I want to lose 50Lbs, I always start out great, but after a week I lose momentum. How should I go about this?

Answer 1

Stick with it a bit longer. Track your waist measurement and weight. When you start seeing gains there is a positive feedback "desire" that will kick in.


First, for all of the "quick and easy" weight loss diet pill suggestions, remember, if something sounds too good to be true... it probably is, particularly if you have to pay for it.


On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common questions amount 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

I have lost 56lbs since 1st July so heres what I have done...I hope it helps you
Fisrt, I am not on a diet (I hate that word, its so negative!!!), I am eating healthily!
Eat breakfast, a high fibre, low sugar cereal with skimmed milk and sugar sunstitute.
Mid morning I have a piece of fruit (2 if im a bit peckish).
Lunch is a plate of salad and raw veggies with a small portion of meat OR 1 egg OR a small piece of half fat cheese. Also 2 small slices of granary bread with a very thin layer of low fat marg.
Mid afternoon is another piece of fruit or some raw veggies
Evening meal is a small portion of white meat, a selection of veggies and either boiled new potatoes OR long grain rice.
Before bed I have a snack, sometimes I'll have some more fruit but sometimes i'll push the boat out and have 2 digestive biccies :D
I exercise every day, nothing spectacular, just 2 hours at a medium pace walking the dogs.
As I say, it has worked for me...good luck with your journey.

Answer 3

Change your lifestyle. Your everyday life.

"Just say NO" to diet drinks and beer and soft drinks.

There is something bad in diet drinks that makes you hungry - I don't know what it is, but it is BAD!

Drink water or tea. (NOT sweetened!)

No sugar, no potatoes, no flour.
Pasta occasionally.

Shrink your stomach by eating smaller portions.
Portions are where it's at with weight loss
.
Eat all the meat you want.
Eat all the salads you want.
But stop when you feel full.

How many times have you been interrupted during a meal for a phone call or doorbell, and been surprised that you are no longer hungry even tho there is still half a meal left when you quit eating.

Are you in a rut? Try doing something different. Find an interest to take your attention away from yourself. Something you'd "rather do than eat."
You can do it! Good luck to you!

Answer 4

Losing weight takes a great deal of discipline and commitment, try finding a support group, once you get enough clarity, you'll be able to deal with the rest and feel much more self confident in your goals and what you wish to accomplish, though many people freak out when I suggest this, I will recommend it to you as well, only because it really truly works, and it is not about your size or shape, it's about dealing with what's underneath it all,
This is only if you are ready for permanent change, I know people who have gone and this program has turned their lives around (It's free) The best things in life are!!
Best wishes.
visit:
http://www.oa.org/index.htm

Answer 5

Get into an exercise routine. Make it habitual so you don't have to think about it. The most important part is to start out gradually. It's about changing the way you live, not some quick diet. Make your lifestyle more healthy, and be happy with gradual results. Anything abrupt, and your body will not react well in most cases. Eat small meals more frequently (5-6 times a day) to crank up your metabolism, and make sure you just keep active.

Answer 6

Join a gym, they have fun programs all the time, you can talk with a professional fitness instructor about nutrition and what kind of work outs are good for you. And if you join one of those 24 hour gyms you won't say to yourself too late the gym is closed. You pay for gym memberships so you'll have no choice but to make the best out of that membership. Remember that no one judges people in gyms, everyone is in the same boat of losing weight or staying fit.

Answer 7

Not best is that this target absolutely unrealistic, however it's absolutely bad and unsafe! A 0 calorie nutrition isn't a nutrition; it's anorexia. Adding laxatives to it makes it much more unsafe as that might be a style of bulimia. It sounds to me like your awareness she be much less on wasting weight and extra on deciding why it is so predominant to you to lose the burden. Water might pretty much be the one factor getting into your frame with any dietary significance or even that holds little or no significance whilst you're utilising laxatives. You are going to absolutely dehydrate your self and end up very severely unwell. I might advocate you search mental awareness instantly.

Answer 8

Make sure u start out slowly. Pick a physical activity u enjoy and can stick with for the long haul...preferably an aerobic activity like running, cycling or walking at the very least, 3x/wk for 30 mins. and increase the amount, intensity or duration as your fitness improves. The key is u have to enjoy the type of exercise for u to be able to do it long term. Diet has to be combined with exercise for best results.

Answer 9

Get yourself some support. Maybe get a workout buddy, or something like that. So that you promise to someone that you'll show up at the gym/jog/whatever you do. Join a club and connect with people socially who share the same interest. I don't know what is your family situation like, but get yourself some support on that fron as well. Tell them you won't join them for late evening snacks in front of a TV.

Answer 10

MmMm...Besides HavING a balanCEd Diet,...U sHld Also trY exerCising...JUs EXerCise 3o mIns 3 TimES a Day u WiLL suRe loSt weiGHt in A heaLthy WaY...RedUciNG 500 Calories iN Take per Day,u Will Be aBLe to lose 0.5 KG in A WeeK...

Answer 11

By trying to do too much to soon. Have a plan, a little loss over a week and if it takes 50 weeks, so what!