Lose Fat Fast

Diet books always sell well. The reason people love them is that nobody wants to lose fat slowly. Everybody wants to lose fat fast. So when a new author comes along with a new program that promises to help anyone who buys the book lose fat fast, everyone runs out and buys the book.

The irony is that it isn’t really that hard to lost fat fast. Any number of programs will effectively take anyone down several sizes in a fairly short amount of time. Fewer calories in and more calories out (through exercise) is the secret. Different diets accomplish this feat in different ways, but in the end they all boil down to calorie reduction.

The hard part isn’t figuring out how to lose fat fast, it’s figuring out how to keep it lost. If a lifestyle that includes limited exercise and high calorie foods (which is the lifestyle most of us have) isn’t changed permanently in some basic ways, then losing fat fast is followed by regaining fat just as fast.

Even though we all know this, we still tend to want our fat gone now, not six months from now.

Here are some of the more popular ways to lose fat fast:

• Gain muscle. You can transform your body surprisingly fast by going on a moderate reduced calorie diet and committing to three hours of intensive weight training per week. Weight training is usually associated with body builders and grotesquely exaggerated muscles, but that’s just a wrong perception. No other type of exercise changes your body and caloric requirements as fast as weight training. Muscle burns more calories than fat and looks nicer too; it’s that simple.
• Protein diets. The Atkins Diet and The South Beach Diet are the two most famous high-protein diets. Both are based on the idea that the body can’t metabolize protein effectively without carbohydrates. By restricting food intake to protein and complex low-calorie carbohydrates (like green vegetables), the body is forced to drop weight faster than on conventional diet plans.
• Meal replacement diets. These diets replace breakfast and lunch with a low-calorie nutritional drink. Dinner is the only real meal of the day and normal portions and healthy foods are advised. This plan has the advantage of being simple, but not everyone wants to drink two meals a day and eat only one. This diet will result in rapid weight loss for those who are comfortable with it.
• Fasting. Some diets advise moderate fasting (juice fasts that last a day) interspersed with eating days that include at least one splurge as a way to lose fat fast. Obviously fasting is not that easy for lots of people and not appropriate at all for some people, but again, if this way of eating fits you, you can lose lots of weight quickly.
• Walk your way thin. This program is popular and relatively safe too. You eat moderately, cutting out high fat, high sugar foods, and incorporate walks into each day that gradually build to 60-90 minutes in duration. Within the walks you add short bursts of hard running to boost your metabolism. This program can cause you to lose fat very fast, but again, if you stop walking, the fat will come back just as fast.

It’s fine to lose fat fast, especially if you are just embarking on what you know will be a long course of diet and exercise. Losing ten or fifteen pounds quickly can inspire you to stick with additional weight loss that will by necessity happen more slowly.

Knowing how to lose fat fast is also a helpful tool for maintenance of a healthy weight. Many people weigh themselves daily, and if their weight fluctuates for more than five pounds in the upward direction for more than two days running, they go right into a week of one of the regimens for losing fat fast. That way the task of weight loss never becomes too daunting to tackle, and they are able to keep the body they want for life.