How to Lose Pounds Fast

It is possible to lose 22 pounds fast through a combination of diet, exercise, and rest? Although "fast" as in a week may not be healthy, it could mean 30 days or three months. The "fast" you aim for should be a decision you make in consultation with your doctor to ensure you do not injure yourself in the process. Whatever you decide, achieving this weight-loss goal requires commitment.
How to Lose a Pound
Before you can lose 22 pounds, you have to understand how to lose one. Your individual body requires a certain number of calories per day to provide the energy to walk to the bus stop, sit at your desk, vacuum the floor, digest food, and other tasks. The American Cancer Society and other health-related websites offer free online Daily Caloric Needs calculators to help you estimate what your body needs. Meeting this calorie intake every day will maintain your current weight. If you want to lose weight, you need to have a calorie deficit. Since 3,500 calories equals one pound, you need to reduce your weekly calorie intake by that amount to lose one pound in that week. That's 500 calories a day. To lose weight faster, you'll need a higher calorie deficit.

 

Eat the Right Foods
One way to create a calorie deficit is to change your eating habits. Instead of cakes and candies, choose healthy fruits and snacks that are lower in calories. For example, a Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar has 210 calories, but a medium apple has only 100 calories. To help control cravings and keep your metabolism going, add in healthy mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks. When you're putting food on your plate, stick to whole foods and make sure at least half of your plate is vegetables. Finally, drink more water and less soda. Sweetened drinks offer no nutritional value, only extra calories.

Get Your Heart Pumping
While you can lose a pound a week eating 500 fewer calories a day, you could deprive yourself. If you leave yourself hungry, you may set yourself up for failure. Instead, add cardiovascular exercise to your weight-loss plan. Choose from activities such as walking, running, swimming, tennis, or dancing for 30 to 60 minutes a day. You can get the same benefits by spreading your exercise time out into three 10-minute or 20-minute sessions. Consider that, according to the WebMD Fit-O-Meter, a 150-pound person can burn about 50 calories walking briskly or dancing for 10 minutes, or almost 70 calories swimming in that time. If that person takes two 10-minute walks throughout the day, dancing with the dog for 10 minutes after lunch and swimming for 20-minutes before dinner, that's almost 300 calories burned. If you add that to the calories saved by switching out that candy bar for an apple and eliminated one soda, you have created a 500 calorie deficit for the day.

Build Lean Muscle
Studies show a combination of cardio and resistance training is best for reducing body fat. Lean muscle uses more energy, burning more calories when at rest. By working in at least two resistance training sessions per week, you can help build your body's muscle mass, which, in turn, can help you burn more calories. Of course, if you're looking to lose weight fast, you'll want to work in resistance training more than twice a week, while still giving your body an opportunity to rest and heal.

Seven Easy Lifestyle Changes for Weight Loss and Wellness

So you've just finished another fad diet and exercise program with little or no weight loss, fat loss or waistline reduction. Don't give up. Weight management and better health take a lifetime commitment. Don't set yourself up to crash and burn with promises of fast results and drastic changes. Instead, improve your health one easy lifestyle change at a time and see long-term results.

Stop taking the elevator. Pretend that Archimedes never invented that pesky lift for animals and gladiators at the Coliseum. Whether you're in your office building, the doctor's office or any other multi-level structure, forget that the elevator exists and find the stairs. Consider that, according to WebMD Fit-O-Meter, a 140-pound person will burn about six calories standing in an elevator for five minutes, but 42 calories walking up stairs in the same amount of time. That's seven times the calories burned. Start with one or two flights of stairs and gradually work your way up, up, up until you never need an elevator again.

Feed the garbage can. Remember how your mother insisted you eat every bite on your plate? Now is a good time to rebel. Learn to leave food on your plate or in the package every time you eat to help prevent so that you don't overeat. At breakfast, lunch and dinner, save five bites of food for the trash can. If you're eating an apple, leave five bites on the core. Eating a bag of chips? Leave five whole chips in the bag. You get the idea. By allowing yourself to waste food, you are not compelled to overeat just because you have food in front of you.

Go for distance. According to Harvard Medical School studies, walking at least 30 minutes per day reduces the risk of coronary artery disease, heart attack and stroke. Study after study supports additional benefits of walking, including weight loss and reduced risk for high blood pressure and diabetes. Add steps to your day by parking further away from the office or by printing to the furthest printer. Stop driving short distances (less than a mile) to the store or park. WebMD Fit-O-Meter indicates that walking at work for 5 minutes burns 16 calories for a 140-pound person. That same person can walk at 2.5 mph for 15 minutes and burn 48 calories. All of those steps add up throughout the day to help you achieve your weight-loss goals.

See through your drink. Swap out your soda and sweetened teas for clear drinks: water, club soda, seltzer, mineral water, and unsweetened tea. Unsweetened coffee is acceptable, too, in moderation. No sugar, even in your coffee?! It's up to you, but you should consider that a single sugar packet contains 15 calories and 4 grams of carbohydrates with no nutritional value. You can do it. Start off by replacing your sweetened lunch drink with unsweetened ice tea flavored with lemon. Then, replace your dinner soda with a glass of ice water and have some unsweetened herbal tea before bed. Change your beverage tastes one drink at a time until you're totally off the sugary stuff.

Add Small Snacks. Small mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks can help manage hunger so that you don't overeat at meals. Consider adding in a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack, such as an apple or some nuts. Just stay away from the vending machine, which usually offers up high-calorie snacks with little nutritional value.

Use Your Hand as a Guide. Proper diet and nutrition is not only about what you eat, but how much you eat. When portioning your food, don't eat any portion larger than your hand. If you have to splurge, eat extra vegetables. Better Homes and Gardens suggests that your hand can help you estimate a cup of beverage, soup, salad and cereal. Meat should be about the size of your palm. If you need to add butter, peanut butter or another fat, you should limit it to half of your thumb.

Stick a Fork in the Couch. There's no excuse to just sit there because you want to watch TV or play on your smartphone. Get up off the couch. Consider this: A 140-pound person sitting and watching TV for about an hour burns about 32 calories according to the WebMD Fit-O-Meter. If that same person stands to watch TV, they'll burn 38 calories. If they walk on the treadmill at 3 mph, they will triple that calorie burn, and a stair-step machine will burn 286 calories.

Burn Off Candy Calories in an Hour or Less

An afternoon pinch of hunger has you staring at the shiny, colorful wrappers inside a vending machine. You know you shouldn't. But your mouth is watering. You know you should just turn around and walk away. But it's just one candy bar, so it's not a big deal. Or is it?

If this internal conversation usually ends with you forking over your cash and dignity for 90 seconds of flavorful, emotional gratification, you may need a fresh perspective. For such a small amount of pleasure, you are setting yourself up for extra physical activity just to keep that snack from setting up a permanent residence on your thighs and stomach. Before making your final decision, consider the value of gratification versus the cost in exercise. What will it take to burn off the calories from some vending machine staples in one hour?

Three Musketeers Candy Bar
The commercials imply that this candy bar is light by showing it floating out of a woman's purse, but a Three Musketeers candy bar packs 240 calories that will weigh you down if you don't work it off. The WebMD Fit-O-Meter indicates it will take a 45-minute brisk walk (3 mph) for a 210-pound man to make up for this sweet treat, and a little more than an hour for a 140-pound woman.

Butterfinger
If you answered the sweet call of a Butterfinger, expect to shake your hips for about an hour to keep this candy bar from sticking to more than your teeth. WebMD Fit-O-Meter suggests the 210-pound man will need to dance for about 40 minutes and the 140-pound woman for about 60 minutes to burn the 270 calories in this Bart Simpson-approved snack.

Strawberry Pop-Tarts
Stop. Before you punch in the code for this snack, step away from the vending machine. The package hopes you'll choose to live in denial when you see there is only 190 calories per serving. Look closer. Yeah, that's for one pastry. Each package contains two. If you fall for this trick, you have 380 calories to burn. You better pull out the bicycle for this one. Expect to pedal at about 10 mph for 40 minutes to an hour to make up for this slip up.

Lay's Classic Potato Chips
Just 15 Lay's Classic Potato Chips have 160 calories. Chances are your vending machine bag has 1.5 of those servings. Go ahead and do the math: 240 calories. Burning that many calories is no walk in the park. In fact, you might want to pick up the pace and run about 5 mph for 20 to 30 minutes to earn forgiveness for this sin.

Welch's Fruit Snacks
You may think that just because this snack isn't covered in chocolate or fried in oil it's a better option. In the 2.25-oz. package, you'll eat 260 total calories. It'll take 30 to 45 minutes of leisurely swimming to pretend like these gummy snacks never crossed your lips.

Fiber One Oats & Chocolate Bar
While a Fiber One bar is probably not the worst snack you can get out of the vending machine, eating it means you still have an extra 140 calories to burn. It'll take 10-15 minutes of moderately paced jumping jacks. If you really must get something, the Fiber One Oats and Chocolate Bar may be the least of all the evils calling your name from behind that glass.