People who are battling with their weight may believe that losing 50 pounds in 26 weeks is unachievable. However, with the appropriate approach, it is doable. Here are 20 weight reduction ideas that will help you watch the needle move in the correct direction:
1. Establish realistic goals
A lot of people fail on the first step of their weight reduction journey because they don’t know how to set an achievable objective. Some people begin exercising with no specific goal in mind, while others begin with a broad goal in mind.
Your weight reduction goal should be attainable, measurable, and actionable. Trying to lose too much weight too quickly may lead to disappointment, and most people in this category will abandon their weight loss journey because they are overwhelmed by the large numbers in front of them.
To make your weight reduction journey less scary, divide your primary goals into smaller ones. Additionally, crossing smaller goals off your list each week will serve as positive reinforcement and keep you motivated.
2. Preserve a Calorie Deficit
To lose weight, you must create a calorie deficit, which means you must burn more calories per day than you ingest. Most people, however, have no idea how many calories they should eliminate from their diet in order to lose weight.
It is claimed that if you remove 500 calories from your regular diet, you can lose one pound every week. Similarly, cutting 1,000 calories from your diet each week will help you lose two pounds. To keep your weight loss journey smooth, stable, and sustainable, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest limiting your daily calorie decrease to 1,000 kcal.
If you cut 1,000 calories from your daily diet, you will lose 50 pounds in 25 weeks (2 kcal x 25). In particular, six months is roughly divided into 26 weeks, implying that you can safely shed 52 pounds in half a year. This demonstrates that our goal of dropping 50 pounds in six months is both realistic and risk-free.
Notably, you do not have to eliminate 1,000 calories from your diet in order to enter a deficit. If this were true, losing two pounds per week would be nearly impossible for people who consume 2,000–2,500 kcal per day.
You should remove 500 calories from your diet and burn the remaining 500 calories with an activity program to attain the 1,000-calorie deficit. This is why sticking to an excellent diet and exercise plan is essential for reaching your weight loss objectives.
3. Foods high in nutrients
To achieve your weight loss objectives, you must adhere to a personalized food plan. Furthermore, because they are high in vitamins, minerals, and fiber, nutrient-dense whole foods should be included in your diet.
Depending on your nutritional preferences, your meals should include vegetables, fruits, grains, non-starchy carbs, and a lean protein source. You should also limit your sugar consumption to prevent visceral fat development.
Controlling your portion sizes might help you stay on track with your calorie intake objectives. Purchase a food scale or measuring cups to ensure you consume the proper portions of each dish. Furthermore, using smaller dishes and bowls can help reduce the danger of overeating.
You should also get into the habit of reading nutrition labels before purchasing packaged goods. It will ensure that you only buy items that meet your macronutrient targets and avoid ‘dirty calories.’ Whole foods have fewer calories than processed and junk foods, making them ideal for your weight loss quest.
4. Continue patient
The proverb “patience is a virtue” applies to body metamorphosis. Most people give up on their weight loss objectives when they lose patience because it takes too long. Losing 50 pounds in six months, for example, is not a short-term objective. Only a few people have the fortitude to stick to a rigid diet and workout regimen for 25 weeks.
Furthermore, losing too much weight too quickly can be harmful. Some people use fad diets to lose a considerable amount of weight in a short period of time; however, this weight quickly returns after you stop following the radical diet.
Avoid the urge to go on crash diets or engage in excessive activity, as these might stymie your development and raise your risk of injury. Instead, concentrate on adopting long-term lifestyle adjustments that will assist you in achieving your desired physique.
5. Calculate your BMR
In a weight loss plan, the function of basal metabolic rate (BMR) is frequently disregarded. BMR is the number of calories your body requires to perform its most basic (basal) life-sustaining processes. BMR and RMR are terms that are frequently used interchangeably.
Your BMR is determined by a variety of factors, including age, body size, amount of lean muscle tissue, gender, heredity, and so on. A 25-year-old, 180-pound, 5-foot-10-inch male burns 1,910 daily calories when not working out or moving around, according to BMR calculations.
To reduce one pound of body weight each week, this person must remove 500 calories from his diet, which means he must consume 1,410 calories per day. Furthermore, if this person wishes to lose another pound, he should increase his workout regimen by 500 calories.
Alternatively, you might use calorie-tracking software, such as MyFitnessPal, to calculate your average daily calorie consumption by assessing your calorie intake over the previous five days. Once you’ve determined your typical calorie consumption, cut 500 calories from your diet by reducing your serving size at each meal or by missing a meal. This will assist you in losing one pound of body weight per week.
Remember that everyone is built differently and reacts differently to different stimuli. Finding the appropriate number of calories to eliminate from your daily routine may necessitate some trial and error.
6. Reevaluate Your Macros
Fitness aficionados must understand the three macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats). During a weight loss program, you must limit your carbohydrate and fat intake and consume a protein-rich diet.
Notably, many people regard carbs as their worst enemy when it comes to losing weight. However, completely eliminating carbohydrates from your diet will be a mistake because your body uses glycogen (which originates from carbohydrates) as its primary energy source.
Refined carbohydrate foods such as white bread, white rice, pasta, baked goods, sugary drinks, candies, and junk food should be avoided. To maintain your general health and performance, you must ingest at least 130 grams each day.
To promote weight loss, a study found that your macronutrient split should be fat (40%–20%), carbs (35%–65%), and protein (25%–15%).
7. Workout
Essentially, exercise is not required on a weight loss program, but working out three to six days a week can help you lose weight faster. A 150-pound person can burn 500 calories in around 40 minutes if they maintain a 12-minute mile (5 mph) pace.
To achieve the best weight loss outcomes, you must incorporate cardiovascular and strength training into your workout routine.
Cardio
To maximize weight reduction, your training sessions should include both aerobic and anaerobic routines. Furthermore, HIIT (high-intensity interval training) activities are quite effective at burning calories. They are also frequently shorter than traditional cardio workouts, making them ideal for people with hectic schedules.
Increasing Exercises
Many people miss out on benefits by avoiding the free weight phase throughout their weight loss program. Strength training burns calories during a workout and raises your metabolic rate, allowing you to burn more calories throughout the day, even when you’re not physically active.
8. Engage the services of a nutritionist and a personal trainer
Contrary to popular belief, developing a diet program is not within the scope of practice of a certified personal trainer. While a personal trainer can assist you with a customized training plan based on your physical fitness levels, restrictions, and goals, you must seek the assistance of a qualified nutritionist for a customized food plan.
You could get a dietician’s referral from your trainer. The nutritionist and trainer can collaborate to streamline and maximize your training and recuperation programs.
You could create your own exercise and eating plan, but it will take a lot of trial and error. Hiring a nutritionist and personal trainer can help you save a significant amount of time, effort, and money in the long term.
A personal trainer can also help you develop a firm training foundation by teaching you proper workout form, which can reduce your chance of injury.
9. Ways to Improve Your Lifestyle
Your weight loss program should not be confined to diet and exercise. Losing 50 pounds in six months necessitates a lifestyle change. You must make healthier choices in all aspects of your life, for example, instead of taking the lift, climbing the stairs, eating more vegetables and fruits at each meal, and going to bed on time every night.
You should also clean out your kitchen cabinets of all junk food. Remember that whatever is in the cupboard will eventually end up in your stomach. Snacking on junk food reduces the likelihood of getting off track.
You must also stay moving throughout the day. Every couple of hours, take a 5-10 minute walk break. Setting a daily step goal of 10,000 can motivate you to walk more during the day. Notably, 10,000 daily steps may be too much for most people; therefore, start with a 5,000-step goal and gradually increase it.
10. Hydrate
On a fat-loss diet, water is your best buddy. You’ll lose a lot of water through sweat during cardiac exercises, raising your risk of dehydration. To stay hydrated, you should drink at least a gallon of water daily.
It also regulates your body temperature, protects your tissues, spinal cord, and joints, aids in waste excretion through perspiration, urination, and defecation, improves digestion and blood oxygen circulation, boosts cognitive function, and improves skin quality.
Furthermore, drinking water throughout the day will keep you full, lowering your chances of bingeing on junk food. When you’re feeling particularly hungry, take a glass of water before your meal to help reduce your appetite.
11. Avoid Fad Diets at All Times
The fitness community is constantly bombarded with new fad diets that promise incredible results. The boiled egg diet and the cabbage soup diet are two of these diets.
Fad diets are popular for a short period and then fade away. Some people feel that fad diets can help them accomplish their weight loss objectives faster because they stimulate extreme eating choices.
Most fad diets promise spectacular outcomes, but there is little to no scientific data to back them up. Adhering to a fad diet will not only result in a weight loss stall, but it will also produce chronic health problems because these diets include restrictive and imbalanced eating patterns, such as removing entire food groups or severely limiting calorie intake. Furthermore, weight loss gained with fad diets is not always durable.
You must only adhere to a diet program that is supported by scientific research and has a track record of success.
12. Days of fasting
Fasting is one of the most effective techniques to achieve a calorie deficit and reduce weight. The rise of intermittent fasting has given fasting new life. Intermittent fasting entails alternate intervals of fasting and eating.
Depending on your interests and schedule, you could choose from numerous intermittent fasting (IF) programs. The most popular IF regimen is the 16/8 approach, which entails fasting for 16 hours and eating for the remaining eight hours.
Aside from weight loss, intermittent fasting can increase insulin sensitivity, battle chronic inflammation, improve heart health, boost cognitive function and immunity, and lower cancer risk.
An intermittent fasting program, as opposed to traditional diet programs that stipulate what you should and should not consume, focuses on your eating pattern. Although your nutritional options are not limited by an IF plan, you should stick to good eating options to accelerate your weight loss success.
13. Do not go hungry
Contrary to popular belief, you are not expected to starve on a weight-loss program. Going too hard on yourself during a diet can lead to a poor relationship with food, where you may feel guilt, shame, anxiety, or fear about food and eating.
A bad relationship with food can lead to a pattern of disordered eating patterns such as binge eating, purging, or using food as a coping strategy for emotional stress, which can have the opposite effect on your weight reduction efforts. Furthermore, it might have a severe impact on your physical and emotional health.
Starving yourself can also impair your performance in physiological and psychological tasks by leaving you feeling weak, depleted, and exhausted throughout the day. If you are not on a fasting protocol, you should consume modest but frequent meals throughout the day, even if you are on a weight loss program.
14. Get your meals in earlier
Leaving your meals to chance is a proven way to get off track with your weight loss goals. If you want to lose 50 pounds in six months, planning at least a week’s worth of meals ahead of time can reduce your chances of succumbing to cravings and sticking to your diet. It also relieves the stress of having to come up with food ideas on the fly.
Meal planning allows you to precisely break down your calorie goal into an optimum macrosplit. If you go into a restaurant feeling extremely hungry, you’re likely to pick the most unhealthy item on the menu. Remember that you must control your environment rather than be ruled by it.
Furthermore, meal planning can save time and money by avoiding the need for last-minute meal options. It enables you to buy goods in bulk, lowering your shopping costs dramatically. Not to mention that it reduces food waste.
15. Stress Reduction
Chronic stress is a major contributor to weight gain. Stress causes your body to produce more cortisol, which leads to an increase in body fat stores.
When overwhelmed, many people turn to unhealthy eating and binge eating junk food, resulting in a large belly.
As if that weren’t enough, persistent stress boosts hunger and can disrupt sleep. It can also lead to a reduction in physical activity, which can contribute to weight gain and difficulty decreasing weight.
Exercise, meditation, and yoga are effective methods for lowering cortisol levels, combating stress, and improving general health and well-being. If you are unable to reduce your stress levels using these three strategies, seek the advice of a medical practitioner.
16. Supplements
By improving your metabolism, reducing your appetite, speeding the fat-loss process, and inhibiting dietary fat absorption, adding a fat-burning pill to your regimen can help you lose weight faster.
It is worth noting that the effects of a fat-burning supplement can vary based on the components. Before purchasing a supplement, you should thoroughly examine its ingredients.
Whey protein supplements can enhance your metabolism while also suppressing your appetite and keeping you full throughout the day. Furthermore, protein supplements will prevent muscle mass loss during your weight loss program.
Natural supplements, such as caffeine and green tea extract, can also help you lose weight faster. Caffeine can also temporarily increase your metabolism by up to 16% over one to two hours, allowing you to burn more calories.
Before beginning a new supplement, consult your healthcare professional. Furthermore, natural fat burners should be preferred over synthetic versions to ensure safe weight reduction and that the weight does not return quickly after discontinuing the product.
17. Snack Meals
Flabs would be extinct if losing weight was simple. Most people begin seeking junk food within a few days of beginning a weight loss regimen. When discussing a weight loss regimen with a newcomer, their initial inquiries usually center around the number of weekly cheat meals allowed.
Although six months is a long time, you must avoid cheat meals to attain your goals and prevent getting off track with your weight loss quest.
Furthermore, if you indulge in a cheat meal, you must account for its calories. Subtract the calories you ate in your cheat meal from your weekly calorie goal. Because having a cheat meal on this program can be difficult, we advocate avoiding junk food until you reach your goal. Cheat meals can also raise cravings since calorie-dense, highly delicious foods trigger the reward centers of your brain.
18. Exercise Meditation
Weight loss is a psychological as well as a physiological struggle. To attain your goals, you must maintain a focused and conscious lifestyle.
It is critical to pay great attention to your ideas, feelings, and physiological sensations at all times to control your surroundings and prevent them from controlling you. Mindfulness practice can assist in recognizing the factors that lead to unhealthy eating patterns. It will also assist you in monitoring your self-talk, which may drive you to miss a training session.
Conscious eating can help you avoid overeating and ingesting too many calories, which can help you sustain a caloric deficit. To maintain a good mindset and alleviate stress, incorporate mindful practices such as meditation, yoga, exercise, and journaling into your daily routine.
19. Exercise Patience
The proverb “patience is a virtue” applies to body metamorphosis. Most people give up on their weight loss objectives when they lose patience because it takes too long. Losing 50 pounds in six months, for example, is not a short-term objective. Only a few people have the fortitude to stick to a rigid diet and workout regimen for 25 weeks.
Furthermore, reducing too much weight too quickly can be harmful. Some people use fad diets to lose a considerable amount of weight in a short period of time; however, this weight quickly returns after you stop following the radical diet.
Avoid the urge to go on crash diets or engage in excessive activity, as these might stymie your development and raise your risk of injury. Instead, concentrate on adopting long-term lifestyle adjustments that will assist you in achieving your desired physique.
20. Identify a Support System
A strong support system can help you achieve your body transformation goals. Most people believe that exercise is a one-person sport and underestimate the value of a support system.
A supportive system might help you stick to your goals and motivate you when feeling down. Your family and friends might be part of your support system. You could also make gym buddies who can hold you accountable and be a part of your support system.
Your closest group is critical to your development process. If you eat out five days a week and prefer to party till late, you’ll probably give up on losing 50 pounds in six months.
By sharing their own experiences and resources, such as healthy recipes and workout advice, the appropriate firm can help you reach your goals.
The conclusion
It is easier said than done to follow these weight-loss guidelines. Adhering to these objectives necessitates a strong mental attitude, determination, and patience. Remember that while you may lose weight quickly at the beginning of your weight loss journey, your progress may appear to be stalled once you have shed your water weight. Regardless, you must keep your head down and work hard.
