Healthy Weight Loss
If you’ve seen advertisements, you have seen plenty of products claiming that they can help you to lose 30 pounds in 30 days or 3 weeks. That much weight loss in that short a period of time is not healthy, despite the way it may appeal to you. Worst case scenario, you will send your body into shock. Best case scenario, your body will get used to whatever you’re doing and stop losing weight all together despite your best healthy efforts. Essentially, to lose this much weight in this short a time means that you are starving your body of essential calories. Your body will start holding onto the fat stores and eating away at your muscles to make up the difference. And many dieters go on yo yo diets, trying something and maybe losing tons of weight, maybe losing none, and then going back to their normal and livable eating habits and gaining it all back.
So for starters, don’t starve yourself. You don’t have to be anorexic to basically be starving yourself. If you are eating more than about 1000 calories per day on a regular basis, that would count as basic starvation and likely severe malnutrition. You need to eat in order to keep your metabolism and other fat burning mechanisms in working order.
Second, eat regular meals. If you eat 6 small meals per day, that is actually better than eating 3 bigger meals per day. A portion is about the size of your fist, and if you regularly give your body the time and ability to process each set of calories, you will do considerably better.
Third, don’t assume that diet or exercise alone will do the job. You need to use both to lose a considerable amount of weight. If you eat really well but always sit around on the couch, you are not even burning off the calories of a healthy diet. If you work out but eat crap, you can only burn off so many calories and are counteracting all your hard work. Unless you are Michael Phelps, you are not going to burn off that many calories per day.
Finally, drink plenty of water. Most of your body’s weight is water weight. But without adequate portions of water weight, you will be chronically dehydrated, eat more, and actually gain more fat, which is much harder to get rid of.
If you use a good plan and set realistic goals, you can expect to lose about 2 pounds per week, more if you are morbidly obese. After all, one pound accounts for a greater percentage of your total weight if you weigh 100 pounds as opposed to 300 pounds. This basically helps you to burn more fat, retain healthy results, and maintain your weight loss long into the future. Depending on how bad your eating habits, simply cutting out soda or cutting out fried foods for example could make a significant difference on its own.