Losing five pounds in five weeks is considered healthy weight loss. Make sure you ask your doctor if this plan is the right one for you so it will be healthy and effective. Good luck!
Steps
- Restrict calories moderately. Start by reducing your intake by 200 calories. Also begin to eat more fruit and vegetables instead of fatty or sugary foods; they contain plenty of fiber and vitamins, which help keep you full.
- Gradually increase your calorie restriction until at the end of the 5 weeks you are eating 500 calories less per day than you used to.
- Eat a balanced diet every day. Include one lean source of protein, one serving of complex carbohydrates, and two to three servings of vegetables and fruit at each meal. It is suggested that you get your daily percentage of calories in the following portions: 40% protein, 40% carbohydrates, 20% fat.
- Eat five to six small meals per day, spaced about two to three hours apart. If you eat before you get hungry, you don't need to eat much. If you wait until you feel hungry, you will eat far more than you need to. Now, we know this is really inconvenient for anybody who actually goes to school or has a job so just make sure you eat small but adequate portions whenever you eat and have a healthy lifestyle.
- It's a good idea to exercise by walking 30-45 minutes every day. Some people can start out with 20 but as you progress it should increase. Do not use ankle weights as this is the leading cause of orthopedic injury. Walk up hills or on inclines as your conditioning improves. You can jog for 20-30 minutes a day for those who have less time.
- Resist food cravings by brushing your teeth when you feel hungry. Food cravings are often strong in the late afternoon, and if brushing your teeth fails you should eat one of your meals during this time. Remember, when you get cravings, you are burning fat so sip some water or have a light, low calorie snack. Fruits and veggies are great! The most important thing that many people don’t know is that 70%-80% of body fat loss is from the food you eat. Only 5%-30% body fat loss is from the gym.
Tips
- A gradual, moderate restriction of calories together with exercise is the only proven method to lose weight and keep it off.
- Don't become a slave to the scale; focus on feeling healthier as well as losing weight. It doesn't matter what the scale says but how you look and if you are happy with yourself.
- Keep your rate of weight loss under two pounds per week; adjust your level of calorie restriction by the amount of weight loss you experience each week.
- As a general rule, a non-active person requires 12 calories per pound per day to maintain their current weight. So a 150 pound person who is not active would require 1800 calories per day to maintain their weight.
- You have to burn 3500 extra calories or eat 3500 fewer calories to lose one pound.
- Don't think that just trying to eat less will help you lose more: It won't. your body is used to the amount of food you eat and changing that will make your body think you are "dying" and will use the calories it stores to help your body. Eat, but eat good foods.
- Never eat fewer than 1200 calories in a day or restrict your calories by more than 550 per day. Your body will go into "starvation" mode and your metabolism will slow down dramatically. When you begin to eat more, your body will be more likely to store what you eat, causing you to gain weight fast.
- There are two things the body requires that have no calories: water and fiber. The more of these you consume, the better for you and your weight loss goals. Many vegetables are full of both: this is why a one pound package of salad mix has only 100 calories or so.
- When counting calories, look into the total number of servings in a container and then calculate. Often times calories per serving are in mind and one tends to forget that there might be 2.5 servings in the bag or can.
- Read the food labels on all cans and jars. Almost any ingredient that ends in "-ose" (dextrose, sucrose, etc.), is a kind of sugar, as is any kind of honey or syrup.
- Fructose, a fruit sugar, is metabolized less quickly, and is a better choice than sucrose (table sugar made from sugar cane or sugar beets). Maple syrup also contains calcium and iron so it is a wiser choice than sucrose.
- Notice how so many so-called low fat foods are actually high in sugar and have more calories than you might expect. Reduced fat, reduced carbohydrate, reduced calories--none of these are excuses to eat more.
- Don't eat foods that list '(partially) hydrogenated oil' in the ingredients. Hydrogenated oil contains trans-fatty acids, worse for your health than saturated fat. Food manufacturers in the United States are legally allowed to say that their products contain 0 grams of trans fat as long as one serving contains fewer than .5 grams of trans fat. Check the ingredient label--no matter what the front of the package says--to be sure that your food is completely trans-fat free.
- The "0 gram" labeling rule applies not only to trans fats, but to carbohydrates and total fats as well. Anything with less than .5 grams of fat can be labeled "fat-free." Also, if something has less than 5 calories per serving, then it can legally be labeled as having 0 calories. (An example is Sweet 'N' Low, an artificial sweetener, which contains 4 calories per packet, but can legally be labeled as having 0 calories. The dextrose used as a carrier for the saccharin contains 1 gram of carbohydrates (listed on the label.))
- Don't avoid fat (or carbohydrates for that matter) altogether! Healthy fats such as mono-unsaturated fat (predominant in olive oil) and foods which contain naturally high amounts of fatty acids such as Omega-3 are perfectly acceptable.
- Sugar is addictive and causes cravings for more food and more sugar. This is one reason why many fast foods, and some canned foods at our supermarkets are loaded up with sugar. The reason sugar is addictive is that our brains operate on carbohydrates only, and sugar is one of the fastest ways to get carbohydrates to the brain. A quick flood of carbs to the brain gives a rush ("sugar high"), which is followed by a crash when the body produces insulin to combat the high blood sugar. When sugar is combined with fiber, like in whole fruits, it is metabolized more slowly, which is healthier.
- Plan out a good exercise timetable. One of the reasons why so many of us do not have time to exercise is because we do not have a proper timetable allocated for exercising. Draft out an exercise timetable and show it to your friends, so as to maintain your commitment in it. If you are someone who is always backing out at the last minute when it is time to exercise, you should always ask a friend to exercise with you. This will make you feel responsible to turn out for exercising.
Warnings
- Be sure to consult with your physician regarding your weight loss program; your physician is there to help and may have additional suggestions for you.
- Fast and extreme weight loss is unhealthy and will ultimately result in weight gain. (This is also called "yo-yo dieting".)
- Do not skip a meal just because you think that it will reduce weight. In fact, your body will go into "starvation mode," storing fat rather than burning fat.
