It’s crunch time, when you have to get into that hot beach swimsuit, favorite dress or attend a favorite event and have to look your best… which means peeling off a critical five pounds of unwanted baggage.
If you plan right you can lose unwanted weight with ease without starving yourself, wrapping your body in cellophane and sweating it out.
Keys to Rapid Weight Loss
The key to losing weight rapidly is and always has been eating the right foods and adopting smart exercise techniques. There is no magic bullet when it comes to weight loss. You can try popping a bunch of pills and starving it out, but techniques like this never work in the long-term. If you manage to lose a small amount of weight, the odds are high that you will gain it back and more rapidly once you stop taking supplements or quit your program.
You can lose a few pounds quickly however and keep them off if you adopt a few smart exercise and weight loss strategies. The process doesn’t have to be torturous. Many people find weight loss quite simple and easy once they understand the key concepts of rapid weight loss.
If you sit down with the best diet and exercise strategists, they will tell you that weight loss is a matter of diet and exercise. Once you actually “digest” this principle and understand that healthy eating can be fund and simple, weight loss becomes quite easy. What you eat has to be less than your caloric output. The more you burn, the more weight comes off. Exercise doesn’t have to be a chore. Finding the right exercises to stimulate rapid weight loss is simply a matter of strategy.
Weight loss has always been about calories or energy burned.
Fast Fitness Tips
Some tactics, which we like to call gorilla weight loss tactics will help trim the body in a pinch. These strategies will help the body work optimally to get you fit in a pinch. Here are the best strategies for burning calories fast when you have to look your best.
- Drink More Water, LOTS of water. Water is the key to fast weight loss. Anyone that has ever lost a lot of weight will tell you that water is essential to weight loss success. Since your body is composed mostly of water, it makes sense to give your body more of what it is made of. Water weighs next to nothing compared with the density of bones, muscles and the weight of other substances in the body. Water also helps to flush toxins out of the body. Most other substances you put into your body are packed with calories. This includes fruit smoothies and yogurt, even healthier selections including fruits. When in doubt, drink more water. The signals for hunger and thirst are one in the same. Many people mistakenly eat when their body is actually thirsty. So the next time you think that you are hungry, drink some water first, and then wait five minutes before eating. You can also drink a glass of water to fill you up faster, and eat less in that way.
- Exclude Simple Carbohydrates. Simple carbs, including white bread, pasta and rice, tend to pack on pounds. Simply cutting these out of your diet for one week can result in dramatic weight loss. These high calorie items tend to make you hungrier, making you eat more food than you would if you exclude them from your diet. Simper carbohydrate foods also tend to cause bloating and water retention, which packs on pounds. The biggest areas of weight gain for many people include the abdomen. Simple carbohydrates are digested quicker than complex carbohydrates, which make you hungry again sooner, and wanting to eat again. You are much better eating foods like cruciferous vegetables, because they body takes longer to digest vegetables. Most vegetables also contain more water in them, which helps you feel fuller longer and get the body more water, which it needs to stay fuller and hydrated. Another example of a food that you should stay away from when trying to shed pounds quickly is white potatoes.
- Exercise Daily. If trying to shed pounds quickly, exercise for at least 30 minutes every day. This gets your body into the habit of burning calories daily, and keeps your metabolism revved up. Try picking a cardiovascular exercise that uses all of the major muscles in the body. Good examples include kickboxing, swimming or spinning classes. You should try incorporating your arms and legs so that your major muscles get a good workout. This will help burn a minimum of 250 to 300 calories in a 30 minute workout. If possible try strength training at least 3 days within the week. This will help tone major muscles in your body, providing you with a sleeker profile.
- Try interval training. Interval training incorporates short bursts of activity with slower activity. This has been proven to burn more calories than traditional cardiovascular activity. Interval training activates muscle groups causing them to energize the body in ways that a 45 minute traditional cardiovascular routine could not. The end result is that you burn more calories in a shorter amount of time.
- Try a little caffeine. Drinking too much coffee is not good for you. But if you try a cup of coffee approximately one hour before your workout, you may burn more calories. A little caffeine may energize you just enough to give your workout a little extra boost. You may find that you exercise a little harder, and burn more calories. You may not even realize that you are putting in the extra effort.
- Try aromatherapy. Certain scents, including grapefruit and citrus, tend to stimulate the senses. They act in much the same way that coffee does, acting as a natural stimulant, proving a much needed boost when you need to feel energized right before a workout. Try dabbling in a little citrus therapy right before your workout. You can also try dabbing some citrus aromatherapy into a little almond oil and rubbing or massaging it into your thighs following your workout to keep the blood pumping through your body and to help circulate blood throughout your legs or other areas.
- Get enough rest. Most people believe that to burn calories, they must be on the go. While it is true that adequate exercise is important for losing five pounds fast, seep is also important. The body does a lot of work while you are at rest. If you lose too much sleep, you may actually find that you gain weight rather than lose it. Getting between five to eight hours of sleep every night is crucial to your weight loss. When you lose too much sleep you may find that you try to eat more food to compensate for your fatigue. This can sabotage your weight loss goals. If you plan to feel your best, then be sure that you get plenty of sleep.
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- Avoid drinking too much. Booze can pack on pounds. There is no such thing as empty calories. All alcohol contains calories that will pack on pounds. So avoid alcohol, even low calorie drinks while trying to lose weight quickly. Instead try a soda fizz with a splash of lemon or lime for a little natural pick-me-up.
- Eat from a plate. Avoid grazing throughout the day. If you plan to eat, schedule your mealtimes and eat at the table. This allows you to see exactly how much you are eating. If you graze throughout the day, the odds are that you are eating a lot more than you actually realizing. When you eat at the table and only from a plate, you can see the exact proportions of food that you are eating, and avoid overeating.
- Keep a journal. A food diary lets you stay on track with your target food goals. Writing down also makes you accountable for all of the food that you eat. You can keep track of your feelings as well and document the reasons why you eat. Emotions can be a big part of why you eat. In the long term, after you meet your short-term weight loss goals, you can consider managing more of your emotional eating and develop healthy eating patterns that can last a lifetime.
In the long-term cutting calories below 1,050 to 1,200 will not promote healthy weight loss, and may prove counterproductive because you will start losing muscles rather than fat. This will result in fat gain and slow your metabolism. The better plan is to write down your weight loss goals. While losing 5 pounds quickly is a good start, it is much better to have healthy weight loss goals that include maintenance goals so you can enjoy your weight loss in the short-term, and maintain a healthy weight over time.
This will set you up for a healthy weight that you can enjoy for lasting happiness