It’s Possible to Lose Weight Fast AND Keep it Off!

The United States has become one of the fattest nations on the planet and it continues to grow; literally!  Coined The United States of processed food, high fructose corn syrup and fast food; it has been high on the list of fattest nations for more than 50 years. With the health concerns regarding obesity and stomach fat, many people are now trying to figure out how to lose belly fat in a hurry, but it’s not easy to sort through all the hype.

It should be apparent that we need to do more to educate ourselves on proper diet and nutrition as well as acquire some helpful weight loss tips to show us how to lose weight and keep it off.  Obesity has become a national crisis and it’s imperative that we do something about it.

 

What You Need to Lose Weight FAST

A basic weight loss program consists of a healthy low-calorie diet and plenty of physical activity or exercise.  The media is constantly bombarding us with the latest and greatest weight loss products, guaranteeing to show us how to lose weight fast.  But every product is aimed at the same basic principle; you have to eat fewer calories than your body needs if you want to lose weight.  That’s right, there are no fancy tricks or magic bullets, losing weight comes down to that one basic principle.

The amount of calories your body needs on a daily basis will depend on three factors:

 

• your Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR)
• your level of physical activity
• the thermic effect of your food

 

Calculating Your BMR

Your BMR or Basic Metabolic Rate, is the number of calories or energy your body needs just to function; while at rest.  This will account for approximately 60 to 70 percent of the calories your body needs each day.  Your BMR includes the calories required to keep organs functioning and other body processes.  A reliable formula to determine your BMR is the Harris-Benedict formula:

 

Adult male:

66 + (6.3 x body weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years)

Adult female:

655 + (4.3 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)

 

Physical Activity Burns Calories

The next item that affects the number of calories your body needs is the amount of physical activity you engage in.  Physical activity requires the second largest number of calories your body will need.  Everything we do requires energy and this energy or fuel is provided in the form of calories.

Whether you’re brushing your teeth or participating in an aerobics class, your body will need energy for fuel. This energy comes in the form of calories.  The number of calories required will depend on your weight; obviously, the more you weigh the more calories it’s going to take to move your body.

 

Thermic Effect

The last item that plays a role in the number of calories we need is something called the thermic effect of food.  This is the energy your body needs in order to digest the food you’ve eaten.  When we eat, our body needs energy in order to break the food down into its most basic elements so it can be properly utilized. This energy is the thermic effect of the food. It can be calculated by multiplying the number of calories eaten by 10%.

 

How to Lose Weight Fast

It’s important to understand how your body uses calories as well as the number of calories it needs each day.  Once we understand this, it’s easy to determine the best way to lose weight.  A pound of body weight is equivalent to 3,500 calories, so if we want to lose 10 pounds, we need to reduce the number of calories we consume by 35,000 calories.  If we know that our body needs 2,000 calories per day just to maintain its current weight, then we can easily calculate what we need to lose 10 pounds.

Let’s say we decide to reduce our daily calorie intake by 500 calories, it would take us 70 days to lose 10 pounds.  But, if we decided to incorporate extra physical activity each day, we can increase the rate at which we lose weight.  If we include a daily workout that burns 500 calories, we have now doubled the rate at which we will lose that 10 pounds and we will have accomplish this in a matter of 35 days instead of the original 70.

 

Losing Weight Comes Down to Some Basic Math

Whether we reduce the number of calories we consume, or we burn more through exercise, it still comes down to calories in vs. calories used.  Ideally, you’ll use a combination of diet and exercise to help you lose weight fast. The best exercise to lose weight will not only burn calories, but will help keep your metabolism running at its peak performance.