It's tough to wade through the glutted market of weight loss products and programs available, especially since there's no scientific research or guarantee backing that most of them will be effective. For efficiency's sake, it's best to go with a proven weight loss method. According to the National Institutes of Health, there's only one, and that's to burn more calories than you consume through diet, exercise or both.
Diet vs Exercise
MayoClinic.com preventive medicine specialist Donald Hensrud, M.D., states that dietary changes promote weight loss more successfully than exercise. That makes sense, since the number of calories you can burn through exercise varies based on your weight, the activity you do and genetic factors, but you remain in control of how many calories you can cut from your daily diet.
Cutting Calories
To lose just 1 lb., you need to burn or save a total of 3,500 calories. You can drop 1 lb. per week by reducing your daily diet by 500 calories or 2 lb. per week by slashing 1,000 calories from what you eat every day. It's necessary to be accurate to get the best results, however. First, figure out how many calories you consume normally. Keep a detailed food journal for several days, and record everything you eat and how much you ate. If possible, use a scale to measure food weights. Then, with the aid of an online calorie counter, find your calorie totals for those days and average them to find about how many calories you eat in a day.
Very Low-Calorie Diets
If you are obese or struggle to maintain the motivation necessary to reduce calories on your own, it can be helpful to try a medically supervised, very low-calorie diet, during which you'll likely eat 800 or fewer calories per day. Following a very low-calorie diet is an efficient way to lose weight, since it enables you to drop up to 5 lbs. per week. However, the Weight Control Information Network points out that the diets may not be suitable for people who have a body mass index of less than 30 or for people who are 50 and older.
Other Options
If you're not able to cut calories or participate in a medically supervised weight loss diet, you do have other options. Consistent, vigorous exercise is scientifically proven to aid gradual weight loss, as long as you create a calorie deficit by burning more calories than you eat. Gastric bypass surgery and other weight loss surgeries are also potential options if you want to lose weight quickly. Surgery still calls for using diet and exercise, but the NIH does state that it's common to drop 10 to 20 lbs. per month following a procedure.
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