How to Lose A Weight in a Week

1. Don’t deprive yourself of the foods you love.

Telling most people to eat like a fitness instructor 100% of the time is crazy talk. We all go out to eat occasionally, and we all have cravings for cake/cookies/chocoloate/pick your poison. As long as you can discipline yourself to eat those foods rarely rather than frequently, you’re going to lose weight and get into great shape. In fact, there is quite a bit of new science coming out showing that it’s important to have these periodic indulgences to help keep our metabolism from shutting down. The idea is that when your body is on a low calorie diet, eventually your metabolism starts to slow down. However, if you have periodic cheat days (no more than once a week) where you eat a little more than usual, you can keep your metabolism from shutting down and rev it back up again. This is the best way to lose weight fast and avoid hitting a plateau.

2. Eat more vegetables.

During most days, the best way to lose weight is simply to eat less than you normally do. One of the best ways to eat less is to find the foods that trick your body into thinking its full such as vegetables. Vegetables are full of fiber, vitamins, and minerals which are awesome for your health and feeling full.

If you haven’t heard, the USDA just released new diet guidelines with their “plate” icon that replaces the food pyramid. I wrote a little about it here. Basically, the new guidelines put a heavy emphasis on a plant-based diet. Therefore, I recommend finding the vegetables that you enjoy eating and add them to every meal.

An incredibly easy way to add tasty vegetables to your diet is to buy the steamfresh bags where all you have to do is throw them in the microwave and they’re done in 5 minutes. Throw a box of seasoned/flavored rice in a pot on the stove (steamfresh also has rice) and you’ve got yourself a nice hearty side dish of rice and mixed vegetables. You can get lots of different flavors of rice and mix and match vegetable bags or just eat the vegetables without rice. Add a small meat dish and some fresh fruit and you’ve got yourself a perfect meal that takes hardly any time to prepare.

3. Eat Healthier Snacks

The part that kills most people’s diets is when they’re sitting on the couch at night watching TV and a hunger pang strikes. You reach for the first box of cookies/chips/ice cream/crackers you can find and mindlessly munch away until half the box is gone. It’s critical to find healthier snacks to enjoy, preferably vegetables or fruits. A personal favorite are the mini-carrots in a bag that you can eat raw. Some people like sugar snap peas or cucumbers. Whatever it is, you need to make sure you have a lot of them on hand at all times to stave off those hunger pangs or cravings near bedtime.

Another option is protein shakes. Whenever I personally want to lose weight without losing muscle mass, I drink a protein shake (my favorite flavor is the Optimum Nutrition Vanilla ice cream here and eat those mini-carrots 2-3 hours before bedtime. This helped to stave off hunger pangs while also giving my body some protein to help maintain muscle mass which is important if you’re working out.

4. Drink Water Often

You’ve probably heard this quite often, but it’s really true: Drinking water is perhaps the easiest and best way to lose weight fast. If you’re used to drinking sugary drinks like soda and iced coffees, that needs to stop. These drinks not only have very little nutritional value, they’re full of calories. Even fruit juice is on the axe list, because eating whole fruit is far more beneficial due to the fiber and other nutrients that are contained in the solid parts of the fruit.

Water also has the side-benefit of helping you to feel full faster. Therefore, whenever you’re hungry for a snack, try drinking a glass of water first. You’ll likely still be hungry, but you won’t need to eat as much before feeling full. If you want to spice up the flavor of water (like vitamin water flavors) I personally like to add just a touch of lemonade or other fruit juices. You only need a small splash to make the water have a little bit of extra flavor and satisfy sugar cravings.

5. Find Exercise You Enjoy

For a lot of us “exercise” and “enjoy” don’t fit in the same sentence, but it’s time to change that. Whether it’s a long walk for some fresh air, or a more serious workout with weights and running, you need to get up and start moving. For many people a simple 30-40 minute walk is an improvement. For others, you might want to lose weight faster and so a circuit training workout like the one I describe on the exercises to lose weight page. Whatever you do, try to work up a sweat for at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week doing something you enjoy.