First and foremost, I would like to preface that I am not a doctor or nutritionist. This advice is based solely on personal experience and I highly recommend consulting your doctor before any dietary change.
If you are reading this you are probably like me tried every diet, fad, and trend out there to lose weight. Well, one day I was so fed up with nothing working and I decided I needed to figure out something on my own. My requirements were to not restrict any types of foods, that was what I almost always failed at with diets. I knew I also needed exercise and decided on a minimum of 15 mins. a day of either walking, biking or any physical activity of my choice. My best form of exercise was and still is a stationary bike with the moving arms. I would do it while watching tv and it made the time fly by.
Here are the exact steps I took to lose weight:
1) Weigh yourself in the morning before you have eaten and take waist, thighs, etc measurements if you'd like. Get a calendar this is your starting day, write down your weight and measurements. This is the day you will weigh yourself each week (make sure it is always in the morning prior to eating for best accuracy). It is important to weigh yourself only once per week, this will be the most accurate way to track your weight loss. If you do it everyday, you may get frustrated and it could affect your will power. Remember, water and other variables effect your weight during the day and day to day, so weighing yourself often isn't helpful.
2) Invest in either green tea supplements or the tea itself. Green tea has many benefits and will help quench your thirst as well as promote weight loss. If you don't care for the taste then the supplements are the way to go, just make sure you read the ingredients. You want something that only contains tea. I took a supplement myself (not liking the taste of green tea) that contained 3 types of tea, this is ok as long as the only ingredients are tea. I encourage you to google green tea and weight loss for further information and reading.
3) Sign-up for a free account at http://www.my-calorie-counter.com. This will allow you to customize your weight loss plan and to keep a food journal. This is the "diet" part, at this website it has a tool that based off of height and weight it tells you what your daily calorie intake should be. *Take note, when you have reached your desired weight, re-use this tool to know how many calories you should eat each day to maintain your weight. Now, whatever this tool says your daily calorie intake should be subtract 500 calories, this will be your daily calorie intake for the duration of the diet. So, if the tool says you should be getting 2,000 cals. take 500 away and you end up with a 1,500 cals. a day diet. Here's an important thing to remember, if you are exercising then you are burning more calories so make sure you still eat enough calories during the day.
4) Exercise is important, sorry there's no escaping it. But, any physical activity will do, in my book something is better than nothing. I recommend a minimum of at least 4 days a week setting aside at least 15 mins. of time to do any physical activity you chose. Walking, running, biking, hiking or whatever you feel like will work. Switch it up, so working out doesn't get boring.
Those 4 simple steps allowed me to lose 1-3 lbs a week, sometimes more depending on how well I did exercise and calorie wise. It is important to try to be as accurate as you can while counting calories. The good thing about the website I recommended is it allows you to track your intake of sugar, fat, protein, fiber, and vitamins, so you can make sure you are getting a balanced diet.
The best thing about this diet is you can pretty much eat what you want (healthy stuff is better, but you aren't restricted to it) as long as you stay under or at your maximum daily calorie intake. It will take some will power to not cheat and some extra work to measure out food portions and what not, but it can be kind of fun and it is worth it.
** Another helper is any frozen dinner in the diet section, like SmartOnes. These eliminate the work of measuring and researching calorie amounts. So have them on hand when you are feeling lazy. Plus, they have some amazing desserts too.
I have some more tips to help you with this weight loss plan and with weight loss in general, so be on the look out for those articles.
