3 Things Everyone Should Know To Lose Weight Fast

Weight loss isn't about magic pills or expensive potions. It's not about eating the same bland foods every night either. It's about making smart choices and not being too hard on yourself when you slip up.

If you want to lose weight fast follow these 3 simple rules.

Ditch Highly Processed Foods

Processed foods often lack essential nutrients but are loaded with fats, sugars, and artificial chemicals. Your body reacts differently to 100 calories of fruits or vegetables than 100 calories of candy or potato chips.

I get it. Processed foods are easy and delicious. Its much more tempting to grab a box of Krispy Kremes or look for the latest 'from freezer to dinner' meal when it's time to eat. But we all need to realize that those options give us the poundage we never wanted to purchase.

Many highly processed foods are manufactured for hyper palatability. These artificially enhanced foods overstimulate the pleasure neurotransmitter dopamine which can lead to cravings. The urge to crave sugar and sweetness can even surpass the cravings of cocaine addicts. This helps explain why so many people have difficulty controlling their consumption of processed foods.

Stay Hydrated

Drop any drink high in calories by switching to water or tea. A lack of hydration hinders fat burning by affecting the kidneys and liver. When your body is dehydrated it holds on to the little water it has, causing you to feel bloated. Drinking the right amount of water brings everything back to equilibrium and speeds up your metabolism. When we are hydrated our bodies just work more efficiently, this speeds up fat loss.

The easiest way to incorporate proper hydration into your life is to start small and make it a habit. The first thing I do every morning is drink a glass of water or tea. It actually wakes me up and make me feel better. Don't like plain water? Fear not because you are not alone. Add a squeeze of lemon -- or any other yummy fruit for that matter. Want even more energy and antioxidants? Grab the green tea.

However you decide to hydrate yourself, just be sure to make it a habit.

Get Enough Sleep

I have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends. It's easy to talk myself into one more podcast or another glance at Facebook when I should going to bed. It doesn't matter how early I need to rise, Game of Thrones is always more entertaining than sleep.

It's hard to translate sleep into skinny, but trust me it's true. While you might be able to ignore your yawns and caffeinate yourself into a functional human being, no matter what you do your body still needs its sleep, and your waistline proves it.

Missing zzz's can pack on the pounds quickly. A lack of sleep compromises the effectiveness of typical weight loss strategies. Missing a few hours of sleep may also make you more likely to be tempted by junk foods. The prefrontal cortex is highly sensitive to a lack of sleep and it happens to be the part of the brain responsible for self-control. Its no surprise that people who get less sleep each night are more likely to be overweight or obese.

Don't worry, you don't have to be perfect. It's almost impossible to have a perfect diet. Its about finding balance.

Try to think of your diet as a lifestyle for longevity. When you eat a wide variety of natural whole foods you think, feel, and perform better.

Trying to lose weight doesn't mean that you can never enjoy your favorite unhealthy foods again. Eat plenty of healthy foods but also indulge in what you love, without the guilt.

Don't stress. Stressing out over your diet is counterproductive because stress is directly tied to weight gain. Eat the unhealthy things you love and fully enjoy them without the guilt. Just make unhealthy foods the exception rather than the norm.

There is a lot more to life than food and it is better to eat the wrong food with the right attitude than the other way around.

Greg Bastin is a former skinny-fat nerd and founder of the health company Opportuniteas http://www.opportuniteas.com/.
The goal is to make it incredibly easy for anyone to get the very best knowledge and foods for optimal health. Check out his health and nutrition blog http://www.opportuniteas.com/blog/

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How to Lose Weight Fast - Success Tips

For the majority of people losing weight is an ongoing struggle. You might find some success with a particular diet or weight loss plan, but as soon go back to a "normal" life, the weight creeps back on. This is an all too familiar scenario for most people and the challenge of losing weight is to not only take off pounds, but to keep the weight off.

Not all diet tips and weight loss plans are realistic, are you prepared to eat nothing but grapefruit for weeks on end? And what happens when you decide to eat something else? This is the cycle most of us have fallen into and it creates the yo-yo effect, making it even harder to lose weight.

The big news recently is the dangers of carrying excess belly fat, but many people don't even know how to lose belly fat, they think there's some magic pill or potion that will give them the flat stomach they've been longing for. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, there's no quick fix, losing belly fat is no different than any other plan designed to show you how to lose weight. You need to change what you eat and what you do. It's that simple.

Every pound of weight you carry is equivalent to 3,500 calories. It doesn't make any difference how much weight you need to lose, the best way to lose weight is to start figuring out how many calories you body needs just to maintain its current weight. Once you know how many calories your body requires, you'll be able to calculate how quickly you want to lose the weight. Let's get started.

There are three things that will factor in to the number of calories your body needs. These are BMR, or Basic Metabolic Rate; physical activity, how active you are; and the thermic effect of food, this is the energy your body requires to digest the food you consume.

The first item, BMR is fairly easy to calculate. This is the number of calories or units of energy your body burns while at rest. Your Basic Metabolic Rate will include the calories used to accomplish the necessary functions like pumping your heart, stabilizing temperature and working your lungs. All of these activities require energy or fuel for your body to perform. The amount of fuel, or calories used through BMR is approximately 60 to 70 percent of the total number of calories your body will need in a day.

A standard and accepted formula for calculating BMR is the Harris-Benedict formula:

Adult male:

66 + (6.3 x body weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

Adult female:

655 + (4.3 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)

You can easily use this formula to calculate the number of calories your body will require for BMR.

The next factor impacting the calories you'll need is physical activity. Everything you do will require fuel for your body. It's not just exercise that burns calories, getting dressed, washing your face or attending an aerobics class; they all will require fuel, or calories for your body to burn. The more physical activity you engage in, the more calories you'll burn in a day and the more calories your body will require.

The last item that comes into play is the thermic effect of food. Your body uses energy to digest food and break it down into usable elements. This energy is known as the thermic effect of food and is calculated by multiplying the total calories consumed by 10%, so basically, 10% of all calories consumed are used in digestion. Some foods will take longer to digest, making their thermic effect a little higher.

We can now take a look at the total number of calories your body will need in a day. By calculating your BMR, physical activity and the thermic effect of the food you eat, you'll have a very good idea of the number of calories your body needs. Now, if you want to lose weight, you know that you will need to give your body fewer calories than it requires; this will result in your body turning to stored fat for its source of fuel.

If you calculate that your body requires 2,200 calories just to maintain your current weight and you want to lose 5 pounds, the calculation will look like this. Remember each pound is equivalent to 3,500 calories, so a weight loss of 5 pounds would be 17,500 calories (3,500 x 5lbs.). This might seem like a lot of calories to eliminate, but it's not nearly as impossible as it looks.

Since we figured you would need 2,200 calories each day, let's take things easy and assume you will shave off a measly 500 calories. This is easily done by foregoing a couple of treats or opting for a healthy lunch over that Big Mac. You'll find it relatively easy to find 500 calories you can do away with. So, if you create a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day, it will take you one week to lose a pound, or five weeks to lose 5 pounds.

Do you want to lose weight even faster? That's easy. You can double your rate of weight loss by doubling your caloric deficit. You've eliminated 500 calories from your diet, but what about burning a few extra calories each day. Maybe you'll take up a sport and join an exercise class. If you burn 500 more calories each day you will double your weight loss efforts. Now you'll lose those 5 pounds in just over 2 weeks! Play with the numbers and you can figure out where you want to be and how quickly you want to lose the weight. Remember, a healthy weight loss is considered between two and three pounds per week.

When it comes to losing weight we've got all the information you need, from how to get a six pack you've always wanted, to quick tips to lose belly fat for your upcoming vacation. Debbie has long been an advocate of healthy living and writes extensively on the subjects of health, weight loss, diet, exercise and nutrition.

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