The question "How do I lose weight?" It is written to Google 150,000 or more times per month. The question "How can I lose weight fast?" he is asked even more. Unfortunately, the so-called answers that usually appear are ridiculous "weight loss tips" that do not really explain what a person needs to do to lose what they do not want and keep it. What's worse, they often conflict with each other, creating more lasting confusion than lasting results.
The truth is much simpler. You can lose weight with any number of approaches you have heard: IIFYM, paleo, low carbohydrate, vegetarian, ketogenic or intermittent fasting. It is also possible to lose doing nothing more than eat a good meal in a moderate amount.
Sustainable physical transformation occurs by making healthy alterations in your diet, controlling your overall calories (or portions, to think otherwise) and exercising regularly. Any other approach may work in the short term, but will the results last? Do not hold your breath.
Here are the best recommendations backed by Bodybuilding.com experts and how to put them into practice!
How to lose weight
Focus on maintaining or adding muscle, not just burning fat.
Follow a balanced nutrition plan with consistent eating habits and track your calorie and protein intake, at least initially.
Try to lose 1 or 2 pounds per week, but not much more.
Exercise for at least 60 minutes, 3-4 days per week, with some strength training in the mix.
Perform cardio workouts or high intensity interval training 2-3 days per week.
Now, let's discuss each point in more detail.
Fundamentals of Weight Loss
How Do I Lose Weight Without Losing Muscle?
One of the reasons is the answer to "How to lose weight?" It's so messy it's because it's really a wrong question!
Why? Because the number on the scale does not describe one thing, it describes two things: fat mass and fat-free mass. One of them is a fair game to burn, and the other is something that you really want to keep! So, the question we should ask ourselves is: "How do I lose fat while maintaining or increasing fat-free mass?"
Your fat-free mass includes your muscles, organs, bones and connective tissue. It also includes the weight of the water. In other words, this is what would be left if you removed every fat cell from your body.
Muscle mass is an important component of your fat-free mass and should weigh more than your fat mass. In addition, muscle mass has a great positive impact on your metabolism or "metabolic rate," which is the amount of calories your body burns for energy. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you will burn, even when you are not exercising.
However, muscle is also the physical engine that drives it through activity, both in the gym and in life. It also helps support and strengthen your joints, helping to improve balance and reduce the risk of injury. Maintaining it should be a high priority, especially when dieting. And no, not only for bodybuilders!
But let's talk about fat. Get a bad reputation, but your body needs it too! There is an essential amount that each body needs to be healthy. That amount will vary according to body type, age, sex, physical activity level and fitness goal.
For the general population, the levels accepted as "healthy" are 21-32 percent for women and 8-19 percent for men. [1] That's a great range!
To be clear, it can be higher than the "healthy" range and remain healthy, or be lower than it and be unhealthy. But the rank is a good place to aim. Spending most of your life at higher levels can put you at risk for health problems related to weight, such as type 2 diabetes, certain types of cancer and cardiovascular disease. The lower percentages may be fine for short periods of time, but they can be very difficult to maintain and are not ideal for long-term health.
So, the big question is: how do you lose fat while clinging to muscle? Pauline Nordin, in her article "6 ways to reduce body fat while increasing muscle", recommends two major approaches:
Train as if you were trying to gain muscle, even when the goal is to duck. That means using resistance training with weights or your body weight.
Use high intensity interval training (HIIT), instead of just spending hours on the treadmill.
How Can I Eat To Lose Weight?
It is estimated that 45 million Americans diet every year. [2] Given the current rates of obesity in this country, we can clearly see that the success rate is low.
Therefore, we want you to abandon the word "diet" completely. This word not only has negative connotations, but also usually means that you are only doing it for a short period of time, often focusing primarily on reducing calories as low as possible.
"This makes nutritionists like us want to scream from the rooftops that severe caloric restriction, also known as a diet, is not the answer," says registered dietitian Susan Hewlings, Ph.D., in the Nutrition Foundations course. for the Wellness of Bodybuilding.com. "Yes, reducing calories leads to weight loss Many diets reduce calories very, at least at the beginning, and get results, but not forever."
Once you stop getting those results in the short term, keep gaining weight can make you feel very bad, drag (or skip) the workouts and prepare for disappointment.
It needs a more strategic approach than simply "eating less". And start with how you think. Instead of thinking of food as something that should be limited, think of the food you put in your body as fuel for the healthy lifestyle you are building!
For many people, the changes needed to get there are not as big as they think, says Hewlings. You can get excellent results simply by:
Replace your usual high-calorie or sugar-sweetened beverage with non-caloric liquids, or reduce the amount of drink.
Create a plan for "problem food" each day, where you are more likely to overeat or eat fast foods instead of nutrient-laden foods, such as low-fat proteins or whole grains.
"Maybe lunch is his weak point because he rushes out of the house and does not pack one, or because his coworkers like to eat outside, maybe it's dinner, because he has not eaten anything all day and came back exhausted Maybe breakfast is a sugar bomb, and it has been since you were a child, "explains Hewlings. "No matter what food is the biggest problem, fix it, and just that, it can be a big gain." What's better, requires a lot less work on your part than trying to prepare all the meals at once. as simple as prioritizing proteins in a meal that would otherwise be empty calories. "
Speaking of calories: yes, they are definitely important when your goal is to lose weight! But before you start cutting them, start by establishing where you are at this moment and simply keep track of the way you eat now. Even if you do it only for a short period of time, it may be a long-term game change, says registered dietitian Paul Salter in the article "Do you want to lose fat? Before changing a single thing, do it"
Monitoring your nutrition, says Salter, can help in several ways, including:
Help you see portions as decisions, not just something that is served.
Reveal the "hidden calories" in your diet that you may not have otherwise seen
For some people, simply having that information is enough to make a significant change. But for many others, it may be useful to compare it to a calorie-backed science recommendation, like the one you'll find in the free calorie intake calculator from Bodybuilding.com.
This calculator will help you calculate how many calories you burn during the day, both through normal bodily functions and other activities and exercises. Then, it will give you an objective caloric intake to aim for.
Why bother with numbers at all? Because many of us overestimate, underestimate or dismiss the lie about how much we weigh or exercise, even if we do not realize that we are doing it. And even if you're honest with the calculator, it does not mean that the number is 100% accurate! In fact, we can guarantee that it is not. But it's a good place to start.
Once you have established your daily calorie goal, follow up on it to determine if you need to adjust your calorie intake a little, not too much! Because he is not losing body fat.
How Do I Lose Weight Fast?
- Alpha M's Tailored: 6 Weeks to Living Lean
- FYR: Hannah Eden's 30-Day Fitness Plan
- Jim Stoppani's 6-Week Shortcut to Shred
How Fast Should I Lose Weight?
When we introduce a timeline into our fat-loss quest, things can quickly get tricky. "How do I lose weight for health?" is a very different question than "How do I lose belly fat in two weeks?" But television and the popularity of drastic stories sometimes alter our perception of what is realistic and sustainable.
To add to that, our "more is better" mentality often tells us that if removing 300 calories from our daily nutrition leads to a small amount of physique change, then imagine what taking out 600 or 1000 calories can do!
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Cutting your daily calorie intake too low (for example, under 1200 calories) brings lots of risk and little reward. Yes, there are healthy ways to lose fat faster, but they are most effective once you have the basic healthy behaviors mastered first.
Without those behaviors nailed down, if you're hungry all the time, are ruled by cravings, and have no energy, the chances of you maintaining your diet are minuscule. You may lose what you want, but as soon as you go back to eating your normal foods in the normal amounts, you'll likely regain all you've lost, and in some cases add on an extra few pounds.
Complicating things even more, research has found that repeated cycles of loss and gain end up making it harder to lose pounds and easier to put them back on, as Layne Norton, Ph.D., explains in the article "How Your Fat-Loss Diet Could Be Making You Fat." This "yo-yo" style of dieting may damage your metabolism, leading to a slower resting metabolic rate—meaning the amount of calories you burn during each day.[3]
It's far more likely you'll have success if it comes off slowly—particularly when it comes to stubborn belly fat. And your metabolism will end up working with you, not against you.
This doesn't mean that there's nothing to be gained by doing a fat-loss focused workout program that only lasts a few weeks, though. On the contrary, as fitness coach Sohee Lee writes, many researchers believe just three weeks is enough time to create lasting healthy habits.
The upshot for you? If you just think in terms of the next four weeks, or even better, six weeks, you can achieve a surprising amount—and set yourself up for even more long-term success! That's enough time to finish several of the most popular short-term fat-loss plans on Bodybuilding.com. These include:
Any of the three can be the start of something great. And with a dual focus on nutrition and training, they can help you build a foundation that compounds over time.
Following a short-term plan like these can also help give you a finite time to focus on getting your nutrition nailed down, and on determining what fat-loss supporting supplements will work for you. The best natural weight-loss supplements and weight-loss shakes can help you get the most out of training and see enough results during a program to keep you coming back for more.
To learn more about fat burners and weight-loss supplements, check out the article "The Complete Guide to Fat Burners."
Put simply: As slowly as you can stand! In this regard, the scale can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Although your goal may be to see that number go down, the scale often doesn't accurately reflect what's going on in your body.
No matter your fitness level, the number on the scale can fluctuate by five or more pounds in a single day, depending on things like how much water you drink and food you eat. These changes don't mean that you've suddenly put on five permanent pounds of fat, though. For this reason, it's important to weigh yourself at the same time every day, and to take what's on the scale with a grain of salt.
When you do weigh yourself, remember that sustainable progress is usually fairly slow. Depending on how many calories you cut out of your diet and how much exercise you're getting, 1-2 pounds per week is a reasonable goal.
But sometimes, particularly if you're on a serious long-term physique transformation journey like "Possible Pat" Brocco, the scale might not budge for weeks or even months at a time, even if the mirror tells you that you're losing belly fat and adding muscle. That's OK. It's normal, in fact! Just know that over time, your consistent approach will eventually pay off. Slow loss is always the best choice. Think of it this way: The pounds didn't go on in just a few weeks, and you won't get them off in that time, either.
If that number on the scale sticks in your mind, though, it can be important to limit how often you step on it. It may also benefit you to take weekly progress photos. That way, you'll notice those small changes and feel motivated to keep going. It may also be helpful to get your body-fat percentage checked as you go, but it's not essential.
If you get really interested in strength training, you may find that the number on the scale goes up instead of down because your muscle mass is increasing. Remember, the scale doesn't always tell the whole story, so pay attention to the mirror, how you feel, and how you are performing in your workouts.
If you know you stress out about the number on the scale, stop using it! Plenty of people have success without it.
What Are The Best Macros For Weight Loss?
Technically, you could experience some success by only counting the number of fast-food hamburgers you eat each day and decreasing it by one. However, if you would like to experience lasting changes to your body, stay healthy, and increase your fitness, it can be helpful to look more deeply into how much of each macronutrient you're consuming.
There are three primary macronutrients (macros): carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Each of them is necessary for your health and performance, but there are endless ways to combine them. For carbohydrates alone, your options range from a very low-carb ketogenic diet where you eat next to no carbs and lots of fats, to carb cycling, where you change your carb intake day by day based on your training schedule.
These days it's pretty easy to do a quick internet search and find hundreds of different diet plans of varying complexity and extremity. But to start off, it's best for most people to keep a good ratio of all three macros in your nutrition plan and simply focus on quality and consistency.
Most American diets are too heavy in fat and carbs and don't have enough protein. A tried-and-true ratio to start with to get these imbalances under control is:
- 20 percent of your calories from fat
- 40 percent from carbs
- 40 percent from protein
Use Bodybuilding.com's free macronutrient calculator to help you find what works best for you and your lifestyle. Over time, you can make alterations to this ratio depending on what foods you like, how your body responds, and your daily activity level.
For example, fitness model and trainer Obi Obadike says he ultimately landed on a 20/30/50 split for lasting leanness while still being able to perform in the gym. Other coaches and athletes have had success with 30/30/40, 25/35/40, or other ratios entirely.
Honestly, there's a lot of room for customization when it comes to fats and carbs, as long as you keep two factors more or less consistent: overall calories and daily protein intake. Those two factors are the numbers that studies have shown to be most connected to dieting success, explains registered dietician Susan Hewlings, Ph.D., in the video "How to Eat for Weight Loss" in Bodybuilding.com's Foundations of Fitness Nutrition course.
"Here's the thing: As long as calories—i.e., total portions—are under control and you're getting enough protein, [dietary systems] all work with about the same level of predictability," Hewlings says.
Having a balanced nutrition plan will not only help you lose weight, it will help you be able to maintain it for the long term. It may not sound sexy, but maintenance—i.e., not yo-yoing—is an essential part of losing fat and keeping it off.
Some people will have you believe that the only way to change your body is to leave yourself in a sweaty heap in the gym every day or tie yourself to the treadmill or elliptical for hours at a time. This doesn't have to be the case!
If you're new to the exercise world, it's OK to simply start off by filling your life with activities that you enjoy. It could be running, playing racquetball, hiking, or Sunday soccer with your friends. Whatever keeps you active for 60 minutes, 3-4 times per week, will help you feel good and experience some success.
But along with that kind of activity, it's a perfect time to include more structured training. In particular, it's important to focus on strength training and cardio, especially in the form of high-intensity interval training.
Strength training: What? Isn't lifting weights better for bodybuilding or getting huge, rather than losing fat? Believe it or not, it's an essential part of lasting weight control.
"It's understandable if you're hesitant to believe that, but here's why it works: Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat, even when you are just sitting in front of the TV," explains registered dietician Susan Hewlings, Ph.D., in Bodybuilding.com's Foundations of Fitness Nutrition video course. "The more you have, the m
ore you'll be able to burn. It also gives you control over your health and appearance in a way that simple calorie control can't, and helps develop the strength and energy you need to fit more total activity in your life."
The benefits don't end there. Resistance training also has profound beneficial effects on your bones and joints and helps to prevent osteoporosis (loss in bone mineral density), sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass), and lower-back pain, assuming you use proper exercise form.[4]
Of course, there are plenty of different ways to approach strength training: fast-paced or slow, high reps or low, a bodybuilding-style body-part split or full body, just to name a few. There's really no wrong answer, and a lifter will cycle through all of them over the course of years. But researcher Jim Stoppani, Ph.D., suggests giving serious consideration to full-body training, particularly if fat loss is your goal.
Cardio and HIIT: The word "cardio" may bring to mind a treadmill with a TV set on top, but that's only one way to get it done.
High-intensity interval training, or HIIT, can also be a very effective weight-loss tool. It's pretty easy to incorporate into any fitness plan because it can be applied to a variety of settings and different types of equipment can be used.
Another positive: The best HIIT workout is often the simplest. For example, a popular introductory workout is to bike hard for 30 seconds, then rest for 30 seconds. Continue in this fashion for 10 minutes at first, building up over time to 20 minutes, with a light warm-up and cool-down of about 5 minutes of easy peddling on either end. Two or three brief sessions like this a week, along with some lifting, and you can achieve some surprising results!
Cardio and HIIT
If you're looking for something more systematic, the most popular weight-loss programs in Bodybuilding.com All Access share a common thread: They give your lungs and heart a calorie-burning challenge, but also lead you toward a healthy overall body composition and muscle growth.
The 5 Most Popular Bodybuilding.Com All Access Weight-Loss Programs
Jim Stoppani's 6-Week Shortcut to Shred
Lee Labrada's 12-Week Lean Body Trainer
Transformed: 12 Weeks to Your Best Self
Alpha M's Tailored: 6 Weeks to Living Lean
FYR: Hannah Eden's 30-Day Fitness Plan
Your Attitude
Not every day is going to be a great day, and sure, you'll encounter the occasional hiccup or low point when it comes to your nutrition and training plan. Know that now and accept it. But if you stay dedicated to controlling portions and being a little more active, you'll slowly but surely see those pounds come off.
By far, the most important part of implementing healthier habits into your lifestyle is bettering your self-image and happiness. How you look is not nearly as important as how you feel. Maintain positivity and you'll see the changes you want to see!