Many people are looking for a quick weight loss fix. If you are like me, throughout your life you have tried tens or maybe even scores of diets to always have the same result. You lose weight from diet alone or coupled with exercise and all seems to be going well. It is hard but you stick with it and are content with the results. After some time, eventually, the weight loss stops, and you did not lose as much total weight as you hoped. You are glad to be thinner, but the diet is now not as satisfying because you are no longer losing weight, and it is somewhat of a nuisance. You look to the next magazine rack after your will has weakened and you have gained back every pound you lost, and then some. The next diet promises to do more, and be better, so you work up the resolve to try the next one. Fail, rinse, repeat. If you are looking to lose weight in a week, you are just entering a faster black hole of failure; do not go there.
Let us pretend that you think losing fifteen pounds in a week will make some huge imagined change in your body composition. You think with fifteen pounds of fat, fifteen pounds of mayonnaise jars less that you are carrying under your skin, that your six pack will be visible, or those love handles will disappear. This is wishful thinking and nothing more. Competitive bodybuilders prepare for months for a competition with strict and ever increasing diet restriction, special exercises in the gym, and loads of hormone manipulation that can kill the person that does not know what they are doing. At best, you will succeed in you weight loss, only to look like a slightly smaller version of yourself. You body does not burn all of the fat from its abdominals because you want it to; fifteen pounds of fat loss will come from removing both fat and muscle throughout your whole body; it may knock a notch off your belt size, but it will not do much more.
I lost eighty pounds, and went from two hundred and thirty five pounds down to one sixty five. Did I look better, you bet, but it was from six months of basically starvation and daily exercise. Even then, I was what is known as skinny fat. I was skinny, but not muscular. My muscles got smaller with my weight, so I still did not have a six pack at one hundred and sixty five pounds. If you think fifteen pounds of weight loss due to diet alone will make you look buffed, unless you are already a world-class strength athlete, it simply will not happen.
Now, all of the weight you lose in a week may not be fat and muscle, much of it may be from water. Eat a few salty foods after your diet and you may gain as much as ten pounds back in a day. This is not real fat loss, and can easily be duplicated. Elite level bodybuilders, fighters, and powerlifters regularly cut twenty or more pounds in one single day through dehydration. It is a dangerous practice if you do not know what you are doing, but it is something that allows them to make their weigh-in requirements and compete at their normal weight. The person who can dehydrate and rehydrate better (gaining all of their water back within a day), has a huge advantage because they are essentially keeping all of their muscle but competing against people that do not know how to dehydrate themselves as effectively. Again, this is of no concern to you because you are looking for some kind of visible change in appearance in the long run, not the look of a fat and dehydrated person for a day.
Whether you lose weight and make a smaller version of yourself for a small time and gain it all back, or dehydrate temporarily and gain it all back, the common theme is that you will not look any better in the long run. Luckily, I will not leave you hanging. I will conclude with two solid tips that will improve your body composition for the better in the long run.
Tip #1: Learn how to substitute foods. This comes from the science of habit setting, and a very successful model used to help people quit smoking. In order to change a habit, most people cannot simply stop doing something. There will be a time and activity gap if they stop. They will fill this gap with something else, so instead of possibly letting some other vice creep in, set yourself up to succeed. If you want to eliminate ice cream, for example, decide to make a smoothie every time instead. Instead of buying ice cream at the store, but ingredients for a healthy blueberry smoothie instead; fresh or frozen blueberries, nonfat yogurt, and some bananas are much better than a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. Instead of having cereal for breakfast, substitute fruit and yogurt. Instead of a McDonald’s cheeseburger, opt for their chicken salad with vinegar and oil instead of the thousand island dressing. Make substitutions one at a time and realize how easy they are to adopt. Stick with them for thirty days each and they will be much easier to maintain. This can result in rapid and permanent weight loss because you develop healthier habits and become a healthier person.
Tip #2: Push yourself five minutes, five seconds, or five pounds at a time. If you already do exercise, this translates to increasing duration by five minutes per session, doing the same amount of work in five fewer seconds, or increasing the weight by five pounds on every new set. Of course, you cannot keep this up forever, but until you are moving more than your bodyweight with complex movements like the squat, bench press, overhead press, and deadlift, you should be able to keep up the momentum. Do not worry about reps when you increase weight. If you do not currently exercise, it is time to start. This means five minutes of walking per day and increase until it is more efficient for you to go to the gym than to walk for two hours, then follow the above protocol.
These two surefire weight loss tips will help you lose weight that will stay off in the long run. There is no temporary fix unless you manipulate your hormones or get liposuction, and you will need to repeat these over and over again anyway, so I recommend following the tips rather than wasting your time, money and health on the latter.
