When people try to lose weight, they often go straight to the Internet to look for 'quick-fix' diets and 'fad' diets that will offer instant results. These types of diets, however, generally fail to work for everyone because they are not specifically customized to each dieter's personal situation. Customizing your own diet plan is essential if you want to see long-term and sustainable results. Here are some tips on how to achieve this.
The first thing that you need to do is to know exactly where you currently stand. Get a notebook and work out what your overall body weight and body fat percentage is. This is important because muscle weighs more than fat and your overall aim will be burning fat, not reducing muscle.
Consider how many calories you consume daily. This is not going to be an exact science because most of us alter our eating habits fairly frequently. We are, however, creatures of habit and therefore you should be able to garner a fairly accurate picture of how many calories you eat daily, weekly, and monthly.
Make a list of the foods that you enjoy, both healthy and unhealthy. The trick to creating a sustainable, yet effective, diet is in incorporating foods that you actually like to eat, rather than those that you are simply forcing down your throat. Including unhealthy foods that you enjoy is also important because cutting them out of your diet completely is often detrimental. Having the odd unhealthy meal, snack, or even day, within your plan can actually help to promote fat loss, particularly when you're working with a restricted calorie intake.
The basic formula when it comes to weight loss is simply to burn more calories than you take in. There are roughly 3500 calories in one pound of fat, so you will need to create a deficit of 500 calories in your diet each day of the week in order to burn 1 pound each week. Doubling this to create a deficit of 1000 calories, will help you to burn 2 pounds each week, and so on.
At the beginning of every week you should create a meal plan for the following seven days. Get out your list of healthy foods and start working out what you're going to be eating each day. Doing this will prevent impulse eating and snacking and will help you to know exactly what calories you are taking on board.
Add three or more exercise sessions into your weekly plan as well. Consider exercises that you enjoy and work out how many calories you will burn off when engaging in that exercise for about half an hour. Depending upon your job, you also need to estimate how many calories you burn off in your day-to-day activities. Do all of this and you will find out exactly what the deficit you are creating is.
Finally, stick to the task. Keep a journal of your results and make sure that you stay with your diet plan. If you do this, you will certainly start gradually losing weight. This should further inspire and motivate you to continue moving forward, or even to increase your deficit for quicker results.
The first thing that you need to do is to know exactly where you currently stand. Get a notebook and work out what your overall body weight and body fat percentage is. This is important because muscle weighs more than fat and your overall aim will be burning fat, not reducing muscle.
Consider how many calories you consume daily. This is not going to be an exact science because most of us alter our eating habits fairly frequently. We are, however, creatures of habit and therefore you should be able to garner a fairly accurate picture of how many calories you eat daily, weekly, and monthly.
Make a list of the foods that you enjoy, both healthy and unhealthy. The trick to creating a sustainable, yet effective, diet is in incorporating foods that you actually like to eat, rather than those that you are simply forcing down your throat. Including unhealthy foods that you enjoy is also important because cutting them out of your diet completely is often detrimental. Having the odd unhealthy meal, snack, or even day, within your plan can actually help to promote fat loss, particularly when you're working with a restricted calorie intake.
The basic formula when it comes to weight loss is simply to burn more calories than you take in. There are roughly 3500 calories in one pound of fat, so you will need to create a deficit of 500 calories in your diet each day of the week in order to burn 1 pound each week. Doubling this to create a deficit of 1000 calories, will help you to burn 2 pounds each week, and so on.
At the beginning of every week you should create a meal plan for the following seven days. Get out your list of healthy foods and start working out what you're going to be eating each day. Doing this will prevent impulse eating and snacking and will help you to know exactly what calories you are taking on board.
Add three or more exercise sessions into your weekly plan as well. Consider exercises that you enjoy and work out how many calories you will burn off when engaging in that exercise for about half an hour. Depending upon your job, you also need to estimate how many calories you burn off in your day-to-day activities. Do all of this and you will find out exactly what the deficit you are creating is.
Finally, stick to the task. Keep a journal of your results and make sure that you stay with your diet plan. If you do this, you will certainly start gradually losing weight. This should further inspire and motivate you to continue moving forward, or even to increase your deficit for quicker results.
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