How Do I Lose Weight Fast?

Question

I'm 5'4", 130-135lbs.

None of my clothes fit the way they did when I was 16 and 115lbs. Clothes I try on now don't look as good as they could look.

I want to be at least 120lbs.

My diet is really crappy, how do I improve that and what do I eat?

Answer 1

On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common question amounts to "How do I lose weight," or more specifically, "How do I lose abdominal fat?" I have gotten very positive responses from my answers when I paused to reply (and now beginning to get "It works!" emails that are very gratifying. I like helping people)... so have recently decided to put a good solid answer on my Yahoo!360 Blog (September 10) that I can point people to. These are my thoughts as a physician and athlete.

Don't target losing more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you work them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

Eating a little smarter and healthier, and cutting some calories, but eating nutritiously is part one of your answer. The other, and harder part is to get some exercise by way of physical activity. Jog, bike, swim, anything that will make you break a sweat, at least 30 minutes a day, at least 3 times a week.
Regarding your 16 year old body: those days are over. At 16 you were not finished "sprouting" and after that age developed hips and a more womanly figure. That isn't to say that you couldn't be a healthy 115 again, but don't try to fit into something that you wore when you were still basically a teenager. Good luck.

Answer 3

Well, it's not healthy; but, only consume 350 calories a day and walk a lot. You can do this by eating one McDonald's cheeseburger and an order or fries once a day, walk at least 5 miles per day, and drink a lot of water or unsweetened tea. I lost 30 pounds in 4 weeks on this regimen.

Statistically, if you want to lose weight healthily, your goal will be around 2 pounds of weight loss per week. For you to meet your goal of 120 pounds, it will take you 5 to 6 weeks. Your caloric intake should not exceed 800 calories a day, with at least two to three hours of walking every day.

Raw broccoli, carrots, lettuce, and cabbage are some vegetables to consider in your diet. Grapes, bananas, peaches, oranges, apples, and grapefruit are some fresh fruits you might consider.

Answer 4

hm, the best thing to do would be to switch from fried foods to baked and from full fat to low fat or no fat.

when it comes to salad dressings and mayonnaise, you honestly cannot tell the difference anymore.
i'd say also to watch out for exactly how many calories a day you are eating. You dont need to completely cut the calories you eat but even eating 300 calories less would help.

also, POP is horrible! if you must have pop, try diet (now a days there are options without aspertame, which is usually why diet pop tastes so bad)

try something like green tea- it helps boost the metabolism, and also, if youre looking for some sort of extra flavoring, try something hot. Hot sauce or chilli works.. spicy foods also boost the metabolism.

juices are a best bet when it comes to drinking.
also walking helps for starting out. You have to walk atleast 20 minutes a day for you to actually start burning fat.

good luck

Answer 5

Running is always the best way to do so.Run as fast as possible for 5 mins everyday.Come back and drink a little warm lemon water mixed with a teaspoon of honey in the morning.Eat breakfast after about half hr.My guarantee that u will loose weight within 10 days and ppl will notice within 1 month.U dont need to change ur diet pattern after this.If possible avoid rice and eat more of wheat.also drink lots of water.But dont drink immediately after eating.Drink water after 15 mins of ur fooding.3-4 liters of water daily will make ur skin shine like a bulb

Answer 6

jogging always help
start by reducing what you eat for lunch and dinner by half and a 20 minute jog, then the next week go for a 30 minute jog or hour walk at least 5 days a week. Oh yeah lots and lots of water (fills you up)

You still eat what you're used to just a little less eventually choose better foods, once you start seeing results you'll want to eat better

Answer 7

The Best Exercises To Lose Weight
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Helpful Tips to lose weight
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Answer 8

pick up a 5 or 10 pound weight at the gym and visualize that weight coming off holding the weight in your hands helps bring home just how heavy even 5 pounds of extra fat can be

Answer 9

carry a cooler stocked with three bottles of water a six pack four pb js two oranges a bag of tortilla chips and 12 servings of cool cucumber salsa go to womenshealthmag allrecipes com for the recipe for 22 minutes

Answer 10

swap creamy cheese for tomato or veggie based sauces on your pasta and meat dishes

Answer 11

find an exercise you love