Healthest diet to lose weight quickly?

Question

I am a 64 yerar young with 25lbs to shed.

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

1

Answer 3

I found the book to be very informative and easy to read.

I've lost 17 pounds in 12 days, I'm just concerned that I'm losing too much weight, too quickly. I will admit I haven't followed the guide exactly. I'm not sticking perfectly to the listed foods and meal plans (but mostly) and doing very little exercise, but the weight keeps flying off.

It clearly works and if I'd followed it exactly I think it would scare the living daylights out of me because of the amount that I'd lose. So thanks again for the information. I've never purchased anything like this before because they are usually full of trash, but 3WD has been a pleasant surprise.

Get started today!

Answer 4

You might think about trying this book called "The Movie Star Diet" by Steve Simmons. It helped me lose thirty pounds in 2 1/2 months when I didn't think anything would work. My goal to begin with was only 20 lbs! It has a really easy plan to follow and an excellent workout to use as well.

Answer 5

If you're that old, then why bother using the word "young"? You sound like you're just kidding yourself.

If you want to lose weight then don't eat any fats or carbohydrates.... and cut proteins to the essentials. Eat fish... and vegetables... mostly... Exercise at every given oppurtunity, though not in a manner which stresses your body... Take your time... And spend some time outside in the cold. Its entirely possible you could get a cold or hypothermia or something, but being out in the cold will help you lose weight.

Thats the kind of sacrifice you may have to make...

Oh... and sorry if I seem offensive. I'm a bit... blunt in my self-expression.... besides having little patience for "older" people and those who want to lose weight (being as I'm somewhat younger and actually underweight, and incapable of changing that).

Answer 6

Healthiest diet? Go ask your doctor. But anything that promises that you'll lose weight quick is almost certainly NOT healthy, really, and in all probability won't give you too much help in keeping it off -- which in inself is a critical step.

Answer 7

64 years young is a big motivator for the loss of weight. Quick weight loss may be achieved only by modifying your eating habits. A little exercise would be good also. The key to real wieght loss though is stop doing what you are doing now and do it differently. The eating, I mean

Answer 8

I think the South Beach Diet is healthy. It's a low carb diet that uses healthy proteins, such as fish and chicken. After a couple weeks in the first phase, you can eat healthy carbs again.

Answer 9

eat less and move more. Try the Low Glycemic index diet or Fat Smash Diet. If you want low maintence and can pay fees - go to weight watchers or buy nutrisystem.

Answer 10

ok - so a quick way would be get on the tread mill and walk away on an incline. keep yourself well hydrated and eat health foods. salads (no dressing except olive oil or vinigerette), eggs without yolks for breakfast and wheat bread, for lunch a small whole whet sandwich and for dinner maybe a ligt grilled fish or any white meat. keep walking and pilates help with the abs.

Answer 11

South Beach, its not a crazy diet and you dont have to limit yourself like the other diets.