The foremost focus of any diet that includes weight loss should be health. There is a healthy way in which to lose weight that is fast and effective. Healthy doesn't mean restrictive or tasteless, but it does mean embracing new habits and forsaking health-threatening choices. The healthy way to lose weight involves consistent weight loss by ridding your body of excess fat and waste. The healthy way to do that is with fruits, vegetables, green drinks and power foods.
Step 1
Consider what you are currently eating. Cut out all processed foods, as well as most meats and dairy products and stay away from caffeine, white sugars, white flours, artificial sweeteners, fast foods and sodas. Since it takes 3500 calories to equal one pound of body weight, foregoing fast foods will cut out 1200 calories per visit. Stop eating out three times a week at these places and you've already lost one pound! The Foundations of Wellness newsletter at UC Berkley suggests that dieters expand their range of food choices to include fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes. If you want meat in your diet, make it low-fat chicken breast or fish. The only dairy you should consider at this time is small amounts of real butter (not the fake stuff) and low-fat cheese.
Step 2
Start every day out right. Considering a big breakfast? Don't! Morning is when your body is cleansing itself of impurities and waste. One of the best things you can do is help your body while it is cleaning itself. Drink a large glass of lemon water--it's the perfect morning detox, creating an alkaline environment inside that will aid your body in ridding itself of harmful toxins. If you get hungry during the morning hours, snack on fresh fruit. Have a couple bananas, an apple or an orange. If it's watermelon season, go for the whole thing! Fruit is low in calories (30 - 70 calories per piece) and are high in water and fiber. By replacing the 300 calories of eggs and bacon with fruit, you've just cut your daily calorie intake by more than 200 calories.
Step 3
Eat lunch in the raw. It's lunch time and you're hungry, but focused on losing weight the healthy way. The best choice? Raw food. Raw foods are easy to digest and assist your body in losing weight because there are no chemicals or sugars to deal with. Choose a salad, raw veggies or green juice. Increasing the number of raw fruits and vegetables we eat is something we all need to do anyway. By eating raw foods until supper time, you will increase the nutrients in your diet while decreasing the calories drastically. If you get the munchies between lunch and supper, try a protein shake or a green drink, or snack on power foods such as a handful of walnuts and raisins or goji berries. Power foods are nature's way of packing a bundle of nutrition into tiny containers.
Step 4
Enjoy quick-exit foods for supper. Quick-exit foods are foods that your body recognizes, breaks down and uses immediately. Of course, vegetables and fruits are high on the list. Steamed broccoli, baked yams or butternut squash, broiled fish, and whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce are all simple foods that your body knows what to do with at a cellular level. Combine any of these options with a fresh salad and you've got a satisfying and healthy end-of-the-day meal. Natalia Rose, author of The Raw Food Detox Diet, says, "Simple foods, whether cooked or raw, in simple combinations, is the fastest, most effective way to cleanse and rejuvenate."
Step 5
Pay attention to food combining. One of the easiest and fastest ways to diet is knowing which whole foods to eat together and which to avoid combining. One quick rule of thumb is to always eat fruit alone--never with any other foods. Fruit digests quickly, and eating it with proteins or starches will slow the digestion of the fruit. This causes the fruit to ferment in the stomach and intestines, leading to bloating and gas.
Step 6
Stay the course. The average woman's daily caloric intake is 2000 per day. By replacing processed foods, white foods and fast foods with fruits, vegetables and whole foods, you're replacing empty calories with nutritional calories that will total approximately 1200 a day. At this rate you'll lose 15 pounds the healthy way in about three weeks. If you add 90 minutes of exercise each week, the 15 pounds will slide right off.
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