Quick weight loss tips please!?

Question

I can't lose baby weight for the life of me. I have thyroid problems and am on meds, what else can I do! I have a Christmas party in a month and want to shed a good amount by then!! :-)

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

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Answer 3

I don't know how scientific this is, but I swear by this:

Do not drink anything half an hour before, during or after your meals. Liquids can interfere with the way your body metabolizes food. I've done this for years and I don't have a weight problem.

Eat from a smaller plate during meals than you usually do.

Try eating five or six smaller means as opposed to three large ones.

Take baby and get out and move around a bit -- exercise!

Good luck!

Answer 4

There are several things you can do. Ideally you'll run every morning for at least 30 minutes (this is the best time for your metabolism and also to burn fat). Immediately afterwords you'll eat a breakfast.. I don't care how small but you should definitely eat one. Make sure you take a multivitamin with a good amount of b-12. Eat only whole grains.. and of course protein. Make protein shakes using the whey protein they sell at GNC if you can. If you want to destroy fat, strength train every other day preferably in the afternoon, but make sure you get protein w/in 30 minutes of your exercise via whey protein ideally as your body absorbs that the fastest. If by chance you can't run in the morning, lift weights enough to deplete the glycogen (energy stores) in your muscles before you run and your body will go strait to burning fat. Also drink a lot of water. If nothing else, drinking a lot of water and taking a multivitamin is probably the easiest way to lose weight.

Answer 5

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 6

Well you know a lb of fat is approximately 4050 calories. Do a simple mass balance on your daily routines. If you want to lose 10lbs in a month that's 40500 calories in 30 days. If you consume 2000 calories a day... that's 60,000 going into you. Just be sure you burn about 100,500 calroies over that time or about 3,350 per day. (By doing nothing you burn about 80 calories an hour so you'd burn almost 2,000 calories a day without exercise) My suggestions would be to run, Jog, or Walk every day for a combined total of an hour or more. Drink water instead of other drinks religiously (to reduce the 2000 intake), and eat healthy home-prepared foods in moderate proportions. Note * Burning 40500 calories in 30 days will be tough*

Answer 7

your best bet is to incease cardio activity to atleast 30 to 45 mins 5 times a week. Weight lift for 30 to 45 mins 3 times a week if u are a beginner and eat right. Your diet will have the largest impact on how much weight u can lose. Eat smaller meals thoughout the day. 5 to 6 meals every 3 to 4 hours. Limit the amount of carbs u eat and dont eat carbs after 2pm. Also try to avoid qick fix diets, they may work for a bit but once u come off you will put on 2 times the weight u lost. good luck!

Answer 8

Eat a healthy diet, exercise (try dancing or swimming), drink a lot of water, and get lots of sleep. You don't need to go on a special diet or take meds for this. If you must go on a diet, I would suggest Weight Watchers. My doctor told me that it's the best option out there. You can eat what you want (as long as you control your portions) and not worry about negative effects of diet pills.

Answer 9

Here is what you need to do, if you are serious about losing weight and keeping it off. Eat 6 small meals a day about every 4 hours. Here what that will do for you, your metabolism will increase (i.e. Loose weight) and you will have more engry. If you go on a diet and eat less, your metabolism will slow down and store to fat. That is why diets dont work. Only the size of your fist, carbs (examples:baked potato, pasta, oatmeal, beans, corn, melon, apples, fat free yogurt, whole wheat breads)in one and protien (examples:chicken breast, swordfish, shrimp, turkey breast) in the other. You can also eat vegetables and salads with any meal, they dont have none or little fat). 30min cardo exercise every day. Any of these(examples: walking, jogging, swimming,running, biking, ect), Monday cardo, tues upper body (arms: curls, tricep extensions,pull ups, front press)(abdominals: leg pull crunch, leg raises), (chest: bench press, butterfly, pullover)(shoulders: front press, arm pullover, cross county skier machine)(back:seated row, lat pull downs, back extension)(YOU DONT HAVE TO DO IN ONE DAY, mix it up) wed cardo, thurs lower body (legs: leg pull,leg press, squats, lounges) fri cardo, sat upper. Sunday eat anything you want and dont exercising, you do this on sunday so your body doesnt go into starvation mode. YOU NEED TO TAKE SUNDAY OFF. If you stilck with this you will have a great body. also drink aleast 8oz of water daily! Stay away from Mcdonals, Wendys, ect because there is nothing good for you on the menu's even the salads are bad (beaon bits, cheeze, dressing, ect) Good Luck :)

Answer 10

For one month, go vegan, caffeine-free, salt-free, sugar-free and alcohol-free. Provided you get a good recipe book this is a really enjoyable way to lose weight (and if you drink alcohol, you will enjoy your first taste when you get back to it!). Carol Vorderman's Detox Diet isn't at all bad - some wonderful soups - and you can eat as much as you like!

Oh, and exercise. The purpose of food is to take on calories. The only reason people get fat is because they take on more calories than they burn off. Get moving.

Answer 11

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 as well.