Eat in a Healthy Calorie Deficit
Ultimately, losing weight is all about calories in, calories out. In order to lose weight, you have to burn more calories than you take in. “You have to create a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose one pound, this can be done by burning extra calories through exercise or reducing your intake of calories, but the best way is to use a combination of both methods. This ensures that you’re giving your body enough nutrients during periods of weight loss.”
However, eating in a 3,500-calorie deficit doesn’t guarantee an exact weight loss of one pound. There are a lot of other factors that impact how your body loses weight, including stress, sleep, and hormones.
Although you should eat in a calorie deficit, try not to eat fewer than 1,200 calories a day. And since calorie needs are highly individual from person to person, either meet with a registered dietitian if you can to assess your needs and your goals.
Eat Nutrient-Dense Foods, Including Enough Protein
It’s not just the quantity of calories you take in, but also the quality. not all food is created equal. “Especially when restricting calories, it’s important to choose foods that are packed with nutrients. Experts recommends following the MyPlate guidelines for incorporating each food group at every meal:
- Fruits and vegetables: Fill half of your plate with different colors and varieties of produce.
- Protein:Choose lean options like chicken, fish, and legumes.
- Starch:Choose whole grains like brown rice or whole wheat bread.
- Dairy:Include one serving of low-fat or skim milk, cheese, and yogurt.
To make sure you stay satiated at each meal and build muscle, it’s important to eat enough protein. Experts say that the standard protein intake is approximately 0.8 grams of protein per kilograms of bodyweight. So if you weigh 150 pounds, which is about 68 kilograms, you should eat about 54.4 grams of protein a day. Try to aim for no more than 20 to 30 grams of protein at each meal. But since everyone’s weight and activity level matter, this handy chart should help you determine exactly how much protein you need in a day.
As a general guideline, The Institute of Medicine recommends that the average woman, ages 19 to 70, consume 46 grams of protein per day. That doesn’t take activity level into account though, and as you can see from this chart, you’ll need to increase your protein if you’re pregnant or training hard, for something like for a marathon.
Aim For 5 Hours of Cardio a Week
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends 300 minutes of cardio training a week for weight loss.
If 300 minutes (five hours) sounds like a lot, it doesn’t have to equal vigorous HIIT training or an intense cycling class. Your cardio workout should be at least continuous cardio at a moderate level reaching 60 to 70 percent of your max heart rate.
You can also break it up throughout the week; instead of an hour at a time, maybe you go for a walk for 30 minutes in the morning and ride your bike for 30 minutes in the evening.
Incorporate Strength Training, Too
Cardio is essential for weight loss, but you shouldn’t ignore strength training, either. Not only does lifting weights burn calories in and of itself, but building lean muscle will help you burn more calories at rest. It’s recommended atleast two days of strength training a week of full-body exercises for maintenance. If you want to bump that up, trainer and fitness expert Jillian Michaels recommends weight training up to four times a week.
But if you’re tracking your progress simply from the scale, you may not notice it budging much each week if you strength train more often. As you build muscle, it will change your body composition, but the number on the scale may stay the same. That’s why it’s important to track your progress using other methods such as measurements, how your clothes fit, and before and after photos.
Get Enough Sleep
You know that when you don’t get enough sleep, you’re probably tired, cranky, and more likely to give in to your unhealthy food cravings. But did you know that a lack of sleep can also affect your waistline and overall health?
A 2014 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control found that adults between the ages of 18 and 60 who get less than seven hours of sleep per night are at a higher risk of being obese, contracting diabetes, and being under mental distress. Of course there are exceptions to this rule but generally speaking quality over quantity should matter more still aiming for a healthy sleep time is good for your overall health. According to the National Sleep Foundation, people aged 18 to 64 need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night.
How to Keep It Off
Losing weight is just half the battle — keeping it off is the hardest part. Knowing that it still takes a constant effort to maintain weight loss, you can arm yourself with the right tools to keep the weight off for good. Eduardo Grunvald, MD, program director at UC San Diego’s Weight Management Program, said the most important factor is to have a positive environment and ongoing support system, whether that’s a weight-loss program, dietitian, health educator, or obesity medicine doctor or clinic.
It also requires keeping up habits of tracking your food and weighing yourself, especially if you used those tools to lose the weight in the first place. Dr. Grunvald suggested planning your meals ahead of time, limiting the number of meals you eat out, and increasing physical activity to maintain weight loss.
To calculate your protein intake use this formula : Take your weight in pounds and divide it by 2.2 to figure out your weight in kilograms. Then multiply that number by 0.8 (not very active), 1.3 (active or pregnant), or 1.8 (extremely active), depending on how much exercise you get.
Check out the chart below to see how much protein you should be eating each day. If you don’t see your weight, just use the formula above to calculate your daily protein or check out this handy calculator here : https://fnic.nal.usda.gov/fnic/dri-calculator/
| WEIGHT (LBS) | WEIGHT (KG) | PROTEIN PER DAY (NOT VERY ACTIVE) | PROTEIN PER DAY (ACTIVE OR PREGNANT) | PROTEIN PER DAY (EXTREMELY ACTIVE) |
| 100 | 45.5 | 36.4 g | 59.2 g | 81.9 g |
| 105 | 47.7 | 38.2 g | 62 g | 85.9 g |
| 110 | 50 | 40 g | 65 g | 90 g |
| 115 | 52.3 | 41.8 g | 68 g | 94.1 g |
| 120 | 54.5 | 43.6 g | 70.9 g | 98.1 g |
| 125 | 56.8 | 45.4 g | 73.8 g | 102.2 g |
| 130 | 59.1 | 47.3 g | 76.8 g | 106.4 g |
| 135 | 61.4 | 49.1 g | 79.8 g | 110.5 g |
| 140 | 63.6 | 50.9 g | 82.7 g | 114.5 g |
| 145 | 65.9 | 52.7 g | 85.7 g | 118.6 g |
| 150 | 68.2 | 54.7 g | 88.7 g | 122.8 g |
| 155 | 70.5 | 56.4 g | 91.7 g | 126.9 g |
| 160 | 72.7 | 58.2 g | 94.5 g | 130.8 g |
| 165 | 75 | 60 g | 97.5 g | 135 g |
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