Fast-working Plans For Weight Loss

Once you decide you want to lose weight, you might want to lose as much as possible as fast as you can. With so many extreme diets around, it seems as though anything is possible if you have the motivation to stay on track. Keeping the weight off once you've reached your goal can be difficult if you've lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time. Changing your diet and exercise habits can help you drop weight and keep it off.

The Facts

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the ideal amount of weight to lose per week is 1 or 2 lbs. Each pound of fat equals 3,500 calories, so if you want to lose 1 lb per week, you need to reduce your caloric intake by 500 calories per day, or 1,000 calories per day to lose 2 lbs per week. The best way to achieve this is through a mixture of exercise and a healthy diet.

Exercise

Adults need at least 30 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise at least five days per week, recommends the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. Thirty minutes of brisk walking would burn up to 200 calories, depending on your speed and weight. The Mayo Clinic reports that adding strength training to your workout routine can help prevent muscle loss and build lean muscle. Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue, so toning up by weightlifting could increase the calories you burn when doing aerobic exercise.

Diet

A healthy diet for weight loss should contain carbohydrates for energy and protein for muscle growth. The Mayo Clinic recommends getting between 45 percent and 65 percent of your daily calories from carbohydrates such as vegetables, fruit and whole grains. Between 10 percent and 35 percent of your daily calories should come from protein sources such as legumes, lean meats, seafood, dairy products, nuts and seeds. Allow 20 percent to 25 percent of your daily calories to come from "good" fats such as oily fish, avocados or nuts. Avoid processed foods containing too much sodium, and foods containing trans and saturated fats. Complex carbohydrates such as whole grain bread and vegetables help you stay full longer on fewer calories, which aids weight loss.

Benefits

One of the benefits of losing weight through diet and exercise is a reduction of the risk of health problems such as heart disease, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis and some types of cancer, according to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. Fast-working weight loss plans such as detox diets can help kick start your weight loss.

Warnings

The U.S. National Library of Medicine's online database, Medline Plus, warns that so-called "fad diets" are not always nutritionally safe, and that while they help you lose weight quickly, the majority of the weight is water. Upon rehydration, the body could gain back the lost pounds quite easily. A fad diet might recommend cutting calories below 1,200 per day for women and 1,500 for men, which can lead to malnutrition. Any diet that restricts certain food groups, such as carbohydrates, can have adverse effects on your body. Check with your doctor before starting any such diet, or just avoid them altogether.