What is the Best Way to Lose Weight?

 What is the Best Way to Lose Weight?

“What is the best way to lose weight?” is the burning question on the minds of millions who choose to lose those extra few pounds as their New Year’s resolution. We’d all like to look slimmer and healthier. It’s a self-survival instinct built into our DNA. The advantages of staying fit and healthy are just too important to ignore.

In many ways, losing weight is like a military battle. There are two major strategies that you can choose to adopt. You could try the shock and awe technique which involves flinging your entire arsenal at the enemy hoping to overwhelm him within days.

Keep in mind that people who choose to crash diet do exactly that…crash.

Unfortunately, the problem with this approach is that it very rarely works. You might lose weight initially, but most of the weight is bound to come back (with a vengeance) once you stop which inevitably happens.

The second approach to winning the battle with weight loss is adopting a patient approach to the problem. Building a sustainable battle plan and sticking to it. This is the best way to lose weight.
By making certain healthy lifestyle changes, you will not only lose weight, you’ll be able to keep it off. So what are the best ways of losing weight? Well, the following are some universally accepted tips that you simply can’t ignore.

REDUCE YOUR DAILY CALORIE INTAKE

If you’re serious about weight loss then you simply must change your current eating habits. Until you do so, you’ll find it that much harder to lose weight.

When it comes to weight loss, the enemy is calories. After a meal, your body converts the calories that it needs into fuel and then stores the rest. The body requires at least 1,200-1,500 calories to carry out its everyday activities.

Your mission (now that you’ve chosen to accept it) is simple. In order to lose weight, you’ll need to ensure that you’re eating just enough food to fuel your body. This way, your body will be forced to turn to its fat reserves to make up the deficit.

Reducing your daily calorie intake doesn’t mean that you need to starve. In fact, it’s possible to eat five meals during the day without ever going hungry. To achieve this, you’ll need to change your diet to healthier foods.

Eat more fruits, vegetable and whole grain meals. Complex carbs take a lot longer to digest and do not have as much calories as processed foods.

Avoid refined foods. They’re stripped of most of their nutrients and contain nothing but carbs. Instead of eating a biscuit or chocolate as a snack, try eating a fruit instead. You’ll lose weight faster. You can also start a food journal to track what you eat daily. If you reduce your daily calorie intake by 500 calories, you could lose as much as 8 pounds in a month.

DRINK LOTS OF WATER

How much water do you drink every day? Water plays an invaluable role in your body’s metabolism. This is important because you lose weight faster with an elevated metabolism.

Many people sometimes mistake the body’s thirst demands as signs of hunger. The next time you crave a snack, try drinking water instead. Water is filling and contains no calories. A good tip is to drink water before every meal. Statistics show that people who drink water before a meal tend to eat less. Drinking water also keeps your metabolism active, burning more calories.

Instead of drinking fizzy drinks and sugary beverages, drink water. Without the surplus calories, you’ll be able to lose weight at a much faster rate.

EAT REGULAR MEALS AND SMALLER PORTIONS

Instead of three large meals, break it into 5-6 smaller ones. Remember the aim is to provide your body with just enough calories for what it needs. Eating a large meal will leave your body flushed with more calories than it actually needs. It’ll also slow down your metabolism which is why many people go to sleep after a heavy meal.

Don’t skip meals. Starving yourself is the worst possible way to lose weight. Your body will fight back by holding on to the fat that it already has. Do not forget to eat breakfast. An early breakfast is the best way to kick-start your metabolism. Eating breakfast will also ensure that you have enough energy during the day. Statistics show that most people who skip breakfast end up overeating later on in the day.

DON’T EAT AT ALL – FASTING WEIGHT LOSS

Ok this goes against what I just said above but there’s a lot of research going on into how well fasting works with weight loss. I’ve actually been testing out a modified version of Eat Stop Eat, which I think is well researched and thought out.

Here’s an alternative to the eating regularly plan lined out above. If you do decide to go the fasting route I would suggest that you be on an exercise plan to really kick your metabolism into gear.

The goal is to only eat during an 8 hour time frame, preferably starting in the middle of the day. You want to eat 40% of your calories during your first meal. Load up on coffee with sweeteners if you need something to keep you going.

The rest of your meals can be spread out during the 8 hour window with your last meal being higher in slow absorbing proteins like casein which is found in cottage cheese or alternatively lean meat. You should also be eating some kind of greens and add an omega fatty acid supplement to the mix or olive oil.

To really kick your metabolism into overdrive workout prior to your first meal. Prior to your workout you should be taking a BCAA (branched chain amino acids) supplement. I just started on this diet routing myself to see if it really works but I have been told by a few natural body builders that they use this method and get excellent results.

Your goal should be a 16 hour fasting period each day and make sure to eat lots of fruits and vegetables with your meals.

PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION FOR DIETERS ON THE GO

If you’re like me you don’t have a lot of time to be preparing meals and store bought healthy frozen meals just don’t cut it.

They’re typically loaded with tons of sodium which causes water weight gain and gives you that bloated look.

There is an alternative.

What is it?

…freshly cooked prepared meals delivered to your home.

Many companies sell them like eDiets, Jenny Craig, Diet-to-go, etc. There is one company that I’ve been using off and on now for a good year and a half.

It’s Diet-to-Go.

So why did I pick them?

Well, for one reason they have great prices. If you compare it to what you would spend at a store, it comes out to around the same price and that’s not counting what you end up throwing away in your fridge.

The other reasons are because it’s fresher and better tasting than frozen dinners. Not to mention healthier.

They have a good selection of meals with 3 variations: low-carb, low-fat, and low-sodium.

So, if you’re strapped for time and you’re looking for a good alternative to cooking meals or buying frozen meals give diet to go a try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

This is one of the best ways to lose weight for people who just don’t have the time for following a diet.

EXERCISE MORE

Changing your eating habits will reduce the amount of calories coming into your system but exercising will boost the amount of calories that you burn during the day allowing you to lose weight faster. The amount of calories that you burn will depend on the exercise that you do.

For instance, you can burn as much as 900 calories a day by running for 60 minutes while you can burn 400 calories for walking for the same period.

To get the most out of your exercise routine, you need to exercise at your target heart rate which is an aerobic zone that falls between 50 % and 80% of your maximum heart rate. An easy way of calculating your maximum heart rate is to subtract your calendar age from 220.

Ok now that I got the textbook exercise answer out of the way, what exercises work best to lose weight?

I have yet to find anything that works better than weight training.

If you’re a woman you’re probably thinking something along the lines that it’s going to make you look bulky or bigger.

Listen up women…it’s not gonna happen.

You are not designed to get big and muscular. The only way that’s going to happen is by either a) you body build professionally or b) you do steroids.

If you want my honest recommendation on the best exercises to lose weight you have two options.

Option 1: Move Some Iron!

Bench Press
Dead lifts
Squats
Chin-ups (palms facing you shoulder width apart)
Pull-ups (palms facing away slightly wider than shoulders)

For simplicity I’m going to give you a simple routine. Workout 3 days a week and do each exercise twice during the week. Your goal should be to constantly be adding more weight to increase your strength and to be pushing each set to the point where you can’t do another one.

Prior to starting get on the treadmill or bike for 5-10 minutes to get you warmed up.

The reps and sets should look something like this.

3 Sets – Set 1 (6-8 reps at heavy weight), Set 2 (8-10 reps at slightly lower weight), Set 3 (10-12 reps at even lower weight)

Make sure when you start lifting weights that you do a warm up set. And if you’re not familiar with these exercises have someone show you proper form so you don’t hurt yourself.

I guarantee that if you focus on getting stronger with every workout that you will start leaning up so fast that you won’t believe it. Working out with the focus of getting stronger with every workout will turn you into a fat burning machine.

Option 2: It’s Beach Body Time!

If you’re just dead set against lifting weights than your next best option is to get a program like Beach-Body. And yes I’ve done this one too…it kicked my butt.

Beach Body is cardio on steroids. I have never done more intense cardio EVER! And let me tell you I like to push myself. I found myself having to slow my pace with this program.

I highly recommend Beach Body for those who don’t want to go to the gym. You can easily pace yourself and work up to higher intensity levels. In fact, it comes with a notepad to keep track of your results. Try it out for yourself – Beach-Body

Would you believe I tried to keep this article short? Hopefully it didn’t bore you and answered your question of “What is the best way to lose weight?”

The answer really comes down to making incremental changes by changing bad habits to good habits. It’s no different than anything else you want in life it’s just a matter of how much you want it.

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