Want to Lose Weight Fast?
It’s natural to want to lose weight fast. You want to lose 10 pounds in a week just like they say on all those weight loss commercials. However, losing weight rapidly can ultimately jeopardize your weight loss plans. So what is a healthy rate of weight loss?
How Fast Should You Lose Weight?
Most experts agree that a healthy rate of weight loss is between a half-pound and two pounds per week. So if you have 20 pounds to lose it will take about 10 weeks. Yes, this sucks, but you should realize it took you 5, 10, 20 years to gain the weight, so it will take some time to come off.
Losing about 1-2 pounds a week is realistic and achievable for most people. Since a pound of fat equals 3,500 calories, to lose a pound per week requires cutting back by 500 calories each day or burning 500 more calories per day. The best option is to eat 250 less calories a day and work off 250 more through exercise. Exercise not only helps to prime the metabolism, but has additional health benefits as well.
The Problem of Losing Weight Too Fast
Why is it important to maintain a healthy rate of weight loss? Why not lose it as fast as you can? Ultimately, this strategy will work against you. When you restrict calories too much, your body goes into starvation mode as a strategy to conserve energy. This means you’ll burn fewer calories as you restrict your diet more. Even though you may lose weight in the beginning, the weight loss will eventually slow down leading to the dreaded weight loss plateau.
The other problem with losing weight too fast is the risk of nutritional deficiency. When you decrease calorie intake below 1200 calories per day, it’s very difficult to get all the vitamins and minerals a healthy body needs. The goal should to lose weight in a healthy manner – not to feel tired all the time and have your hair fall out.
Achieving a Healthy Rate of Weight Loss
Before beginning a weight loss program, the standard advice is to use a calorie calculator to determine how many calories you need each day for maintenance and subtract 250 calories from that total. Once you know how many calories you need the next step is to plan your menu, keep a food diary and write down how many calories you’re taking in each day along with how many you’re burning off through exercise. Keep in mind that as you lose, your calorie requirements will change and you’ll require fewer overall calories. Make adjustments for that. All of this planning, calculating and tracking will take at least 2-3 hours each week.
Instead of wasting time planning your diet use the EatDrinkAnything.com Weekly Menu. In just 5 minutes you get to select anything you want to eat and drink. The application then instantly calculates and prepares daily menus with foods that provide your nutritional requirements and that are portioned so you lose weight. So you get to eat and drink anything, you lose weight, you save time – Plus it’s free.
The Bottom Line?
Fast isn’t better or achievable when it comes to losing weight. Be patient and realize that a healthy rate of weight loss will give you a better chance of long term success. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you must lose weight fast.
