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5 Easy and Fast Weight Loss Tips

By Darlene Nicholson

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 30Dec2007 Word count: 705 Viewed: 187 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Are you looking for weight loss tips that will help you lose weight fast or weight loss tips that will keep the weight off for good? There's a big difference. It's tempting to opt for the former type of tip. Looking for shortcuts and quick results are just a part of human nature. The problem is that you'll be right back to square one when the weight comes back (and it will) when you lose weight quickly. Here are some weight loss tips that will help you do what is necessary to achieve permanent weight loss and look forward to a lifetime of being healthy.

Weight loss tip #1: Keep a food and exercise journal for one week. Keep track of calories eaten per day and calories burned per day. Don't cheat! Put everything down. Being honest with yourself is a critical step towards weight loss. At the end of the week, you'll have a good idea of your average calories consumed and burned per day. Then, move on to the next one of these weight loss tips and determine what you should be consuming per day.

Weight loss tip #2: Learn the basic formula for weight loss. Calories in must be less than calories out. We all have a certain amount of calories that for our height, weight, sex, age and activity level that will just maintain our current weight. These calories are spent on the daily requirements for our bodily activities like breathing and digestion as well as our normal task activities, whatever those may be. Figure this amount of calories using a calorie calculator. If you wish to lose weight you must do two things: 1. Lower this calorie intake. 2. Increase the amount of calories burned.

Weight loss tip #3: A healthy, lasting weight loss occurs over time. One to two pounds per week is the recommendation to achieve this. A pound of fat equals roughly 3500 calories. Therefore, if your goal is to lose one pound per week, you must have a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day. If you are aiming for two pounds per week, then this deficit should be 1000 calories per day. If you determined that your calories per day to maintain your current weight are 2000 calories, then reduce your intake to 1750 per day and burn an additional 250 calories. This could be as simple as eating a half a sandwich for lunch instead of a whole sandwich and going for a brisk two mile walk. If you wish to achieve a two pound per week weight loss, don't lower your calories too drastically.

Weight loss tip #4: Read food labels. Nobody wants to spend the rest of their lives counting the calories of everything they put in their mouths. In the beginning, understanding portion sizes and caloric amounts is crucial, but after awhile, you'll be able to ball park most of what you eat. You'll probably be surprised in the beginning as well. It hardly seems fair that a portion size of ice cream is a half a cup! As painful as it is, you need to know this so that when you think you're eating 350 calories of non-reduced fat ice cream, you'll understand that filling that cereal bowl with what you used to think was a portion is really more like 1000 calories. One slice of bread is a serving of bread and is usually around 100 calories. I started eating open-faced sandwiches when I figured that one out!

Weight loss tip #5: Realize that what you are doing now is one of the most important things you could be doing for yourself! Healthy, lasting weight loss is a priceless reward for all your hard work. Patience is the key. Pay no attention to that co-worker that lost ten pounds last week on whatever fad diet she tried! In five to six weeks, I guarantee you, she'll have gained most of that back and you'll be reaping the rewards of your slow, steady weight loss. Not only that, but you'll have built up the tools and knowledge to keep the weight off for good!

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