How Much Water Should I Drink to Lose Weight?

Posts Tagged ‘Quick Ways To Lose Weight’

How would you like to drop ten pounds?
Anyone can do it. You do need discipline and motivation to lose weight.
But losing weight fast?
How much time have you got?
1 month? 7 days?
Before I begin, I would like to warn you that if you lose weight fast, you are likely to regain back the weight you lost.
Do it wisely with a permanent change in your lifestyle to keep that weight off. Go for inch loss first by toning your body. Actual weight loss comes later. Muscle is heavier than fat but muscle burns far more calories. I’ll elaborate on this later.
Back to the fast ways to lose weight
Here are the most popular options.
1. Crash diets
Crash dieting can let you shed those pounds, at the expense of your health. Once you eat normally, you will regain what you lost and more. When you fast, or when you go on a crash diet, you might lose weight rapidly at first, then your body adjusts, trying to conserve calories just to survive.
Imagine the days of the cavemen. Sometimes, the hunter is successful and returns with food for the familiy. Other times, he returns empty-handed. Our bodies are adaptable. That is how our ancestors survived. When food was plentiful, they ate to their fill. Their bodies stored the food in the form of fat. When food was scarce, they had little, at times nothing to eat, the body could depend on the stores of fat for the necessary energy for survival. Hence when food is available, the body stores what it can for the bad time.
Back to modern day. The first crash diet might seem wildly successful, with the pounds falling off rapidly. Then you reach your target weight and stop dieting. You bloat up and the weight piles on even more easily. Well, congratulations. You tricked your body into going into starvation mode, slowing down your metabolism. Now that you are finally, eating, your body is storing what it can in case of a famine.
Now you diet again. That drastic diet you tried doesn’t seem effective. After cutting even more calories, you manage to shed the offending pounds. Satisfied, you take a break from the diet and all your hard work is wasted. The pounds return with a vengeance. Looks like your body is becoming very adept at holding on to the much needed energy stores in case of a famine.
You crash diet again. This time, your hair falls, the pounds seem even harder to lose. You are depriving your body of the nourishment it needs and that shows in your brittle hair, nails and dull skin.
Basically, although crash diets seem effective at first, they are a bad idea in the long run.
2. fasting to lose weight
People do fast for religious reasons. Muslims fast for an entire month in a year, eating lightly only before sunrise and after sunset. In between, for that fasting month, the devout muslims would train their discipline by not eating or drinking anything.
I’ve seen a Muslim friend slim down each year after that fasting month, wearing dresses that show off her slimmer figure after that. So how about fasting to lose weight?
Personally, I have not tried it. I have a problem with gastritis and for me, skipping a meal can lead to a gastric attack. Once you have gastric problems, they are pretty hard to get rid of, so if you do want to fast, check with a doctor first to see if you can do it safely in the first place.
My concern about fasting as a way to lose weight fast is the same as my concern for crash diets. Would you end up slowing your metabolic rate the way you might with on and off crash dieting?
3. Endurance sports
Did you notice how lean marathon runners are? How about those who engage in endurance sports.
I actually did go for a day trip cycling to a beach with a group of friends. 3 and a half hours cycling up and down hill with hardly any breaks to get there. The next day, another 3 and a half hours to get back. All of us lost some weight on that trip.
A friend of mine had a dynamite figure even though she had 3 kids. She was training for a marathon and it showed in her figure. Lean where it mattered. She showed off her figure in gorgeous dresses and looked better than most women ten years younger than she was.
I doubt if you can lose weight that fast, like in a week, by picking up an endurance sport but over the weeks, training for a marathon, or cycling as long as you can to explore your surroundings, or for day trips would go a long way in losing weight.
You would need to pick up speed first. Training for half an hour a day, before you increase your time to an hour or longer if necessary.
4. Strength training
Muscle burns far more calories flab. Basically, if you work out and tone your body, you boost your metabolic rate. Yes, you burn calories when you workout, but even after the workout, your body would continue to burn more calories at rest than if you had been lazing around all the time.
Incorporating strength training might not bring down the numbers on the scale. Muscle weighs more than fat, so you might even end up heavier.
Instead, you would see inch loss, which translates to a slimmer figure. On a guy, bulking up is far more positive effect than just reducing the fat.
4. Diet and exercise plan
The best way to lose weight and keep it off is to incorporate both a healthy diet and a daily exercise plan you follow for the rest of your life.
You will have to fit the daily exercise into your lifestyle. Something that incorporates strength training to boost your metabolism and tone your body with aerobic exercise to burn calories all around. Maybe get a set of weights you can use for strength training at home and an aerobics video for the aerobics part of it. Or a pair of running shoes for a daily run. Then get a diary specially to write down what you eat and drink each day, totaling up your calorie count per day. Use that to monitor your diet. Substitute unhealthy foods with healthier substitutes. Grill food instead of frying it. Take fruits instead of sweets. Drink water instead of sodas. You know the drill.
If you want to lost weight quickly, or rather, reduce inches quickly, incorporate crunches and abdominal exercises before you go for a daily run. Do strength training exercises to boost your metabolic rate and aerobic exercises to burn calories more rapidly. Eat a healthy diet focusing on more fruit and veggies, less carbohydrates and enough protein to get you through the day. Cut down on junk food and watch your drinks. A glass of coke could contain 200 calories. Now how hard do you have to work out to burn those calories. It is easier to keep them off by not taking unnecessary calories than to burn them off.
Personally, I would vouch for Billy Blanks workouts for fast inch loss. If you really follow that plan, in one week, you can measure the difference in your waist with a tape measure. The workouts are demanding but effective. They also have a decent meal plan which if you follow strictly, can help you shed the inches quickly. There are many other weight loss plans in the market. The ones that focus both on exercise and a healthy meal plan are your best bet.

Here are 7 quick ways to lose weight using simple and easy ways to jolt your body into action. The methods below doesn’t require any fancy gym equipment and or any complex science eating. It’s possible to lose big numbers in 7 days following the steps below-

Quick Ways to Lose Weight

1. The first and simplest thing you can do is to drink water. Most of the time when you believe you’re hungry – you are actually just thirsty. The reason for this confusion is that the signals for both hunger and thirst are very similar and it can be easily confused for hunger. So by drinking a large glass of water “that has no calories” you won’t eat as often and when you do eat you will also eat less. Not only that, water is great for you – much better than the fizzy drinks and sugary juice drinks. It’s the sugar in those drinks that bare the dead calories and will add inches to your waistline.

2. Think about making small changes instead of overhauling your life all at once. It can be overwhelming to change too much too quickly. A lot of times you’ll end up eating everything in your refrigerator and then punishing yourself or just quitting altogether.

So start out by trying baby steps. You can switch to diet soda (or even better, water), use mustard instead of mayo on wholemeal bread, and take the stairs instead of the elevator at work. Doing anything, no matter how small it is, will be better than nothing.

3. Simply stop all foods and drinks with empty calories. Drinks like low fat smoothies, green tea, cordials, and water are recommended. Whilst eating more fresh foods like fruits, vegetables, lean meat, fish, skinless chicken and wholegrain foods have nutritional benefits. And choose low GI carbohydrate foods such as wholegrain pasta, Dongara rice or Basmati rice, multi-grain bread to help curb hunger. In others words, limit the fruit juices, donuts, white breads, take outs, fast foods and soft drinks as much as possible.

4. Read between the lines – Get into the habit of reading the ingredients of the foods they eat, and understand it. If you have not then it is time to start, and knowing what you are eating helps to combat your weight issues.

You need to know what additives are in your food and how it has been processed and grown if at all possible. Many additives are unhealthy and can have a negative impact on your health. Take the time to do a bit of research, ask questions and find out what is in the food you eat and how it affects your overall health. You owe it to yourself.

5. Once you begin a healthy eating regime, it is important to stick to it. Give yourself at least one month to get used to eating differently. Remember, a habit takes that long to be broken. Since eating badly is a habit, you will have to re-train yourself to eat in moderation. Cut out pointless snacking, so lay off the potato chips and soda. While you don’t have to give these foods up forever, you will have to cut down until you have learned not to gorge on them.

6. You need to exercise at least three to four times a week just to maintain your fitness levels, so if you are really serious about shedding those pounds, exercise. But Don’t over do it, your body needs rest and adjustment time. Start gradually with a walk of 20 – 30 minute sessions. Don’t start jogging, or you will most certainly encounter shin splints.

Once your legs and body are adapts to the extra physical activity, begin jogging a little at first and then gradually increase the time and distance. After the first couple of weeks of soreness, you will be amazed at how your body adapts. Once your fitness and health permits, look at interval training and strength training – this is the best way to shape up fast and tone your body.

7. When you are fitter … get into high intensity interval training. This requires aggressive effort and the great thing is – it can be done outdoors! Each exercise is performed to the point of failure. You reach the minimum number of sets, sometimes only 1 set of each exercise but as many as 3 sets. In addition,a short recovery period between exercises is essential.

This short recovery period enables you to maintain a fairly high heart rate for the duration of the workout. This method improves your metabolic fitness because it places a substantial workload upon ever major muscle in your body and at the same time stresses your circulatory and respiratory path ways. And when you combine this with resistance training, you will turbocharge your fat burning metabolism! Combined with the steps above, you’ll lose a lot of weight and lots of inches off your waist.