How do I even begin to start to lose weight? What foods should I eat to be healthy?

Question

I am 5'7 & 180 pounds

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

1

Answer 3

First off you are not at a terrible weight now.

You should start taking a multiviatmin and exercising for a minmum of 30 minutes a day.

Foods to eat..
Chicken
Fish
Veggies
Fruits
Lots of salad to help fill you before a meal.

"Skinny Cow" has a line of products that are sweet, frozen dessert types. They are great and low cal.

Good Luck

Answer 4

You nonetheless have many years till then so the time to begin is now. More foremost than workout is consuming effectively. Check the dietary contents to your meals to ensure they're low in fats traditionally (prevent saturated and trans fats TOTALLY). Do this at the side of 20-30 minutes aerobic three-four occasions per week and you can most likely see outcome. Where so much ppl fail is that they do not notice that it takes two-three months to look correct outcome. Throw in a few difficult weights (weights in which you'll be able to do units of eight-10 of), and maintain at it Consistency is what's going to examine in the event you drop a few pounds or no longer. Good Luck !!

Answer 5

Start by eating small healthy meal regularly throughout the day. Cut out all chocolate, crisps, Fizzy drinks and all processed foods.

Try only eating fruit, veg and seeds and pulses with plenty of water. Keep in the dairy products and fresh lean unprocessed meats.

Answer 6

you have only about 20 pounds or so to lose.

maybe start slowly ...walk on the treadmill or do the elliptical and when you get more energy, you can start doign some weights.but you must eat healthy. whole wheat breads, no sugar, no juices, fresh fruits, lean meats and vegetables. eat 6 small meals a day. that helps a lot..for snacks eat low fat cheese and nuts.

Answer 7

i am dieting & have not been able ti give up soda but I did cut way down & replace some with tea insteadI also am not able to get down 8 glasses of water yet i'm up to about 4-5 though.......
Anyhow try to aviod anything fried ,limit carbs & sweets & if you do think you really need something you shouldn't have try just eating half of what you usually would good luck

Answer 8

satisfy your sweet tooth by swapping two reese s peanut butter cups for one mini

Answer 9

Find the right diet for your individual body because there are many ways are there to lose weight just find what works for you

Answer 10

fruits and vegetables and a lean meat, rather than takeaway, sugary, or deep fried foods........eating 5 small meals a day, rather than 1 or 2, this speeds up the bodies metabolism, and get some exercise....even if it is just walking around your backyard, or a nearby park.....oh and lots and lots of water/black tea to flush the system, and remove impurities and toxins......