Fast weight loss
There’s no doubt that many people need to lose a few pounds. Look around where people gather, you’ll notice the fat. Look in the mirror, unfortunately you’ll likely see it there too. If you’ve made fast weight loss your goal, keep a few simple things in mind to take off the pounds quickly and safely.
Skipping meals is one of the first things people often try when they want to lose weight. It makes sense, right, cut out the calories by eating one less meal. Fewer calories means losing weight, right? Yes, but skipping meals is a mistake, not the right way to reduce calories. When you skip meals your body goes into starvation mode. It starts to retain fat to counteract what it perceives as a shortage of food. When you skip meals you’ll end up hungrier at the next meal. This could lead to binge eating. Skipping meals is the worst of both worlds that results in gaining even more weight. Don’t skip meals.
Have a plan on how much to eat. Portion control is just as important as eating the right food. Too much of even a healthy food still results in weight gain. Portion control isn’t easy when large portions are so common. Restaurants and even most people in home cooking serve portions far larger than needed.
Sources such as the FDA list recommended daily allowances. If you must eat out, keep portion size in mind. Don’t eat the full portion served at the restaurant, or order less than a full meal, such as soup and a salad.
Eat more whole grain foods, skip the white grains such as white bread, sugar and white rice. Whole grains are rich in nutrients and low in fat. The fiber in whole grains will make you feel fuller faster and longer. Finally, whole grains add nutrients that many people lack in their diet.
Consume more water. Replace juice and soda with water since that juice and soda adds 90,000 calories to an average person’s diet every year. Drink water between meals too. The goal is 8 glasses of water each day. It seems like a lot, but it’s not. Drinking water will also promote health in general by keeping you well hydrated and cool.
In order to maintain proper blood sugar eat healthy snacks between meals since the body needs food every three to four hours. Eating healthy snacks, such as fruits, helps control eating at meal times.
Fast weight loss is realistic with some knowledge and planning. Keep these things in mind and pretty soon you’ll see a slimmer you when you look into a mirror.
Three day diet trap
In 1985 the famed three day diet first came on the scene. It boasted creation of a “specific metabolic reaction” to cause quick weight loss and the system to be cleansed. This reaction has never been proven or even attempted to be explained. The diet is to be followed for only 3 days, with an off period of about 5 days in between diet times. All the versions of this diet share in common specific steps that must be followed and foods that must be eaten in order for the diet to work.
What better way to blame the dieter when it doesn’t work than “you botched the formula.”
Breakfast on the first day begins with coffee (no sugar), one half a grapefruit, and a piece of toast with 1 Tbsp peanut butter. Lunch is a can of tuna, a piece of toast, and black coffee. For dinner it’s 3 ounces of chicken or lean meat, a cup of green beans, one cup of carrots, one apple, and one cup of regular vanilla ice cream. The other two days are pretty much the same but with some substitutions such as hot dogs instead of lean meat. Supposedly it’s possible to lose as much as 10 pounds in only three days.
Baloney! How’s that for specific? And no baloney is not part of the diet. As stated the metabolic reaction has never been examined much less proven. Any weight loss would be mostly water loss due to a lack of carbs which help the body retain water. That could lead to dehydration.
Once the three days end the weight will return, primarily because it’s mostly water. But also because any weight lost from the lack of calories will be regained when the starving diet victim returns to normal, or in this case heavier than normal, eating.
Deprive the body of water over three day cycles enough times and a person could develop kidney damage, dehydration, or a host of other dangerous conditions.
The 3 day diet is best treated as a no day diet. In other words, don’t do it.
Quickest way to lose weight
Diet and exercise combined are king, together they represent the quickest way to lose weight. How do you burn more calories than you take in?
There’s no need to starve, and in fact periods of starvation such as missing a meal could lead to more weight gain when the body enters “starvation” mode, not to mention starving yourself could cause serious damage to your body. Patience is a virtue when trying to lose weight, as with many endeavors.
Combining a healthy diet with exercise is a long term plan for the quickest way to lose weight. And the best part is you won’t regain the weight.
Diet means the everyday way you eat, not a short term fix for losing weight. Foods from each food group are part of a healthy, balanced diet. From there adjust down calories during periods when some weight loss is needed.
Sounds like a big change, huh? It doesn’t have to be. You may already eat most of the foods needed for a well balanced diet, just not in the right portions.
For many people it’s a simple matter of cutting down portion sizes to move from bad eating to good eating. Even the chocolate cake or cookies can fit into a well balanced diet, if eaten in small quantities. The three no no white foods - white bread, white rice, and sugar - can easily be replaced in your diet.
Eating whole grain bread instead of white bread, brown rice instead of white rice, and fruits instead of sugary foods are quick changes that don’t require eating much less. .
The key to maintaining a healthy diet is planning. When you fail to plan you miss meals, that leads to binge eating. When you fail to plan you often end up at the mercy of a fast food restaurant or a friend whose cooking leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to healthy foods.
Plan meals in advance, including for occasions like parties and social gatherings. It only takes a few questions to find out what’s being served and plan the days other meals accordingly to not break the bank for calories. Part of the process is understanding that sometimes the plan will fail.
Don’t let a failure discourage you. One cheated meal doesn’t mean the whole diet, remember it’s an every day for the rest of your life diet not just a few days diet, has failed.
Seven days a week exercise for at least 30 minutes. Little things like parking further from the office can add extra activity that makes a huge difference.
Combine the healthy every day diet with exercise for the quickest way to lose weight.
Quick fat loss
The American Heart Association says that adopting healthy eating habits permanently, rather than impatiently pursuing crash diets in hopes of losing unwanted pounds in a few days through fad quick weight loss plans.
Many of these fad diets, such as the notorious and outright silly Cabbage Soup Diet, will undermine your health, cause physical discomfort (abdominal pain and flatulence (gas) ) and lead to the ping-pong effect of gaining weight soon after losing it. In other words the risks aren’t worth the rewards.
One food or one type of food is generally overemphasized with fad quick weight loss diets. They violate the first principle of good nutrition which is to eat a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods.
If you are able to stay on such a diet for more than a few weeks, you may develop nutritional deficiencies, because no one type of food has all the elements a human being needs for good health. The Cabbage Soup Diet is one example. The myth of this diet is that cabbage soup is some sort of weight loss potion.
The diet supposedly helps heart patients lose 10-17 pounds in seven days prior to surgery. On top of not working to lose weight, this diet lacks essential nutrients and can cause serious problems. There are no magic beans, or magic cabbages, or miracle foods for weight loss and good nutrition. That’s why you should eat moderate amounts from all the food groups rather than cutting out everything but a cabbage and water.
The second principle of good nutrition is that eating should be enjoyable. You think eating only cabbages every day is enjoyable?. These diets are so monotonous and boring that it’s almost impossible to stay on them for long periods. Consider a week on the Cabbage Soup Diet.
By Wednesday you’d dread meal time, and by Friday you’d never again want to hear about a cabbage much less eat the soup. If you make it to Sunday you might die of a heart attack before you ever again tasted real food.
There are many other ways fad diets aren’t good ones. Many don’t encourage exercise, for example, walking 30 minutes most or all days of the week. Physical activity helps maintain weight loss, while physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. When you hear a diet that mentions “no need for exercise” run for the hills, or at least run on a treadmill.
Quick weight loss sounds great. It is possible. Just don’t fall for tricks or gimmicks that might end up ruining your health.
Weight Loss Plans that work
Lots of people need to lose weight, and lots of them are always searching for diets that work. The trick isn’t really finding a diet plan that works, but rather locating a diet to which a person can stick.
The diet industry is very large. With books, diet food programs, trainers and nutritionists, spas, and all the other elements of the health and diet industry a lot of money, over 46.8 billion dollars in 2005, is made not from people becoming healthy or losing weight, but rather from people attempting to become healthy or lose weight.
Because the money comes from repeat business, the focus is surely on the yo-yo reality of bad living followed by short periods of diets and health programs.
Here’s a diet that sheds pounds. Drink only water, eat only 1000 calories each day, and combine it with 30 minutes of aerobic activity 5 days each week.
It’s a sure thing you’ll drop pounds. Only two small things. The first is that cravings are likely to foil the diet.
Sooner or later, particularly after intense work outs, those 1000 calories won’t be enough to satisfy. First it’s a potato chip or piece of cake, then it’s an extra hot dog and the whole bag of chips, and then the diet is history.
The second issue is what happens after the diet is over? What happens when the weight is shed? What, you’ll go right back to eating the same way you ate before the diet? Guess what, then the weight will return.
Next spring, or next fancy dress occasion, or next vacation, or simply the next time you look into a looking glass on the way out of the shower it will be once again be diet time.
The best diet is one making a change to overall diet, forever. A lifestyle change to healthier eating habits and more exercise is the best way to lose weight and keep off the unwanted pounds.
The Sonoma Diet, created by Connie Guttersen, focuses on ten power foods. The power foods are almonds, bell peppers, blueberries, broccoli, grapes, olive oil, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes and whole grains, eaten in conjunction with the diet of the Sonoma country, which includes Asian, Latin American and Mediterranean influences.
The diet is full of real food, and real portions, combined into enjoyable dishes to help encourage someone to stay with it .
Want a diet that works? Shift the focus away from a short term diet to permanent eating habits that go along with an overall healthy and active lifestyle. That’s the way to not only lose the weight, but to avoid gaining it in the first place.
