When it comes to losing weight, most people assume that dramatic results take dramatic action. While this may be true in some cases, for most people, making a few small changes can lead to permanent weight loss over time.
If you’re looking to lose weight but aren’t interested in joining a bootcamp or going on a strict calorie-reducing diet, you can still make small changes to your routine that will get you results.
First of all, it is important to understand the basics of weight loss. A pound of fat consists of 3,500 calories. So, in order to lose a pound a week, you need to reduce your caloric intake by 500 calories per day, or alternatively, burn these calories through exercise or some combination. Whichever you choose, you can lose that pound per week by proper application of this formula.
Obviously, if you want faster results, you’ll usually have to do a little more work. Assuming you want to lose 2 pounds a week (a healthy and reasonable goal), then you’ll need to eliminate 7,000 calories from your weekly diet through food restrictions or exercise.
Although this may sound like a lot, the truth is that most of us don’t realize how many calories we are eating. Cutting 500 calories from your day can be as simple as giving up your morning mocha. Add an hour of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity and voila, you’ve essentially burned 1000 calories.
For some people, doing an hour of aerobic activity each day sounds too strenuous. In such cases, you may want to try a one hour walk or a thirty minute walk and a more intense bike ride along with further caloric reductions.
Chances are, if you haven’t been paying any attention to your calorie intake, you’ll easily find ways to cut five hundred calories or more. Making healthy substitutes is one of the best ways to do it.
For example, substituting your mocha for a delicious Americano with skim milk can save you a lot of unnecessary calories. Or maybe go for lightly salted popcorn with nutritional yeast instead of your butter-soaked movie theater variety.
Other options include choosing to drink lemon water instead of soda. Sodas are one of the worst offenders when it comes to weight gain. These fizzy drinks load you up on calories and are terrible for your teeth. So if you must drink soda and can’t bear to give it up, be sure to opt for a sugar-free diet variety.
Obviously, one of the best ways to start losing weight is to start a daily food log. You can start writing down what you eat even before you start dieting to get an idea of where you can cut some fat.
For most people, keeping this daily log will shed light on why they’ve gained weight in the first place. Instead of wondering why you’re not skinnier than you are, you’ll start to see hard data about how many calories you’re actually consuming.
You’ll also want to do a thorough investigation of how many calories your particular body needs to maintain your weight. For easier results, use one of the many online calculators available. Some are more sophisticated than others, but basically with your height, gender, weight, age, and activity level (or some combination of them) you’ll figure out how many calories your body needs just to stand upright and breathe.
Once you have this, you can do the math. If you find that you need 2,000 calories to survive and maintain your current weight, you will need to reduce your caloric intake (through diet and exercise as described above) by 500 calories per day to lose one pound per week or 1,000 calories per day to lose 2 lbs.
However, diets of fewer than 1,200 calories a day are generally not recommended and are considered crash diets. You can harm your body and metabolism if you crash diet too often, so limit yourself to 1,200 calories or more and add more exercise, or be satisfied with a pound and a half or a little more weight loss each week.
Losing weight doesn’t have to be an exhausting battle. Just learning some of the basics of losing weight and starting to pay a little more attention to your daily caloric intake can make a world of difference.
If you’re in no rush to lose weight but want lasting results, then start with these small changes. In a few months you’ll be a size or two smaller and it’s definitely worth the wait.
