Weight loss issue?

Question

What is the most effective natural weight loss method you have ever tried?

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

Lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks??

There are some websites on the Internet, which promise you that you are going to lose 10 pounds in every 2 weeks. If you are good in math you will find that keeping these stats in mind, 260 pounds in a year. Losing 260 pounds is the figure, which is unbelievable and unexpected.

This kind of claims are planned just to cause clients to make impulsive decisions. When you gain weight, did you gained around 50 minds in two months? Certainly not. We gain weight in weight in small parts, which add up to our weight. This keeps on increasing with time.

I think you get what I mean to say. We normally gain weight in grams like 65 gram per week. With this stat you are going to gain around 7 pounds at the end of year.

This weight is so slow that you cannot measure it weekly. But in fur years you are going to gain around 28 pounds.

So how can you expect this weight to go in few days? You are going to lose the way you have gained it. So it will take time to lose weight. So you have to start losing weight systematically. You can lose weight by developing the good eating habits in you and nutritious foods.

Answer 3

I'm currently in the process of doing just that, lose weight by eating healthy and exercising regularly. I started out almost 100 pounds overweight and so far I've drop 42 pounds - no pills and not starving myself to death :-) The hardest part for me was changing my eating habits, particularly getting out of the habit of eating fast food and pizza, and actually cook for myself. It's been a great learning experience, and I really love the fact that I don't even drink soda anymore. Water rules!

Answer 4

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 as well.

Answer 5

kelp, or iodine pills. I lost about 40 lbs. this way ten years ago and it never came back....word of caution though and don't know it the two are connected but about 5 yrs. ago I developed a severe and potentially life threatening alergy to shell fish (high in iodine content), not sure if i kind of like just had too much..so be carefull. also, if you can take it, I would take a couple tablespoons of cider vinegar after heavy meals, i guess it sort of acids up the food so that it can't be absorbed for usable calories...i am not a dr. that is for sure but you asked and it worked for me and nothing else did...good luck

Answer 6

Well im 16 and 2 years ago i went on the weight watchers diet (i was 180lbs) and lost 30lbs in 3 months. then started karate and now im back at 180lbs but am much thinner. I think thats because i lost weight and gained my weight lost back in muscle. Karate is good for you physically and mentally. I think you should try it. With a good diet it will help you get in good shape.

Answer 7

first thing is regular exercise- it keeps u fit and also keeps ur metabolic rate high, which means u dont gain weight. second is watching how much you eat. you can eat what u like, but eat only when you are hungry and dont eat till your stomach is full. thats the most natural and most effective way to lose your weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle

Answer 8

go 20 mph on your bike for 6 1 2 minutes

Answer 9

skip the fads and magic bullets

Answer 10

while on vacation also don t forget your diet and exercise plans

Answer 11

it is a life stlye, eat to live not live to eat, example: have a hamberger skip cheese and mayo. 2% milk and skip whole milk, in small steps the weight falls off, like pretzels instead of chips