you enjoy the most so you'll stick with your fitness plan. And remember to add twice-weekly strength-training exercises to your fitness plan. Strength training builds strong muscles and bones and increases your amount of lean muscle mass. Lean muscle burns more calories even when your body isn't in motion.
Other Information
The quickest way to sabotage your weight loss efforts is to set goals you cannot achieve. Aspiring to lose 25 pounds is a reasonable goal; however, wanting to do so in four weeks is not. The Mayo Clinic recommends focusing on short-term goals -- the things you do every day that count toward your weight loss goals, such as forgoing snacks or putting an hour of walk time on the treadmill every day. Journal your progress and setbacks. Approach your weight loss plan with a hefty dose of realism, and plan on losing no more than 2 pounds a week.
References
- Harvard School of Public Health: The Best Diet Is the One You'll Follow
- Weight-control Information Network: Weight Loss and Nutrition Myths
- Weight-control Information Network: Physical Activity and Weight Control
- Center for Science in the Public Interest: Good Cup, Bad Cup
- Harvard School of Public Health: How Sweet Is It?
- American College of Sports Medicine: ACSM Position Stand on Physical Activity and Weight Loss
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