Weight loss is hard to accomplish but easy to understand: Just burn more calories than you take in, and your body will start burning fat to produce energy. Diet is one means to weight loss, and exercise is another. Together, they can produce dramatic results. Twenty pounds is a reasonable weight-loss goal that just about anybody can reach safely over a matter of several weeks, as long as they keep a responsible diet and bolster it with moderate exercise.
Estimate Your Calorie Needs
Figure out how many calories you need to get through the day. Most people need somewhere around 2,000 calories a day, but that varies depending on your age, size and level of activity. Younger people require more calories than older people, larger people require more than smaller people, and active people require more than inactive people. Online calorie calculators from reputable health organizations can help you figure out how many calories you need. This will be your baseline number to plan your weight loss.
Create A Deficit
Create a gap between the calories you need and the calories you consume. A pound of fat contains about 3,500 calories, so if you fall 500 calories short of your daily needs, you can expect to lose about a pound a week. That's four pounds a month, or 20 pounds over five months from dieting alone. According to the Mayo Clinic, safe rates of weight loss range from half a pound to two pounds a week.
Exercise
Deepen your calorie gap through aerobic exercise and weight training. Half an hour or more of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity most days of the week can burn thousands of calories a week. For example, a 180-pound person who jogs moderately for half an hour will burn about 470 calories. That same jog every weekday will burn 2,350 calories a week. So, a person doing this much exercise and maintaining a 500-calorie daily deficit will lose about two pounds a week. That's eight pounds a month, and 20 pounds in 10 weeks.
Foods to Choose
Cutting non-nutritious calories is key to losing weight through diet and exercise. Excess sugar tops the list of things you don't need, and it can make a dramatic difference in your weight loss. For example, eliminating one regular soda a day saves you upward of 700 calories a week. Eliminating a large fountain soda every day can save you thousands of calories a week. Other sources of empty calories include sugary treats such as candy, pastries, fried chips and other junk food. Not all junk food is obvious; some of it masquerades as healthy granola bars and low-fat or fat-free products.
Eating Smart
Nutritious, low-calorie foods are key to any diet plan. Stay full with fiber, get your protein from lean meat such as chicken and fish, eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and make sure any bread product contains whole grain. Avoid fried foods and grill or broil them instead. Keep a moderate amount of healthy, unsaturated fat in your diet; good sources include nuts, fish, olive oil, avocado and seeds.
Eat several times a day: three meals and snacks in between. Eating only once a day can force your body into starvation mode, where it hoards fat to survive.
Building Muscle
Build muscle to burn more calories. A pound of muscle burns 50 calories a day just by being there, and that's not saying anything about the calories required to build and maintain it. Muscle also has a long calorie-burning arc; unlike aerobic activity, whose calorie-burning benefits stop when you stop exercising, muscle needs to heal itself and burns calories long after you've stopped working out. Building muscle is best done with a personal trainer, who can help you design a program to pack muscle onto your frame safely and efficiently.
