Tag: Seven Days

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Weight Loss Exercise

Best Practices for Weighing Yourself


If you’re trying to lose weight then the very best way to stay motivated to meet your goals is to track your progress. The weighing scale is a great way to see progress, but you want to get accurate results. Here are some tips for weighing yourself the right way.

Don’t Weigh Yourself Every Day

scalesEven though you’re probably really excited to see results right away, it’s a bad idea to weigh yourself every day. Why? Because you might not always see a change. Worse, you could find that your weight has even increased from one day to the next. This will interfere with your training and your progress, because it stops you feeling motivated to continue.

Remember, just because the scale does not show it, your body can tell the difference. Eating more healthily and exercising on a daily basis does a lot more for you than simply lowering the numbers on that scale. It’ll make you look and feel better, not to mention the fact that you could be building muscle, which actually weighs more than fat!

Instead, try weighing yourself every seven days. Pick a day of the week and don’t weigh yourself on any other day. That way, you’re still tracking your progress, but you won’t be doing it to an obsessive level. You’re far more likely to see real results once a week than you are by weighing yourself every day.

Weigh Yourself When You Wake Up

A good time to weigh yourself is as soon as you wake up, firstly because you have no food in your stomach, so you’ll get a more accurate reading. Did you know that you also lose weight by expelling moisture as you sleep? This is another reason to weigh yourself in the morning. Note that when you do weigh yourself, it should be after urinating. You should stand on the scales naked, as the clothes you wear can also have an effect on the number on that dial.

In the morning, we’re also less prone to the circumstances that can make our weight fluctuate throughout the day. However, if you work on night shifts your body clock will be different. Also, if you’ve been drinking the night before you may seem lighter the next morning due to dehydration. Or, if you’ve been eating in the night, you may appear heavier!

The scales never show 100% of the true story, so it’s a good idea to combine them with measuring your body fat, and also being in tune with the way you feel. Weighing yourself regularly is a fantastic way to stay motivated, however, as long as you follow those tips above for the most accurate readings.


Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

How To Lose 10 Pounds In One Month

Many people struggle to lose weight for one main reason: they fail to set concrete goals. Instead of specifying an exact and quantifiable goal, plan, and deadline, they content themselves with vague targets like, “I want to lose weight.” This is no way to win. To be successful in any endeavor, including weight loss, people must set concrete goals, define the stepping stones that will mark the path, and create and stick to a plan that will keep them moving forward towards the target.

If you want to lose weight, set a goal, one that is quantifiable, or can be represented with objective numbers. For the purposes of this article, let’s say the goal is 10 pounds in a month. Now chunk it down – there are four weeks in a month, so you’ll need to lose about 2.5 pounds a week. At seven days per week, you’ll need to lose about a third of a pound each day. If each pound of fat contains 3500 calories, this means you must burn around 1250 calories a day through diet and exercise.

Thus, losing ten pounds in a month is difficult, but not impossible, especially if you are very overweight. In that case, those first ten pounds will be quite easy, as long as you follow the plan. If you simply want to lose the ‘last’ 10 pounds off your frame, this goal will be harder to accomplish. No matter your situation, to meet this calorie target, you will have to consistently follow a strict and detailed plan of diet and exercise. Here are the main steps:
1. First, determine how many calories your body uses each day based on your age, sex, weight, and activity level. There are many of these ‘calorie calculators’ around the internet, so find a good one and enter your vital statistics. Let’s say that your basic burn rate in a day is 2500 calories.

2. If you did no additional activity, you’d have to eat 1250 calories a day in order to hit your calorie target and induce weight loss. This would be very difficult to sustain, as you’d be hungry all the time and you’d suffer from malnutrition. Thus, you need to add in daily workouts to up your calorie burn. Let’s say you shoot for 500 calories burned in exercise. This takes your daily calorie burn at 3,000, and thus you need to eat 1,750 calories a day – a much more doable target.

3. Once you’ve determined your calorie target, plan out your daily meals so that you eat that many calories or less. A few guidelines: first, don’t starve yourself. If you consistently deprive your body, it will go into starvation mode, lowering your metabolism and killing your fat burning machine. Instead, you need to make sure your body is well supplied throughout the day with food and water. Instead of eating two or three big meals, eat 5 to 6 small meals throughout the day. This will help control your hunger while also keeping your metabolism roaring. Second, make sure to eat a wide variety of foods from all food groups, focusing especially on whole grain carbohydrates, lean proteins, healthy fats, fruits, and vegetables. Drink plenty of water each day, and avoid empty calorie beverages like soda and iced tea. If you make the right choices, 1,750 calories should be plenty of food to keep you satisfied each day, but you may still need to get used to ‘real’ portion sizes and wean yourself off the excessive portion sizes that are seen as ‘normal’ today.

4. Once your nutrition plan is in place, design your daily workout regime. You will want to mix in cardiovascular exercises and strength training. Shoot for about 4-6 cardio workouts each week, 3 strength training workouts, and daily flexibility training. Each type of workout will give you specific benefits. Cardio will improve your heart and lung health while also burning calories. Strength training will burn calories too, but it will also build muscle mass, increasing the number of calories you burn simply by existing. Flexibility will help you recover from workouts more quickly and will reduce your chances of injury.

If you follow this clear, detailed plan without fail, you will be sure to hit your goal after one month. The journey doesn’t end there, though – fitness and health is a lifetime quest; a journey, not a destination.

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