Healthy Ways to Lose Weight Fast

There are good and a bad ways to lose weight. If you want to shed pounds fast, it's never a good ideal to starve yourself or go on a crash diet. There are healthy ways to lose weight fast. In fact, you can drop one or two pounds of body fat and several pounds of water weight each week.

Watch Your Calories

Calories play a major role in healthy weight loss. Losing weight fast often calls for a reduction in the amount of food you eat. You can still enjoy an occasional treat. But eating high-calorie junk foods throughout the day can add inches to your waist and extra pounds to your body.

One pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories. Lower your caloric intake by 500 a day (250 if you plan to exercise daily and burn an additional 250 calories). Within a week you'll shed at least 3,500 calories and lose one pound of body fat. This takes discipline, and you'll have to read food labels and make a conscious effort to choose low-calorie, healthy foods and snacks. Eating four to six small meals a day can help you control your food portion and calories.

Regular Exercise and Weight Loss

Exercise isn't a weight loss requirement. But if you're trying to drop pounds fast, daily workouts can assist your efforts. High-impact exercises such as aerobics, jogging and dancing get the heart pumping and burn the most calories. In the beginning, however, it's best to start with low-impact workouts and gradually increase the intensity to avoid injury or fatigue.

Examine your schedule and devote 30 to 60 minutes to exercise each day. If this isn't doable, find a way to exercise three to five times a week. Switch up your routine to avoid boredom. Along with aerobics, incorporate weight training to tone or build muscles and burn additional calories, and engage in core exercises to flatten and tighten the belly.

Get Rid of Extra Fluid

Water weight or fluid retention is just as annoying as body fat. If you're retaining water, you may notice an overnight increase in your body weight. Diet and exercise helps relieve water weight. Potassium-rich foods like bananas assist the body in flushing excess water, and a low-sodium diet stops the storing of salt and water.

Perspiration during exercise helps your body release water. To quickly get rid of extra fluid and combat water weight, it's ideal to increase your fluid intake (water and juice). Fluids prompt the release of water, and you'll able to shed pounds of water weight within days. Drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day.