How to Lose Weight Fast — In-Depth Guide

Today more and more people are displeased with their overall look. Most often, this issue is observed in those who suffer from extra pounds. That’s why the topic of how to lose weight is so burning.

Here in this article, we’ll see what the principles of effective weight loss are, what are the most common diets, whether it is possible to lose weight fast, and other topical issues.

This article summarizes modern scientific knowledge, on the basis of which clear recommendations are given that can effectively help you lose belly fat. The given data provides universal tips that have a solid evidence base, while at the same time, much attention is paid to security.

This article focuses on data that has been repeatedly tested in practice and in controlled studies that allow us to achieve the best results in weight loss. This text is more likely not even a specific diet, but an affordable guide to compiling an individual program that is right for you. No doubt, you can successfully use other diets; however, ignoring the following recommendations will reduce the effectiveness of the weight loss program.

How to lose weight

Choosing the right diet plan

Losing weight without surgery is achieved primarily with the help of a rational diet and balanced hormonal background, while training, pharmacology, daily routine, and other factors that play a role in the treatment of obesity make a secondary contribution.

Weight loss diet is an individual nutrition plan aimed at weight loss. The diet can last an unlimited period of time, depending on your initial condition and goals.

Studies show that maximum effectiveness is achieved with a low-carb, low-fat, and low-calorie diet. After studying many diets for weight loss, scientists from the Weizmann Institute came to the conclusion that a universal diet does not exist, because, which is useful for one person, another can ruin the figure. Therefore, deciding to lose weight with a particular diet, you must strictly monitor changes in fat mass and hormonal levels.

Who needs a weight loss meal plan? Any person who is overweight, regardless of gender, age, and type of activity, can reduce fat mass to the desired if he follows the recommendations.

Beware of quackery

Currently, there are a huge number of illiterate and fundamentally absurd diets, which are designed only as an attempt to bring something new to nutrition and to attract the attention of the reader.

The history of attempts to lose weight is instructive. Sometimes there is a form of idiocy: a diet of vegetables only purple in color, garlic diets, and even enemas with laundry soap.

Do not trust authors who recommend very complex cycles, ridiculous combinations of products, various complexes, “cleanings” and other pseudo-scientific approaches.

Do not trust in those cases where it is argued that the exclusion of a certain product will lead to a significant reduction in weight. Remember that short diets for weight loss (three-, two-day, and so on) are dangerous to health, while they give insignificant or temporary results.

There are also no effective nutritional programs to eliminate the abdomen, sides, or other parts of the body since spot reduction of fat cannot be achieved using nutritional methods. Another important point: do not try to achieve rapid weight loss. The best result is achieved only with systematic and methodical progress.

• The Hollywood Diet is an unbalanced nutrition plan, with excessively rapid weight loss, which ultimately leads to weight loss and metabolic disorders.
• Kremlin diet – creates unnecessary difficulties with the calculation of arbitrary units, points, and weight in grams, while not showing good efficiency. In fact, this is the Russian analog of the Atkins diet. However, it is less balanced and significantly simplified to the detriment of the result.
• Japanese diet – the refusal of meat and unpolished rice will not make you slimmer. Minimal heat treatment of food can lead to indigestion. Recommendations for taking large quantities of green tea are also unfounded. It is called Japanese only for the sake of advertising since the menu of the inhabitants of Japan is considered one of the healthiest and most useful in the world. Otherwise, no original solutions are proposed.
• Buckwheat diet is a completely unbalanced diet, as a result of which a deficiency of vitamins and protein quickly develops, which will affect the skin, hair, nails, and overall health. Despite the fact that buckwheat is a very good cereal, it does not contain the entire spectrum of necessary substances.
• Rice diet – as in the previous example, an unbalanced mono-diet with a number of flaws. It should be noted that very often, rice contains an increased amount of arsenic. If with a varied diet, this is not so dangerous, then during mono-diet, excess rice in the diet can pose a serious threat to health.
• Grapefruit diet – became popular thanks to the discovery of the substance naringin, which contributes to the burning of fat. Of course, grapefruit is a good product for losing weight, but excessive consumption can cause the development of gastritis and digestive disorders.
• Kefir diet – not balanced enough. Moreover, kefir can be replaced and supplemented with other dairy products and probiotics.
• Blood type diet is an absolutely unscientific diet, not supported by any serious research.
• The diet of Nicole Kidman and other programs with the names of famous people that are added to the name only as marketing tricks do not give the best results, as a large independent study showed.
• The marketing ploy on the product label, which is sold as a “snack,” leads to increased consumption and continued overeating, according to a new study in Appetite magazine.

Of course, there are supporters of a particular nutrition plan, listed above, who were able to achieve the goal. However, this was done to the detriment of the health or quality of the results.

The basic principles of losing weight

#1. A gradual decrease in caloric intake

Human psychology is such that to take a decisive step; it needs a certain push. Another failure in personal life, another kilogram on the scales, another centimeter of fat folds on the belly, the need for larger clothing size, or the influence of a loved one is not important.

After this suprathreshold stimulus, a powerful dominant is formed to achieve the goal – weight loss, and a person starts more likely not even to diet but to exhausting themselves with hunger.

You can’t do this, because it is fraught with serious metabolic disorders and powerful stress for the body, which in a few days will force you to abandon weight loss.

You need to tune in to a long and systematic program that should not be based on emotions. So, in a 2017 study, randomized research was conducted in which it was proved that daily calorie restriction is more effective than alternative nutrition.

In another study, conducted by a team of researchers from the Center for Physical Activity Research (CFAS), the Ramadan model of fasting did not statistically significantly affect body composition, glucose metabolism, and cognitive function in healthy people.

If you decide to reduce your weight, then reduce the calorie intake gradually, not more than 10% per day. Refuse sweets and fat products immediately, and then reduce the number of other products.

#2. Gradual exit from the diet

Even more important is the completion of the diet. Remember that after prolonged starvation, your body believes that you are in difficult conditions of existence, therefore, trying at any convenient situation to make a reserve “for a rainy day” in the form of fat.

If you have achieved the desired result, in no case, do not increase the calorie content of your diet sharply. Otherwise, your body will begin to actively replenish its fat reserves.

You should gradually increase portions until the weight becomes stable.

#3. Low-calorie foods

Your diet should consist of 80% low-calorie foods. This helps to reduce hunger and keep the gastrointestinal tract healthy. Some foods can be consumed in unlimited quantities. Vegetable fiber-rich foods are especially beneficial – they usually contain very few calories and support bowel function. In addition, fiber reduces the absorption of other nutrients (fats and carbohydrates) and ensures their gradual entry into the blood. At the same time, you don’t have to embarrass yourself in your choice. You can eat almost anything. The main thing is that this does not contradict the rules.

In a study of 2017 by scientists from the USA, it was proved that a low-calorie diet increases the duration and quality of life in primates of rhesus monkeys, which in a prognostic sense will have the same effect on humans.

#4. Drinking mode

Consume enough fluids. The optimal volume considering you aren’t running marathons every day is 3 liters per day, including the water contained in the products.

When losing weight, a larger amount of liquid is required, since it is used in the process of burning fat. Water does not contribute to weight loss, but the process of weight loss slows down with a decrease in fluid intake.

Also, a lack of water can cause metabolic and electrolyte disturbances. It is also necessary to remember the drinking regimen because, during a strict diet, the feeling of thirst is reduced. Therefore, the volume of fluid supplied must be kept under conscious control.

#5. Hormonal background

It is known that the body’s metabolism is controlled by hormones. Therefore, hormonal disorders can often be the cause of excess weight. In addition, the calorie restriction can lead to serious hormonal changes in the body that need to be identified and prevented in a timely manner.

#6. Smaller dishes

The size of the plate can really affect the number of calories consumed.

The use of smaller dishes and servings leads to a decrease in the number of calories consumed. This simple recommendation is supported by evidence from real research.

A large portion will not always correspond to the maximum level of saturation. In other words, if the subject has a large portion of food in front of him, he is inclined to ignore satiety signals and consume more food than it should.

In particular, one study regarding how to lose weight noted that subjects consumed 31% fewer calories when they were offered half the size of a sandwich as food, compared to those who consumed large sandwiches as food.

An increase in food servings clearly correlates with an increased risk of obesity. A systematic review of more than 72 randomized controlled trials showed that people tend to consume more calories when their daily diet is divided into larger portions.

#7. Adequate sleep

Scientists have found that limiting sleep leads to metabolic changes aimed at conserving energy. After 5 days with sleep restriction of up to 4 hours, the level of basal metabolism decreased by 2.6%. The authors of another study in 2016 concluded that lack of sleep leads to an increase in food intake.

#8. First consume fiber

It is best to start eating with a salad of greens, tomatoes, onions, raw and boiled green vegetables, as well as heat-treated mushrooms. The foods you start your meal with affect how much and what you eat next. Fiber-rich meals will quickly fill the stomach and slow down the absorption of fast carbohydrates.

The main principle of how to lose weight

Body weight begins to decrease only when the amount of energy received in the form of food is lower than the amount of energy spent by the body. In addition, you need to remember that the body always tries to maintain homeostasis (the constancy of the internal environment), so sometimes you need to significantly reduce the calorie intake, so that bodyweight begins to decrease.

Do not be surprised if you began to eat 5, 10, or 20% less than before, and the weight is kept at the original level. Often, progressive weight loss requires a gradual decrease in calories by 50 or even 90% in order to achieve good results.

Determining this percentage is quite simple; for this, you need to follow a simple rule:

Gradually reduce the calorie intake, until the weight loss begins to be 800 – 1000 g per week. If the weight does not decrease, then you need to eat even less, if the losses exceed the indicated figures, slightly increase the calorie content.

For this, it is recommended to be weighed once every three days. A study by Elina Helander showed that more frequent weighing increases the effectiveness of weight loss, while when weighing at a frequency of less than once a week, performance decreases significantly, mainly due to insufficient nutrition control.

After a month, you can determine the optimal diet and continue until the desired results are obtained. Do not lose weight more than 1200 g per week. Otherwise, metabolic disorders occur, and toxic substances form. The skin will not have time to rebuild, and the muscles will begin to collapse rapidly, and by the end of the cycle, you will get a flabby body that will look even worse than before losing weight.

It is impossible that you do not eat anything, and the weight does not decrease! If the weight is stable, then you eat more than you need! Or other dietary rules are not followed.

Or there are abnormalities in endocrinology – with a lack of thyroxine (hypothyroidism, when the thyroid gland functions poorly), you really can “eat nothing” by cutting the diet to 800 kilocalories per day, and at the same time practically (and for a very long time) not lose fat mass (though at the same time, muscles may break down, the skin may dry and crack, the hair will grow dull and fall out).

If, following the rules of the diet, a similar situation arose, do not hesitate and consult an endocrinologist. You may be prescribed drugs such as L-thyroxine. Loss of fat mass can also go very slowly, and it may seem that all our how to lose weight tips are ineffective if the diet is not balanced by vitamins (it may be worth changing the vitamin complex or revising dosages).

After your weight has gone, we offer you to build an aesthetic body with a scientific approach.