HIIT For Efficient Weight Loss

This post is about High intensity interval training or HIIT for short and how you can use it for fast and efficient weight loss. HIIT should probably be considered an advanced exercise technique, and not something to be attempted if you are not already in relatively good shape.

HIIT can be done with many exercises but for example purposes lets look at how it would work with running. The general idea is that instead of jogging at a steady speed for 30 minutes or however long you usually exercise for you will alternate between a "high intensity" or full out RUN and regular or low intensity jog/speed walk. You can try to ease yourself into an exercise program like this by only doing the high intensity portion for a much shorter duration than the lower intensity part. For example, try sprinting for 15 seconds and then walking for 45 seconds, and repeating this over and over for 20 minutes. Overtime you should be able to work yourself into something like running for 30 seconds and jogging for a minute to rest.

Studies have shown that HIIT can be more effective at burning fat and losing weight than standard aerobic exercise, and you can do it in less time!

For the longest time during my weight loss journey I only did low intensity exercises, until I learned about using HIIT to increase my fat loss, then I was able to get the same benefit from 20 minutes of exercise that used to take me 30 minutes or more. You can read more about HIIT training at Musclemedia, just know that it's not as easy as sitting on a stationary bike and reading, but it may be worth it to try it out.

Quickest Way To Lose Weight

This guide is about the quickest way to lose weight, or at least what I believe is the quickest way to lose weight. The method may not be perfect but I can almost guarantee that you will lose weight very fast, at least over a short period of time. Please be careful and know the limits of your own body, especially when it comes to exercise. I have written this guide with safety in mind and hope you can use it to lose weight quickly and safely.

Please evaluate your own fitness level before you try to follow this or any other guide on how to lose weight. For example if you never get any exercise at all, it is absolutely not recommended to start doing 2 hours of extreme cardio everyday. Your body just can’t handle it. If you are not used to exercise and are very out of shape, tone down the exercise to match what you can actually handle, and build up over time. While this guide may be about the quickest way to loose weight, overall fat loss and maintaining your weight is an ongoing and long term process.

The reason I am writing this guide on quick ways to lose weight is because I believe if you see a huge weight loss in your first week or two weeks of a new exercise and diet program you will be highly motivated to continue your program instead of quitting or giving up.

To begin with, you must understand that your body requires a certain number of calories everyday. You burn a base level of calories by just being alive everyday, you burn calories while you are sleeping, sitting at your computer, even while are you eating. This number of calories varies from person to person and you should use a calorie calculator to determine the base amount of calories you need everyday. The calorie calculator will take your age/weight/height and sex into account and determine the amount of calories your body needs everyday. Here is a calorie calculator I found in a quick search.

So why does all this matter? Who cares about calories? The reason calories are important is if you eat less calories than your daily requirement, you will lose weight, and if you eat more calories than the daily amount, you will gain weight. Really it is as simple as that. So when looking for the quickest way to lose weight, you will want to minimize the amount of calories you consume. What I do not recommend is consuming no or very few calories, this is not a healthy way to lose weight, if your recommended daily calorie intake is 2000, you should consume no less than 1000 calories a day, and only for short periods of time, such as 1 or 2 weeks. This will ensure that you are losing weight quickly and safely.

How can you safely minimize daily caloric intake? First of all, eat very little amounts of food spread out through the day, this will help reduce hunger, and it’s better for your metabolism. If you don’t eat for many hours at a time your metabolism will slow down to a halt and you will not be losing weight. Next, maximize the amount of vegetables and lean meat that you eat such as chicken breast, and minimize or completely eliminate pretty much all other foods. Most vegetables have high water content and are generally very very low on calories, this means you can eat them all day and not go over your calorie limit. Lean meat like chicken breast is a protein, and is fairly low on calories since it has very little fat. Protein helps speed up your metabolism, and is very good for quick weight loss, in fact, skinless chicken breast is a great part of any fat loss diet. Avoid any foods high in fat. Fruit is fine but is generally higher in calories than vegetables so be careful with it. Finally, make sure you drink plenty of water and stay well hydrated, you will need it for the next portion of the quickest way to lose weight.

So lets assume that you are already at a 1000 calorie deficit everyday just from your diet alone. By eating healthy you will be losing about 2 pounds of fat a week, since each pound of fat is 3500 calories. How can we increase the rate at which we lose fat, and lose weight quicker? Exercise of course.

Ideally you will do a mix of cardio and weight training, but for the quick way to lose weight, over a short period of time, you can start with a lot of cardio. This will burn tons of excess calories and burn off fat very quickly. For a long term approach to weight loss, weight training will build lean muscle and that lean muscle will increase your metabolism and burn off more calories on its own.

There are tons of forms of cardio, from simply running, jumping rope, swimming, it all works. The basic idea is to get your heart rate up to a target zone that is ideal for fat burning and weight loss, and to keep it there for at least 30 minutes. You will need to figure out your target heart rate, and then pick your exercise of choice and get to it for at least 30 minutes a day. You can calculate your target heart rate here. One of my personal favorite forms of cardio for weight loss is the elliptical machine. This is usually a very popular machine at gyms, and for good reason, it burns tons of calories and is much easier on your body than running. PLEASE remember to only exercise within your limits, if you injure yourself you won’t be able to exercise at all and thats not very helpful for fat loss. Know your body and what you can handle. Even if you can only walk 10 minutes a day, start small and work your way up.

If you can handle cardio for 1-2 hours you may be able to burn 1000 calories or more per day, this would bring your total calorie burn to 2000 calories a day, great right? This would mean a total weight loss of 4 pounds a week.

What I have tried to explain here is a quick and safe way to lose weight. I would strongly suggest avoiding crash diets, or any diet that has you not eating anything at all. This guide can be used to any degree you like, just take it slow if fast weight loss isn’t your primary concern. If you are after the quickest way to lose weight, I believe this is the safest way to do it, it is also better for long term weight loss since with crash diets you will often regain the weight back very quickly.

I hope this has helped, I will try to add more posts explaining more about the overall principles of quick weight loss, and just general guides to losing weight healthily. Please comment with any questions or comments, thanks and good luck!

Can Diet Soda Help You Lose Weight?

The title of this post asks if diet soda will help you lose weight. The answer to this question depends on what you are drinking diet soda instead of. If you used to drink regular soda and you are replacing that with diet, you may see some weight loss benefits. However, I believe it would be healthiest to drink plain old water instead for weight loss.

I personally used to drink regular soda like a fiend, I loved Mountain Dew and would drink up to 4 cans a day, which is TONS of empty calories just pushing me towards my limit and causing me to gain weight. Regular sodas have over 100 calories per can which is a big problem when you are drinking 4 cans a day, as this is 400 calories that do nothing for you. They don’t make you feel full, don’t provide any nutrients for your body, and don’t particularly make you feel good at the end of the day.

More than a year ago when I began losing weight I stopped drinking regular soda completely and now only drink Diet Coke. I drink diet coke because it is the best tasting diet drink I have tried, and I didn’t really like the Diet Mountain Dew taste. My soda habit is now down to 1 or at most 2 cans a day and most of the time I opt for water.

I realized huge weight loss gains from my switch, mostly from the fact that I was suddenly consuming 400 less calories per day. Eating 400 calories less per day results in a weight loss or hopefully fat loss of about 3 pounds per month. Just from switching drinks!

If you are still drinking regular soda, or any juice drink that is mostly sugar, try switching to a diet version, or if you don’t like diet drinks see if you can just drink water instead. See how you feel after a month, and check the scale, you may have lost some extra weight. If you are already on a weight loss plan, cutting out the empty calories of these drinks could help you lose weight faster.

Quick Ways To Lose Weight

What are some quick ways to lose weight? Well there are plenty, but only one or two are healthy ways to lose weight in the long run. What I would like to try to get across in this post is that you will find an unlimited amount of diets and pills and programs that promise you unrealistic amounts of weight loss and deliver nothing or only short term results that will disappear as soon as you get off the fad diet and go back to your normal eating habits.

In general any exercise program is beneficial for losing weight as long as you are doing something that either gets your heart rate up to an ideal target zone or works your muscles. Of course there are a hundred different bizarre looking devices that claim to do it better and faster, but the real truth it almost nothing beats good cardio workouts and weight training with free weights for weight loss. Free weights are dumb-bells if you aren't familiar with the term. However, if you can commit to using some device you see on tv and use it several times a week that’s all that really matters. Most likely though you will have better success with regular workout machines like a treadmill or elliptical, they are probably ideal for cardio workouts.

Ok so that covers exercise but what about quick ways to lose weight with diet? In general I would avoid any pills, stick with healthy food like vegetables, fruit, and protein such as chicken or turkey. You can try something like the atkins diet where you mainly eat meat, but for long term health I believe it is safer to eat a more balanced diet. However, restricting white carbohydrates like bread and rice is a good idea for weight loss and can make you lose weight faster.

I started this post about quick ways to lose weight but I it kind of morphed into a general weight loss tips guide. I guess that’s because I really don’t believe any quick weight loss plan is healthy unless it is smart and balanced and focused on long term results. Even if you want to lose weight quickly you should always be thinking about your general well being and your long term weight loss goals.

Fastest Way To Lose Weight

I have long searched for the fastest way to lose weight, since I am naturally impatient and like to see fast results to whatever I am doing. I have tested many different weight loss methods, although mostly sticking to natural or healthy weight loss strategies in an effort to find the most efficient way to lose weight.

I have lost a total of 50 pounds of fat through various different methods and most of that was through plain old exercise and proper diet and over a relatively short period of time. This general strategy of weight loss was explained in my main guide on how to lose weight quickly. In general I believe if you want to have a healthy body, the diet plan I outline in the guide is the fastest way to lose weight. I added the “if” clause since some people can be reckless and try anything to lose weight, including crash diets where they don’t eat anything at all, or pills that are not FDA approved.

I do not believe in taking pills to lose weight as I have never seen a pill work successfully to lose weight. The only type of pill that might help a fat loss diet is a appetite suppressant, but I don’t know enough about these to recommend them, also I don’t believe most of these pills are very natural. It is possible to control your appetite while eating less than your daily caloric requirement and successfully lose fat and get in shape. You can do this by eating very small meals throughout the day, and drinking plenty of water.

I do recommend certain supplements that have proven to enhance muscle building from weight training. The only supplement that I have ever used is whey protein. It is a great addition to a weight loss diet since it can fill in the blanks between meals, especially when you are starting to get hungry, drinking a protein shake will keep your metabolism moving, can be fairly low calories (less than 200 if mixed with water), and will take the edge off of your hunger. You can find large tubs of whey protein online for fairly cheap, especially compared to stores like GNC which are expensive. Unfortunately the GNC brand of whey protein tastes the best in my opinion, but I suggest trying smaller 2lb tubs of different kinds to find what you like best, before buying a larger amount. Whey protein is excellent for a fast weight loss diet because it’s 100% protein, with no carbs, and low in overall calories. You can even make a shake out of it by using milk and adding a banana, but I never really got into that, I prefer just using water for the lowest calorie and healthiest meal possible.

I have heard good things about the Muscle Milk supplement but I have never tried it personally. It is really only aimed for muscle building and not losing weight specifically, so if that’s something you are going for you might want to look into it. I have not tried any other supplements you may find lining the walls at GNC and really most of them are probably useless, when it comes to the fastest way to lose weight, or just losing weight in general.

Stick to the basics for the fastest weight loss, lots of healthy exercise, lower calorie diet with lots of vegetables and protein (little to no white carbs), and protein shakes here and there (especially post workout). Good luck and let me know how fast you lose weight!

How To Lose Weight Fast

I am a firm believer in exercise playing a crucial role in any guide on how to lose weight fast. At the basic level there are 2 pillars to any fat loss plan. These are exercise and diet, and by diet I mean the food you eat, not a lose weight fast program. You can successfully lose weight by only doing one or the other, but the quickest way to lose weight as I talk about on the main page, involves both a very balanced overall diet and exercise plan.

The guide on the main page about the quickest way to lose weight was getting fairly long so I decided to add another post that went into more detail about the exercise part of fat loss and explained how to lose weight fast and safely.

There are two basic types of exercise, these are cardio and weight training. Now a lot of people, especially women might think that they don’t need or want to lift weights because they are afraid of getting bulky and building too much muscle. This is not the kind of weight training I am talking about, especially when the purpose is for losing weight and burning fat. Weight training when properly done will build lean muscle, which will make your body look toned and in shape, it will not create massive bulk or give you arms like popeye. Also, please keep in mind that you will not wake up one day with huge biceps, building muscle is a long term process, and you can alter your training program as you go for ideal results.

The purpose of weight training is to build lean muscle which will burn more fat while your body is at rest, this helps you lose weight faster. A pound of muscle will burn up to 50 calories a day, compared to 2 calories for a pound of fat, so for every pound of fat that you replace with muscle, your body is passively burning up to 48 more calories a day without you doing anything, nice huh?

The other type of exercise is cardio, this can be running, swimming, biking, even jumping rope, basically anything that gets your heart rate going. Cardio turns your body into a calorie burning machine and if done properly can burn up to 1000 calories per workout. This is amazing for fat loss and maintaining weight since at that level you are burning two pounds of fat a week. Of course you don’t need to burn that many calories everyday it is just ideal when you are trying to lose weight fast, even burning 300 extra calories from speed walking for an hour will foster great long term results.

Once you get into a routine of doing cardio everyday you will most likely feel more energetic and healthy overall. It will also become much easier for you to bang out your exercise and move on with your day. Daily cardio exercise is a very efficient way to lose weight fast. I recommend loading up an mp3 player like an ipod with some good music or even audio books to distract you and really make the time fly.

In another post I will talk about using HIIT cardio for quick weight loss. It is probably the fastest way to burn fat, and the most efficient use of your workout time. I hope you have learned more about how to lose weight fast, I always strive for efficiency in my weight loss methods since I don’t like to spend all day working out.

Quickest Way To Lose Weight Naturally

I wanted to write another post on the quickest way to lose weight naturally, since I believe a lot of people who are looking for quick weight loss are after short-cuts. By this I mean weight loss pills, or crash diets that have you drinking sugar water and no solid food, or something similar. I don’t believe any of these methods are safe, and I have never encountered a pill that will actually help you lose weight. Most people trying to sell you pills are preying on peoples laziness and hope that they can solve their weight problems without putting in any real effort.

Please read my post on the quickest way to lose weight which details how to lose weight naturally. It is a fairly simple and easy to follow, and does not recommend any crash dieting. The key to natural weight loss is to eat very healthy, which means a balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fats such as nuts (almonds and walnuts are great). Combine a healthy diet with regular exercise and you have all the weight loss information you will ever need.

Remember that there is no magic pill that will make you lose 20 pounds a week, and liquid diets may help you lose weight in the short term, but you will gain the weight back very quickly. Long term fat loss requires patience, and continued effort. Believe me I wish there was an easier way to lose weight naturally.

Something important to keep in mind is that many diets will have you losing weight very fast in the first week, as you lose some water weight, and possibly even muscle mass from not eating enough, but the real key to long term natural weight loss is losing fat. The way to lose fat is by eating a balanced diet and regular exercise. Fortunately, this can also produce great results in the first week, so don’t worry, also the weight you lose will also be much more likely to be all fat which is perfect. This means it will be much harder to regain the fat you lost, which is what often happens with fad diets.

Know your body and take it easy if you are not used to heavy exercise when starting out, you will be surprised at how fast you can increase the amount of cardio you can do each day, as long as you stick with it. The better you get at your choice of cardio, the more calories you will burn and the more weight you will lose. Even if you start with walking 10 minutes a day, after a few days you will be able to walk 15, then 20 then 30 minutes a day, before you know it you will be walking for an hour with ease, then maybe you can try running, or joining a gym and using an elliptical machine.

Avoid diet pills and follow a simple but very effective diet and exercise plan and you will lose fat fast. That is the quickest way to lose weight naturally.