Looking for weight loss tips to help you lose weight fast or weight loss tips to keep it off forever? There is a big difference. It’s tempting to go for the first type of tip. Looking for shortcuts and quick results is just part of human nature. The problem is that you will return to where you started when the weight returns (and it will) when you lose weight quickly. Here are some weight loss tips to help you do what it takes to achieve permanent weight loss and look forward to a healthy life.

Weight loss tip # 1:

Keep a food and exercise diary for a week. Keep track of your calories consumed per day and calories burned per day. Do not cheat! Leave everything. Being honest with yourself is a critical step toward losing weight. By the end of the week, you will have a good idea of ​​the average calories consumed and burned per day. Then move on to the next of these weight loss tips and determine what you should be consuming each day.

Weight loss tip # 2:

Learn the basic formula for weight loss. The calories that come in must be less than the calories that go out. We all have a certain amount of calories that for our height, weight, gender, age and activity level will only maintain our current weight. These calories are expended in the daily needs of our bodily activities such as breathing and digestion, as well as in our normal work activities, whatever they may be. Calculate this number of calories using a calorie calculator. If you want to lose weight, you must do two things:

1. Decrease this calorie intake.

2. Increase the amount of calories burned.

Weight loss tip # 3:

Over time there is a healthy and lasting weight loss. One to two pounds per week is the recommendation to achieve this. One pound of fat equals approximately 3,500 calories. Therefore, if your goal is to lose one pound per week, you must have a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day. If your goal is two pounds per week, then this deficit should be 1,000 calories per day. If you have determined that your calories per day to maintain your current weight is 2,000 calories, reduce your intake to 1,750 per day and burn an additional 250 calories. This could be as simple as eating a half sandwich for lunch instead of a whole sandwich and taking a brisk two-mile walk. If you want to achieve a weight loss of two pounds per week, don’t cut your calories too drastically.

Weight loss tip # 4:

Read food’s labels. Nobody wants to spend the rest of their life counting the calories in everything they put in their mouth. Understanding portion sizes and calorie amounts is crucial at first, but after a while, you will be able to park most of what you eat. You are probably surprised at first too. It doesn’t seem fair that the size of a serving of ice cream is half a cup! As painful as it is, you need to know this so that when you think you are eating 350 calories of non-fat reduced ice cream, you understand that filling that bowl of cereal with what you used to think was a serving is really more like 1000 calories. A slice of bread is one serving of bread and generally has around 100 calories. I started eating open sandwiches when I discovered that one!

Weight loss tip # 5:

Realize that what you are doing now is one of the most important things you could be doing for yourself! Long-lasting, healthy weight loss is an invaluable reward for all your hard work. Patience is the key. Pay no attention to that co-worker who lost ten pounds last week on whatever fad diet she tried! In five to six weeks, I guarantee you, you will have recovered most of that and you will be reaping the rewards of your slow and steady weight loss. Not only that, but you will have accumulated the tools and knowledge to maintain the lost weight forever!