Here are 8 great ways to lose weight fast and keep it off
8 great ways to lose weight fast and keep it off
For many people, weight loss is the biggest challenge they face. If you are among them, you are not alone. In fact, around 67% of Americans are trying to lose weight.
There are many strategies out there that can help you lose weight, but most of them don’t work for most people. The problem is that most people don’t know what they are doing. If you are fed up with not being able to lose weight, this article is for you. Read on to find out the secret to losing weight and how to keep it off for good.
What is the secret to losing weight and keeping it off?
When you want to lose weight, you need to change your diet. Most people try FAD DIETS when trying to lose weight. These kinds of diets NEVER work in the long run because you are eating a small amount of calories. This will slow down your metabolism so by the time you finish the diet, all the weight comes back because your body isn’t burning enough calories anymore to keep it off.
Why did these two things happen? When you reduce your calories too much, you will lose muscle mass. This will make it harder for you to keep your weight down. Also, your metabolism will slow down because of metabolic adaptation or adaptive thermogenesis in scientific terms. Your body adapts to the calories you are eating in order to conserve energy. This is very bad when trying to lose weight because once the diet is completed, now there’s nothing to stop it from coming back.
That is why it is important to eat the right amount of calories for your activity level and build type. If you are an active man, you will have to eat more than a couch potato. If you are working out 5-6 days a week your body is burning a lot of calories and needs the proper nutrition in order to recover from all of the activity. If you don’t eat the right amount of calories or macro nutrients like protein, your body cannot recover and you will lose muscle. This also slows down your metabolism because muscle burns a lot of calories in order to maintain itself. So most of the time, when people lose a lot of weight fast, half of that is actually muscle and not body fat. This is also what causes you to become skinny fat after you lose a lot of weight fast.
Be in a caloric deficit
You will never ever lose weight if you are not eating less calories than you are burning. But you also don’t want to be eating too little calories like I just explained before. Here is a little info to help you figure out how many calories you need to lose weight. Eating 500 calories less than you are burning will give you about a 1 pound per week loss and 1000 calories less will give you about 2 pounds lost per week.
The reason for this is because 1 pound of body fat stores about 3500 calories worth of energy for your body. So 500 calories per day will add up to 3500 calories in a week and 1000 calories a day will add up to 7000 calories in a week. You must know exactly how many calories you are burning in a week for this to work. So either use a fitness tracker or a metabolism calculator in order to get the most accurate number. Don’t just guess, then you are setting yourself up for failure and you won’t get any results.
Track Your Calories & Macros
The best way to do this is to track your daily calories and macros. You can use an app like MyFitnessPal to do this. When you know how many calories you are eating, you can adjust your diet accordingly. You really need to know these numbers in order for you to get the best results and lose weight. Don’t be afraid to track your calories, it really is the number one tool to stop you from overeating since you know exactly how many calories you’ve consumed for the day.
Most people are addicted to social media and they spend hours on it eat day wasting their time. It’s not a healthy habit, so what is so scary about using a fitness app for 10 minutes each day just to make sure you ate the correct amount of food? This is a healthy addiction and not something you should never worry about being addicted to. There really are zero negatives about being dependent on a calorie tracker app. The only thing that will happen is you will lose weight the right way, eat less and keep it off. So if you’re looking to lose weight fast and keep it off, then make sure you download and get used to using a calorie tracker to make sure you are eating the correct calories and macros. It will just make your life and weight loss a lot easier in the long run.
Skip Breakfast
Most people will tell you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that you should never skip it if you want to stay lean. That’s a myth and not eating breakfast has nothing to do with gaining weight. The reason people have this belief is because most people that skip breakfast will end up overeating on junk food later on in the evening because their hunger cravings get really strong. If you skip breakfast and you eat healthy foods for the rest of the day without over eating you will never gain weight from skipping breakfast. You will actually lose weight since you are cutting out calories from your diet and allowing your body to fast and burn fat for a little while.
When you skip breakfast and have your first meal at lunch time, you have fasted for around 16 hours, allowing your body to burn up some of the fat stores for energy. The result is you burn more body fat and lose weight. As long as you stay strict for your other meals and don’t overeat on junk food like high carb foods, you will lose weight a lot faster. You will also have more energy throughout the day because when you’re in a fasted state your body produces more hormones that keep you alert and awake. Also you are fasting and allowing your body to detox and clean itself from the food you ate the day before. Just another benefit of not eating breakfast.
Before cereal existed, most people did not eat breakfast and would fast all day because they were too busy working in the fields and maintaining their farm. Then they would have one large meal at night and go to bed, ready to do it again the next day. When cereal was invented the inventors needed a way to market their new product. They came up with the idea that breakfast was the most important meal of the day and you need it to give you energy to help you get through the day. Well the idea stuck and now everyone thinks breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
No one really knows why that is, it’s just what they’ve been told their entire lives so it must be true right. They will tell you it’s because you need it to give you energy and to stay focused throughout the day. But it’s completely false that you need to eat something to have enough energy. Your body is designed to run on fat stores and when it does you actually have more energy because your body isn’t using any energy to digest the food you just ate. Your body also produces more of the hormones that make you alert and focused when you’re fasted, thus increasing your energy levels even more.
Also, when you eat carbs they make you sleepy, so cereal is not the best choice to have first thing in the morning. If you are going to have breakfast, the best thing you can have is eggs or bacon, something without carbs so you stay in ketosis and your body can keep burning your fat stores for energy. You also won’t feel sleepy from eating eggs and bacon in the morning since they are carb free and carbs make you sleepy. Now you know the truth about breakfast and how skipping it can actually help you to lose weight faster and easier.
Lift Weights & Build Muscle
A great way to lose weight and keep it off is to lift weights and build muscle. There is something called muscle metabolism, it means that the more muscle you have on your body the more calories your body will burn. Your body also burns a lot of calories after a weight training session while it is recovering and rebuilding the muscle fibers that were damaged from the workout. Once you add a lot of muscle to your body and continue to maintain it, you will essentially be turning your body into a fat burning machine and increase your metabolism substantially in the process.
If you’re looking for a way to have someone workout for you, this is the closest thing to it. With all your new muscle, your muscles will really be burning calories for you. All you have to do is make sure they don’t go away by doing weight training maintenance workouts. I love lifting weights, I would always choose to lift weights for an hour than run on the treadmill for the same time. It feels a lot easier and after you weight workout you feel a lot better because your muscles get a pump. It makes your body feel like you’re in a lot better shape and also having more muscle will sculpt your body and make you look more toned and cut. Something running on the treadmill can never do.
When you do a lot of cardio and never lift weights, you are actually causing your body to lose a lot of its muscle. This happens because you’re not using the muscles and your body wants to conserve as much energy as possible. The best option for your body is to get rid of the muscle that uses up a lot of energy since you’re not using them anymore. The more muscle you lose the more you will slow down your metabolism and the more cardio you will need to do to make up for it. Doing only cardio is really bad in the long term for weight loss and it can make it more difficult to lose weight and keep it off. That is why the best thing for losing weight is weight training, not cardio.
Eat More Meat
The best way to lose weight and keep it off is to eat more meat. Why do you think this is? Well, meat is one of the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat. It has all the nutrients you need to build muscle mass and help you lose weight. Meat also has no carbs and makes you feel fuller for longer. When you eat carbs you actually get more hungry afterwards. Meat actually keeps your appetite suppressed so you can make it to your next meal without feeling hungry or craving carbs. Meat also has a lot of protein, the right kind of protein that’s needed for you to build muscle easier. If you’re looking to increase your metabolism by building muscle then meat is the best thing to help you achieve that.
Meat doesn’t contain any carbs either, and carbs are what make you gain weight especially if you are eating too many of them. If you only eat meat throughout the day your body will stay in ketosis and burn your fat stores for energy. This will help you lose body fat faster and easier. When you eat carbs for breakfast, your body now has a quick source of energy and doesn’t need to use any of the fat reserves for fuel. This prevents you from ever losing any body fat and if you do this every day you will never lose any weight. So eat more meat and less carbs and watch the weight fall off like melted butter.
Try intermittent Fasting
Another thing you can do to lose weight and keep it off is to try a fast diet. While many people think of this as a diet where you don’t eat anything for a certain period of time, a fast diet can also be used intermittently. This is when you don’t eat anything for a specific amount of time. Some examples are 20:4, 16:8 or a 24 hour fast where you don’t eat anything for 24 hours. So for the 24 hour fast, you would stop eating at around 8pm then your next meal would be at 8pm the next evening. This will cause you to burn a lot of body fat during the period you are not consuming any calories. It also cuts out a lot of calories from your diet as long as you don’t eat too much after you break your fast.
It’s a lot easier to cut out calories 2x per week than to eat low calories all the time. Eventually, you will get sick of eating nothing every day so you’ll quit and go back to overeating, then you end up gaining all the weight back that you lost from your diet. With intermittent fasting, it’s a lot easier to stick to it long term because you still get to eat a normal amount of food and the foods you love, so you don’t get sick of the diet or want to quit because you enjoy eating food too much. If you’re looking for a good way to cut back on calories without cutting back on the foods you love and enjoy then intermittent fasting is the best solution for you.
Quit drinking alcohol and eating processed foods
If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you should also quit drinking alcohol and eating processed foods. Why? Both of these things are high in calories and carbs. Carbs make you hungry and cause you to eat more food than you need. This leads to weight gain. Alcohol is very high in calories and 1 gram of alcohol, which is a carbohydrate, actually contains 7 calories of energy, about double the amount of a normal carb. This is a big reason why you should stay away from consuming alcoholic beverages.
But that’s not the only reason to stay away from them. When you have mixed drinks, they usually contain sugary drinks as well, which add even more calories into it. One mixed drink can contain over 300 calories. If you’re having more than one which most people do, you can be consuming enough calories just from alcohol. This is why drinking alcohol almost always leads to weight gain.
Also, when you get drunk it actually increases your appetite and causes you to crave high carb and high fat foods making you consume even more calories. This is why you almost always end up at your local diner or pizza shop after a long night of drinking, then you wake up in the morning and instantly regret doing it. It also makes your hangover worse because now your body has to process all that junk food on top of the alcohol, which is already hard to digest to begin with. So if you want to lose weight easier and wake up in the morning feeling refreshed instead of like you got hit by a truck, then you should stay away from alcohol. Drink coffee or green tea instead, they actually help your body burn more fat and are calorie free.
Conclusion
The tips discussed in this article are very powerful and effective at helping you lose weight fast and keep it off. If you follow them and implement them into your life, you will lose weight at an accelerated pace and have the ability to keep it off for the long term. The topics in this article are some of the number one reasons why people are overweight and have a hard time losing it. If you combine them all and add them onto your list of healthy habits that you follow daily, you will never have a problem with your weight again.
They will also make you a healthy and better person overall. The benefits you will gain from following this advice will not just help you with weight loss, they will help you with every aspect of your life. They will give you more energy so you can accomplish the things in your life that you truly desire and always wanted to do. By following them, you won’t be held back by all the negative things that these unhealthy habits cause in your life. You won’t be distracted by them and you’ll have a lot more time on your hands to do something great instead. So choose wisely and find something important that you can do with all the newfound time and energy you’ll gain from being a much healthier, happier and better version of yourself.
