I spend some time on yahoo.com answering diet & fitness questions. One of the most common questions is “how do I lose weight?” Well, it’s not really that difficult… to lose weight Calories In must be less than Calories Out. So my boilerplate answer looks something like this:
1) Create a caloric deficit in your diet. Nothing too drastic, ~500 calories under your maintenance intake. Ideally, split these among 5-6 meals per day, eating every 3 hours or so.
2) Keep your diet around 40% carbs (veggies & whole grains, esp), 40% lean protein (chicken, fish, lean steak), & 20% fat (nuts, natural peanut butter, etc). I’ve used 50/30/20 as well. I like 40/40/20 because of the increased protein to keep feeding the muscle.
3) Keep track of EVERYTHING! Use a site like http://www.thedailyplate.com or http://www.fitday.com to track what you’re eating. They’ll tally up the carbs, proteins, & fats for you. I like the daily plate for their database of food… rarely do I ever need to enter nutritional values for foods.
4) If you’re really out of shape, start by walking 30-60 minutes per day. Work to increase both your pace and your distance.
5) Work your way into interval cardio. It does more to boost your metabolism than steady-state cardio like jogging. Something like sprinting for 20-30 seconds, then walking for 40-60 seconds, repeat for 15-30 minutes (although it may take time to build up to those times).
6) Weight Training is a MUST to keep lean muscle on, plus it does far more to crank up your metabolism than cardio! Muscle burns more fat, so the more you have, the more you burn 24×7. Also, your body continues to burn fat for several hours after you finish working out… something steady cardio doesn’t do. Make sure your program contains the big compound lifts like squats, deadlift, bench press, shoulder press, & rows. These bring far more muscles into play (esp squats & deads) than more isolated lifts. Free weight, NOT machines! And you can start with dumbbells as well.
7) Drink WATER! 8-10 glasses per day.
