How do I lose 270 pounds?

Answer 1

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

Slowly with a radical change in lifestyle is what I would recommend. Consult with your doctor to get all your vitals. Make sure your don't have syndrome X or thyroid problems or whatever that will interfere with your weight loss efforts. Get a stress test for your heart. Under the guidance of a trainer get started on an exercise regimine. For a diet I would suggest weight watchers. You can eat whatever you want within a certain number of points. Prepare yourself psychologically for the long hall. It may take a few years to drop all that weight. I lost 60 lbs and it took a year. Be patient and enjoy how much healthier you feel as you make exercise and good eating part of your life. You can do it.
http://www.weightwatchers.com

Answer 3

Divorce your 270 pound husband.

Answer 4

Divorce...lol. At my biggest I was over 300lbs. Less than a year later, I was at 165, but did so the wrong way. Best thing to do is eat 4 small meals a day, replace junk snacks wiht fruit and nuts, and of course, burn more calories than you take in. Ask your doctor about medicine or procedures (lap band) or you can hire a nutritionist. I hope your loss of 270 won't make you too thin. Remember, women are supposed to have rounder hips, thighs and chests, and men look better with a small belly and round (not slack) butt. Now, almost ten years later, I am at 215lbs (my winter weight) and about 195-200 in the summer

Answer 5

find calorie/fitness calculator on the net, enter all your stats and it will tell you how many calories you need a day to maintain, take off 300-400cal off that number and thats how much you need to lose. eat 5-6 small meals a day (eat every 2-3 hours) 5-8 servings of fruit and veggies a day 8 glasses of water have complex carbs for breakfast - they give you energy have lean meat (protein) for dinner - repairs muscle cardio exercise 4-6 times a week for 30-50min, light weight training dont consume foods that are made of white flour (white bread, cakes, past etc.), sugar loaded foods (cookies, icecream, candy etc) and nothing fried, oily. ofcourse you can spoil yourself once in a while with a little treat:)

Answer 6

you need a doctor for that much weight loss. If there's imminent danger to your health, they'll likely recommend a stomach staple. If not, they'll start you slow with slight diet changes (like cutting back on sugar and snacks) and walking, eventually stepping it up until you've started a healthy lifestyle that will keep you fit.

Answer 7

The Atkins Diet is GREAT!!! The weight will fall off in no time.

I need to lose 80, so we can do this together if you like.

Answer 8

Start doing some exercise in order to accelerate you metabolism, if you don't like to do exercise or play any sport, then do only musculation exercises... and of course start a light diet.

Answer 9

I had a 200 lb. hemorrhoid once. Then, I divorced him.

You need to talk to your doctor about your options. You must have numerous health problems if you are that obese. You would HAVE to be medically supervised.

Answer 10

Bariatric surgery