How to Lose Weight Fast at Home

To lose weight fast at home, a diet and exercise plan that emphasizes exercise will deliver the quickest and most lasting results. It's natural to admire the hard bodies of TV and movie stars and believe that those results can only be attained with expensive gym memberships and personal trainers. But even the most elite personal trainers rely on weight loss principles that are actually very basic. You can make these same principles work for you at home with some fundamental nutrition knowledge, inexpensive exercise equipment, and your own ingenuity.

Instructions

Prepare to Lose Weight

1

Make sure that you are healthy enough to begin an exercise and diet plan. If necessary, see your doctor to discuss any health conditions you may have. During your visit, ask your doctor what aerobic exercise target heart rate is appropriate for your fitness level and age. Also ask what your approximate daily caloric needs are according to your height, weight, sex, age and activity level. Be sure to ask if there are any reasons you should not exercise vigorously or reduce your calorie intake.

2

Find a target heart rate calculator and also a daily calorie needs calculator on the Internet, if you are not visiting your doctor, or if your doctor does not provide you with your appropriate target heart rate and caloric needs. Use the Internet calculators to figure your target heart rate for aerobic exercise. Use the daily calorie calculator to determine how many calories you need to eat to maintain your weight; you'll reduce this number to lose weight.

3

Start a diet and exercise log to track your at-home weight loss progress. In your log, keep a detailed list of your food, including quantities. Also log your daily workouts, noting how much exercise you do, and also how you feel during your workout. Periodically note your weight and waist, hip, thigh and upper arm circumference measurements as well. As you progress, weigh and measure yourself once or twice a week, but not more often than every other day.

Exercise Regularly

4

Do aerobic exercise 6 days a week to burn calories and fat. Aerobic exercise is any strenuous activity that elevates your heart rate to your target rate for 20 minutes or more. Walking, running, jumping rope, or doing aerobics or dance along with a video, are exercises you can do at home or in your neighborhood, on your own schedule. These are also relatively inexpensive. If you've got money to invest, you can buy a treadmill, elliptical machine or stationary bicycle to use at home. If you have access to a pool, swimming laps or water aerobics are good low impact exercise options.

5

Lift weights and do isometric exercises to strengthen your legs, arms, upper body and core, to build and maintain muscle mass. Muscle is the type of body tissue that burns fat most efficiently, so if you have more muscle, you lose weight faster and keep it off easier. Curls, triceps extensions and side arm raises with dumbbells will tone your arms and shoulders. Push-ups will strengthen your chest and arms. Squats and lunges will tone your legs and buttocks. Firm your abdomen and waist with tummy crunches and floor "bicycle" exercises. To do the bicycle exercise, lie face up on the floor, and alternately touch each knee to the opposite elbow.

6

Use items around your house as improvised exercise equipment. Empty milk jugs filled with water will double as dumbbells. Fill the jugs according to the amount of weight you need--1 cup of water weighs about 1/2 pound; 1 gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. Personal sized water bottles also work well as weights

7

Invest in some inexpensive exercise gear from your sporting goods store or discount department store like Wal-mart or Target. A set of dumbbells, an big exercise ball, elastic tubing with handles and a medicine ball can all be purchased for less than $80 to $100 total.

Change Your Diet

8

Cut your daily calories so that you eat 250 to 500 fewer calories than your body needs to maintain your current weight, so that your body will burn its own fat for energy. Cutting more than 500 daily calories may initially cause you to drop pounds, but some of that additional weight will be muscle. Since muscle tissue is necessary for burning calories, losing muscle is counterproductive to losing fat.

9

Make sure that protein comprises between 10 to 35 percent of your daily calories, according to your age, sex and activity level. You can find a protein needs calculator on the Internet to more closely estimate your protein requirements by percentage and also by gram.

10

Eat at least five servings of carbohydrates each day, but substitute 100 percent whole grain breads and pastas for refined flour products. Watch your portion size carefully, but do not try to eliminate carbohydrates. Popular low carbohydrate diet plans advise you to drastically cut carbohydrates to force fat burning metabolic processes. Because carbohydrates are your body's main source of immediate energy, ultra low carbohydrate diets can impair your ability to exercise effectively since dietary

11

Load up on vegetables and fruits. At least five servings per day are recommended, but for fast weight loss, you should eat even more. Eat fruit instead of dessert and keep fresh crunchy vegetables available for snacking. Soluble dietary fiber in fruits and vegetables helps regulate the absorption of calories in your digestive tract, helping to stabilize your blood sugar levels and control hunger. Fiber also helps you feel physically full.