Practical Approach to Weight Loss

After about 4 months of dieting and exercise, I have just about achieved my weight loss goal of around 30 pounds. In fact, friends and family are telling me to stop now and I am in the process of replacing clothes with smaller sizes that fit. I am tired of my pants falling off! Here are some practical steps that I followed: One of the most important and easiest things to do is drink plenty of water – at least 8 cups of water every day – if you are dehydrated you body will be less efficient and will make fat loss more difficult. The next step is to make simple changes in your diet, replacing foods with lower fat foods. Sweetener in place of sugar, diet drinks in place of full sugar drinks, use leaner cuts of meat etc. At first these changes may be difficult but you will get used to them and make vital calorie savings every day. Exercise is vital to succesful weight loss. Exercise at least 3-5 times a week, doing a minimum of 30 minutes of aerobic exercise,making yourself sweat. This will help to create the calorie deficit and encourage your body to lose fat. Try to exercise in the morning before eating breakfast. You will burn more fat and have more energy throughout the day. In order to ensure that you are consuming the optimal number of calories, the first thing is to determine how many calories your  body needs to consume to maintain your existing weight. This is called you maintenance calories.(Search Google with “calorie needs” and you will find a few different calculators to help you with this). To determine the correct number of calories required to create a defecit, deduct 10%(to a maximum of 500Kcal) off the total maintenance calories. Drastically reducing your calories will result in muscle and water loss – not fat loss.Believe, I proved to myself that this is true! Split your calories into 5 or 6 meals rather then 2 or 3. Your goal should be to eat about every 3 hours. This is difficult to follow especially at work but I used high protein, low fat snacks to help with this. Try to eat low carb(complex only!), low fat and moderate protein. The South Beach Diet is a good example of this, although I personally didn’t follow an ysingle diet. To keep yourself on track, keep a food diary to monitor how many calories you are consuming – it is very easy to over eat. Weight yourself on a regular basis, but don’t become too obessesed with your daily weight or you may become discourated. There are a lot of supplements that may help you. Personally, I just supplemented with vitamins to ensure I wasn’t lacking anything, and I used meal replacement products frequently, such as Slim Fast, when I didn’t have time to prepare proper meals. Stay focused and committed and be reasonable with your expectations and you will lose that weight! http://www.busydaddy.com

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