I think part of the problem is that there are so many diets out there and so many experts, who all seem to contradict each other; and we have ended up confused. We don’t know if we should be eating Cabbage all day long, or drinking Watercress soup or consuming only raw food.

Taking care of your weight will help your health even if you only lose a pound or two. Every pound you lose is a step in the right direction. Start with a small goal and celebrate your success. Too often, we dieters aim for too much and when the weight doesn’t drop off quickly we lose motivation.

You should begin by keeping a food diary. By writing down everything you eat but also the mood you were in when you ate i.e. bored, happy, and sad, you will get to know your trigger points. A lot of us eat for something to do not because we are hungry. Keeping a diary also helps you to remember exactly what you ate so you can see how many calories you are consuming.

Start every day with a decent breakfast. That way you are less likely to snack on the things we all love, but drive our weight out of sight. Be sensible and keep away from chips, cakes, biscuits and sugar in all its guises including diet soda pop. Fill up on fruit and vegetables aiming to eat more than the recommended five portions a day. Cut alcohol out for the moment as it not only contains empty calories but it lowers your inhibitions making it more difficult to stick to a diet. If you can’t give up altogether, then aim to drink two glasses of water for every alcoholic drink you have. This will help to flush the toxins out of your body.

Cut down on your sugar and salt intake by cooking your own food rather than relying on take aways or packaged foods. Too much salt can hinder weight loss as it causes you to retain water.

Start exercising as well. You don’t need to go to a gym. Walking, swimming, jogging and skating are all good examples of how easy it is to build exercise into your day.

The secret to losing weight and more importantly to maintaining your new figure is to lose pounds gradually. Forget about faddy diets that promise to lose ten pounds overnight – the weight you lose will be mainly water. And studies show you are likely to put back on even more weight than you lost. Don’t obsess about being on a diet as this will only make you hungry.

As the pounds drop off, your friends will soon be asking you what is the easiest way to lose weight.

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Whether you want to lose 10 lbs once or until you reach a certain weight, a proper weight loss plan must include eating the right foods and getting sufficient exercise and sleep.

Sleep is one aspect of losing weight that isn’t often talked about, but it is as important as exercise. Researchers have discovered that two hormones that trigger appetite come into play if we don’t get enough sleep. This causes us to overeat and gain weight because our desire for high carbohydrates and rich foods increases.

Next time you crave these foods, see whether you’ve been getting enough sleep.

Another key to lose 10 lbs a week is to eliminate sugar and starch from your diet. They are the first and easy sources of energy that your body uses, which leaves the other food you eat to turn to fat. Any sugar that isn’t used turns to fat.

Believe it or not, deep breathing exercises can also help you to lose weight. Deep breathing 15 minutes a day will boost the oxygen flow into your body and promote weight loss.

To lose 10 lbs in a week, you’ll want to incorporate all the natural weight loss methods available to you. You might find pills or fad diets that can get you there, but in most cases, it’s not a permanent weight loss. The pounds will come back and your efforts will have been pointless.

The most obvious way to lose 10 lbs in a week is to get rid of the excess water in your system and eat healthful, fat-free foods. Stay away from junk food, high carbohydrates and sugar.

With a good diet plan, you will see results quickly. The first to go is the water that your body has retained. This quick weight loss can be encouraging, but it is not fat loss. That comes next.

Incorporate sufficient exercise into your weight loss plan. Simply eating right won’t cause you to loses 10 lbs in a week. It takes a combination of exercise, deep breathing exercises, good nutrition, and restful sleep.

Take each of these and apply whatever measures are necessary to get them into balance. If sleep is a problem, try to eliminate stress from your life. One way to do this is with exercise, which will also help you to meet your 10 lbs loss.

With a good plan, you can lose weight through water loss and energy consumption. Expect to lose little in the first few days, but an average of about 1-2 pounds per day thereafter.

If you’ve struggled to get to your desired weight, know that with the right plan applied consistently, you can lose 10 lbs in a week.

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Variety is the key to the diet.  Low carbohydrate foods exclude such staples as white bread, rice, and potatoes.  Many people find that they can stick to a meat and vegetables only diet for a couple of weeks but begin to lose interest in the food thereafter.  At that point, they begin to cheat on the plan.  As a result, they gain all of their weight back – and more.

The key to any weight loss plan is to stick to the diet.  Low carbohydrate plans are no different.  In fact, low carb diets require an even greater ability to stay on plan because they rely on your body going into ketosis.
Ketosis is where the levels of ketone bodies are elevated in the blood.  Ketone bodies are used by the blood cells as an alternative to glucose.  So, Adkins and other such diets, starve the body of glucose requiring it to switch to ketones.  This is measured by seeing if your body is in ketosis.

Therefore, if you switch from a diet high in carbohydrates (which are found in white, starchy foods) to one which is heavy in fats and proteins, you force your body into ketosis.  In this state, your body will begin burning fat at a fast rate.

However, if you introduce carbohydrates back into the diet, your body falls out of ketosis.  This means that your body begins to burn glucose instead of ketones.  Even one day of falling off the wagon will destroy your diet.  Low carbohydrate plans depend on your being consistent with the food you eat.

Low carbohydrate diets do not restrict the protein and fat that you eat. Therefore, eggs and bacon are fine for breakfast – but skip the toast and hash browns.  Salads with meats, cheeses, and hard boiled eggs are a lunchtime staple.  Dinner features meat, vegetables, and salads.  Snacks such as nuts, beef jerky, and cheese sticks are acceptable.  In later stages of the diets, fruits may be introduced in limited quantities.
Refined sugars are always off limits.  You shouldn’t eat any potatoes, white bread, rice, or other white carbohydrates while on Adkins or other low carb diet.  Fortunately, a number of food manufacturers have come out with low carb product replacements so that dieters following these programs can occasionally have pancakes, muffins, and the like without breaking their diets.

It is recommended that you stay away from low fat processed foods when on this diet.  Low carbohydrate meals require that you keep all forms of carbs out – and many of the low fat processed foods such as salad dressing replace the fat with sugars.  Besides, on this diet, fat is not a dirty word.

Adkins, Power Protein and the like are pretty good if you have to diet.  Low carbohydrate plans let you eat until you feel full and provide a full range of nutrients.

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“How is that possible?” you ask.

Let’s take a quick look at just what is metabolism and how does it works. This explanation might help you to better understand the process and how it can affect your body.

When you eat a meal, your body begins the process of digesting the food, drawing out the nutrients and processing them to create energy that keeps your body functioning properly and effectively. It takes approximately 4 hours just to absorb the nutrients. This is repeated with every meal you eat. In a day, that amounts to 12 hours that your body is busy absorbing each meal’s nutrients.

In short, during the digestion process, our bodies burn calories. This is especially true of foods containing carbohydrates and protein which take longer than other foods to digest. Simply by eating, digesting and absorbing nutrients from the food, you speed your metabolism.

Does this mean you should eat more to constantly stimulate calorie burning?

Here’s another answer that might surprise you. Yes. But hold on before you park yourself in front of the refrigerator, bib in place, knife and fork at the ready.

While it’s true that eating more food will help speed metabolism, you can’t eat constantly. It’s better to eat smaller meals more often throughout the day. Your metabolism will then be working all day so your body is constantly burning calories.

As mentioned, there are some foods that require more of your body’s energy to burn. The degree to which they affect your body’s metabolism depends on the particular food choice. Caffeine, coffee, tea, chocolate and a chemical found in chillies are some foods that speed metabolism, but only minimally.

Carbohydrates and protein trigger the highest rate of metabolism. In fact, a protein meal can burn as much as 25% of that meal’s calories through digestion and absorption.

While a high protein meal might sound appealing, it wili not provide your body with the required amount of nutrients. Adding vitamin and mineral supplements is not the answer either, because they do not provide the same quality of nutrients that are found naturally in foods.

Your best choice is to eat well-balanced meals regularly that contain protein, non-starchy vegetables, fats and carbohydrates. This can minimize fat production while keeping your blood sugar at a level that helps to burn fat and build muscle.

Focus on these 10 specific foods that help speed metabolism and burn fat.

• Whole grain bread
• Chicken
• Salmon
• Eggs
• Fresh Cheese
• Green Beans
• Summer Squash
• Cabbage
• Asparagus and other non-starchy vegetables
• And, of course, protein rich meats

To temporarily boost your metabolism by as much as 30%, drink cold water. Your body will burn extra calories heating the water to normal body temperature.

Remember, there are other factors beyond your control that can affect your body’s speed of metabolism, including your age, sex and any medical conditions.

While these foods can speed metabolism, the best way to lose weight is with a healthy combination of regular meals and physical exercise, especially those that build muscle because  muscle burns calories too (even while you sleep).

Exercise regularly, stick with a diet of protein, non-starchy vegetables, fats and carbohydrates, and be sure to add some of those foods that speed metabolism, and you’ll soon see the weight loss results you want.

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In theory that means to lose one pound of stored fat you need to burn off a minimum of 3500 extra calories.

In practice that doesn’t happen…

Losing 10 pounds of weight does not mean you have lost 10 pounds of fat. You might have lost fat, muscle or water, but most likely some combination of the three.

In most diets, especially crash diets, weight loss far exceeds fat loss, the majority being water loss.

Your fitness also becomes a factor…Your fitness level dictates which combination of fat and carbohydrates your body cells will burn for fuel during rest and during exercise.

At rest your body can burn mainly fat, but when exercising the body cannot supply enough oxygen to burn only fat and so it needs to use carbohydrates as well.

The end result is you need to burn a far more than 3500 calories to burn off one pound of fat.

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Most people fix their calorie intake to a given number and expect to lose weight at the same constant rate over a period of weeks. Hence, dieters look for 1000 calorie or 1800 calorie diet plans on the internet. The fixed calorie diet plans don’t work. If you burn 3000 calories a day at the start of a diet, after a week or two of losing some weight, you are no longer burning 3000 calories. Now you might be burning 2800 calories. If you fix your calorie intake in the face of a decreasing calorie expenditure, your weight loss will slow down more and more as you lose weight.

If you want to lose weight at a constant rate, you must repeatedly:

decrease your calorie intake to accommodate the calorie expenditure drop

increase your calorie output by exercising more

do both

I would like to note that you must set realistic slow weight loss goals. If you go for fast weight loss you would not be able to sustain it for a long period unless you go extreme in the calorie reduction and exercise a lot. For people who have to lose more than 20 pounds (10kgs), the goal should be a loss of no more than 2 pounds or 1 kg per week. People who need to lose just a bit of weight should go for weight loss of 1 pound or half a kilogram per week.

Why does my calorie expenditure drop as I lose weight? The most important factors are:

You weight less. A smaller body burns less calories both at rest and while active

You may involuntarily burn fewer calories. Dieters often lack energy and move less

Calorie restriction suppresses the metabolic rate

You have less body fat, which may further suppress your metabolic rate

These major factors contribute to an ever-decreasing energy expenditure as one loses weight. The more a dieter cuts calories, the bigger the calorie expenditure drop. The leaner the dieter, the greater the calorie expenditure drop.

Now you must understand that if you want to succeed in losing weight, you have to make changes in your nutrition plan. I recommend burning more calories, because being more active facilitates smaller calorie restriction and milder calorie expenditure drop.

It is very difficult to estimate the rate of the metabolic drop. Here is the general rule: the bigger you are, the smaller the rate of the metabolic drop. The more weight you lose, the more you have to cut calories or increase exercise. If you are overweight you might need to cut just 10 more calories for every lost pound, while if you are lean you might have to cut 60 calories for every pound lost. I picked these numbers just as an example.

Mistake #2: Overreporting the “extra” calorie expenditure of exercise

Most people count the calories they spend exercising as “extra” calories. There is a difference between calories burned while exercising and “extra” calories burned exercising. Here is an example: you burn 300 calories on the treadmill instead of your usual activity (watching TV at home); in reality, you have to subtract the calories you would have spent watching TV from these 300 calories to calculate how many additional calories you burned. Let’s say that watching TV, you would have burned 80 calories. In this specific case, you have expended 300 calories while exercising, and 220 “extra” calories.

Calorie counters mindlessly add the calories burned exercising as “extra” and in some cases, this practice can significantly influence the calorie calculations. Hence, calorie software counts the part of your usual activities that overlaps with the extra activities twice.

How to estimate the “extra” calories burned exercising?

In order to make the calculations more accurate, I shall first introduce the concept of MET values. MET values are a convenient way to calculate the calorie cost of activities. MET values are multiples of the resting energy expenditure per time. In plain English, a MET = 3 means burning 3 times more calories than resting. A MET = 1 signifies how many calories you burn at rest (your Resting Metabolic Rate or Basal Metabolic Rate). Whatever you do, you burn calories at a rate of at least MET = 1 with the only exception being sleeping which has MET = 0.9. During the day, most activities include sitting and walking which have MET values between 1.2 and 3. Your total daily energy expenditure is calculated by multiplying your Resting Metabolic Rate by the average MET of all your activities. Is your head spinning?

Let’s use a real world example. Consider a female person with a Resting Metabolic Rate of 1200 calories a day. One day has 1440 minutes. Our example lady is burning 1200/1440 = 0.84 calories per minute at rest, which signifies a MET = 1. Let’s say our example woman just returned from an aerobics class, where she exercised for 30 minutes. General aerobic class training has a MET = 6. Our example lady has just burned 30 (minutes) x 6 (MET) * 0.84 (calories per minute) = 151 calories while exercising. Suppose our lady would have chatted on the internet instead of exercising (MET = 1.5). In this example, the woman substituted chatting on the internet with aerobic exercising. Remember, that every time you do something you substitute one activity for another. In order to get the extra calories, we have to subtract 1.5 (chatting) from 6 (exercising). Now let’s calculate the extra calories: 30 (minutes) * (6 – 1.5) (MET value) * 0.84 = 113 calories.

Let’s consider what a standard calorie counter would have done. First, it will assume an average calorie burn rate of 1 calorie per minute. Then the counter will find that exercising for 30 minutes will yield 30 (minutes) * 6 (MET) * 1 (calories per minute) = 180 calories. The calorie counter will add these 180 calories to your daily expenditure without considering that a part of these 180 calories is already accounted by your usual activities.

Do you now see the difference between 113 calories and 180 calories? If that woman spends 5 hours a week in that aerobics class, the standard calorie counters will overreport her calorie output by: (180-113) * 10 = 670 calories a week. The woman will be fooled that her metabolic rate has dropped while she just overestimated her calorie expenditure. Enter weight loss plateau, wasted time and efforts. Do you have the time for trial and error calorie estimations?

Remember these two rules:

Report only extra activities to your calorie counter. If your walk to your office every day, do not log “walking to office for 30 minutes” as an extra activity. Consider only unusual activities that contribute to extra expended calories!

Always subtract the calories you would have burned instead of exercising. A general rule is to subtract from 1.2 to 1.5 from the MET values. In some cases, you need to subtract a greater MET. If you substitute 30 minutes of bodybuilding (MET = 6) for 30 minutes of slow jump rope (MET = then the additional MET would be 8 – 6 = 2.

How to find the MET values of activities based on standard tables?

In order to make the above calculations, you need to know the MET values of activities. Standard tables give: name of activity, duration and calories. Standard tables assume an average calorie expenditure of one calorie per minute. To find the MET you just need to divide the calories by the duration.

Example: “Bicycling, stationary, general”, “20 minutes”, “140 calories”

MET of “Bicycling, stationary, general” = 140 / 20 = 7

I know these calculations are somewhat tedious and in many cases the standard calorie calculations are close to correct. However, in some cases they can significantly over or under-calculate the calorie expenditure of activities and compromise your weight loss plan with daily miscalculations.

Mistake #3: Training with light weights and lots of reps

I have seen countless number of ladies come to the gym, get the lightest possible dumbbells, crank out some hundreds of reps and go home. Most often, these women do not get the results they want. The problem with this type of training is that it does not burn many “extra” calories unless you spend a considerable amount of time in the gym. Hefting Ken and Barbie weights in the gym has a MET value of 3, which means that it burns 3 times more calories than resting in bed. Almost anything you do during the day has a MET value of 1.2 to 2. Browsing the internet on your computer has a MET value of 1.5. Realize that almost anything you do during the day (average MET = 1.5) has about 50% overlap in calorie expenditure with training with very light weights (MET = 3). If you pump super light dumbbells in the gym, only about half of the calories burned are “additional”.

Of course, you can burn a considerable amount of extra calories training with light weights but you have to really extend the duration of this type of training. Curling 5 pound dumbbells for 4 sets of 20 reps and chit-chatting for 20 minutes in the gym is not going to burn many extra calories.

Remember the rule: the less intensive the activity (smaller MET), the greater the calorie expenditure overlap with casual activities; the less intensive the activity, the more time you have to spend doing it to expend a good deal of extra calories. Always subtract a MET of 1 to 1.5 to arrive at the additional expended calories.

Mistake #4: Using “average person” calorie estimations

You can find all kinds of tables showing the calorie cost of different physical activities on the internet. These tables don’t show your calorie expenditure. They actually tell you the calorie expenditure of an “average person”. These tables assume you are an average person that burns one calorie per minute at rest. Yes, we covered this in the first part of the article and it needs repeating. Most men burn more than one calorie per minute and most smaller women burn less than one calorie per minute at rest. In reality, these standard tables overestimate the calorie expenditure of smaller people and underestimate the calorie expenditure of bigger than average people. Combine this with the common mistake of counting all burned calories as “additional calories” and you have a wide range of possible miscalculations.

Mistake #5: Going on very low calorie diets (VLCD)

Research has shown little to no difference in the weight loss rate of 1200 calorie diets and 800 calorie diets. The 1200 calorie threshold is the point where further calorie restriction does not yield faster results. Diets in the range of 800 to 1200 calories a day suppress the resting metabolic rate from the very first day and after some weeks on these diets, the metabolic rate has dropped by up to 20%. This metabolic drop is just a consequence of the calorie restriction factor; other factors such as the level of leanness may further depress the calorie expenditure.

A big percentage of the quick initial weight loss on a VLCD is water. VLCDs create an illusion of fast fat loss, while in reality most of the weight loss is water. It is hard to continue a very low calorie diet for a prolonged time because the harsh calorie restriction makes you hungrier than ever. People on VLCDs often lack energy and move very little. When you stop the diet, you are prone to instant overeating. Eating a very low calorie diet is the ticket to yo-yo dieting.

Instead of using very low calorie diets, I recommend diets with a mild calorie restriction and an emphasis on exercise. Overweight people who know what they are doing can employ VLCDs for a limited time. It is important to get enough vitamins and minerals from supplements, because such low calorie diets are woefully inadequate in nutrients. Water intake should be high.

Bodybuilders, powerlifters and athletes must stay away from very low calorie diets because the large calorie restriction causes a greater proportion of the weight loss to be muscle loss.

If you want to automate these complicated calorie calculations, try our training and nutrition software Fitness Assistant FREE for 30 days. Get your trial copy at www.x3msoftware.com

Hristo Hristov is the owner of X3MSoftware, a company specializing in developing training and nutrition software. Hristo has a degree in Computer Science and passion for powerlifting. In his spare time, Hristo gives training and nutrition consultations.
hristo@x3msoftware.com

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There is a limit to the amount of weight (or more specifically fat) that can be safely lost each day. The limit varies from person to person, but tends to average out at around one to one and half pounds per week.

Sure you can lose more, but chances are you’ll be starving yourself, so your body will compensate and in no time you’ll not be losing body fat, rather you’ll be packing it on instead!

The best diets will always ensure you maintain or increase your lean muscle mass and lose body fat at the same time.

Unfortunately when you lose weight quick through dieting alone, you tend to lose lean muscle mass as well. Which is unfortunate because lean muscle needs energy to maintain itself, the more lean muscle you have on your body, the more food you need to maintain it.

We’re not talking about huge muscle bound bodies… We’re talking about normal fit bodies. The best diet programs will always make sure there is a regime of physical exercise to help you build lean muscle mass, and burn excess calories.

Your best bet is to find a diet program which includes exercise to help you lose weight quick by burning calories and building more lean muscle mass. Normally you’d have to eat more to maintain the muscles because unlike fat, muscles consume calories even while you sleep.

Good diet programs control the amount and type of food you can eat, which means you’ll lose weight much quicker because your body will have to break down fat in order to feed the new muscles (while you’re exercising and when your resting).

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