How To Lose Weight in a Week

So, you have a special event like a wedding or party and you want to look your best in your favorite clothes. The problem is, the event is in a week and you don’t quite fit into those fabulous clothes just yet. Is there a way you can lose weight in just one week? Fortunately, there are actually several ways you can maximize the amount of fat you can lose in a week and you can do it without resorting to starvation diets or exercising to exhaustion.

Change Your Dietary Habits

Making fundamental changes in the way you eat, including your choice of foods but also the size of your meals and how often you eat, can make a significant dent in your weight. The first thing you should remind yourself is that complete deprivation of the foods you truly enjoy probably won’t make your week long weight loss any easier. Instead of eliminating your favorite foods or even food groups like carbohydrates, limit your consumption to single portions. If necessary, divide all your food for the week into single portion containers or bags. That way, you can simply grab a container or bag and not have to worry about measuring or weighing your food when you’re away from home.

During this week, you also want to decrease your reliance on foods that are high in fat. These foods, which can include fried fare, desserts, full-fat diary products, poultry with its skin and meats that have a lot of marbling, can increase the number of calories you consume in a single sitting. Consuming too many calories in a single sitting can also thwart your efforts to lose weight in a week. Your body is only able to process a normal size meal with average sized portions. Anything you consume that exceeds this amount can be more easily stored by your body as fat. Stick to single-size portions and if you aren’t sure, most protein portions are approximately the size of a deck of playing cards. Most vegetable single portions are approximately 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of vegetables and starches follow this portion size as well.

Believe it or not, eating more often can help you lose weight quickly over the course of a week. Food naturally triggers your metabolism and increases your body’s temperature slightly. Both of these effects cause you to burn more fat than you would normally, so keeping your metabolism stoked is easier when you aren’t starving yourself, but instead, eating more frequently. In just one week of eating normal sized portions every two to three hours, you can lose 10 or more pounds.

Include or Increase Your Physical Activity

No weight loss plan is quite as effective without adding some kind of physical activity. If you haven’t exercised in awhile, simply walking for 20 to 30 minutes daily can encourage your metabolism to increase. Aside from increasing the amount of weight you can lose, exercise has other beneficial effects. Choosing any activity that you truly enjoy is important in maintaining your interest in keeping up with the effort. Aerobic exercise, which maintains your heart at a higher than normal rate for at least 20 minutes, is excellent for cardiovascular health as well as weight loss. Adding weight or resistance exercises can increase your body’s muscle mass, which increases your metabolic rate, even when you are resting.

Weight loss programs that provide a combination of healthier eating and physical activity are far more effective than one of these approaches alone. Including circuit-type training can provide your body with exercise that provides cardiovascular benefits as well as increasing the amount of fat you can lose in a week. Circuit training is accomplished by alternating or combining aerobic and resistance exercises in the same workout. For losing weight in a week, this can both burn fat and tone up muscles, so you’ll look great in the clothes you are going to wear to an event. You’ll also derive benefit from improved sleep, which can lower stress levels and improve immunity.

Drink Plenty of Water

You might be surprised to know that dehydration can cause you to retain water and thus, gain weight. Your body is made mostly of water so if you’re even mildly dehydrated, it will hang onto extra water in the belief that you don’t have enough available. Drinking at least 64 ounces of water daily, in addition to any other beverages, can help your body release stored water, reducing bloating and helping rid your body of excess fat. Water also helps to keep you feeling fuller for longer, so you’ll end up consuming fewer calories overall. When you eat a healthier diet, you’ll likely also increase your intake of dietary fiber that helps you feel full, but in order to work properly, fiber requires water. Using the water that you drink, the fiber in your diet will swell in your digestive system to both increase the volume and hasten the motility of waste products.

The temperature of your water is important in determining just how much weight you can lose within a week. Drinking colder water or, even better, ice water, slightly reduces your body’s temperature. As a result, your body slightly increases your temperature. This is accomplished by increasing your heart rate and blood pressure, and subsequently, causing you to burn more calories. Start your day with a cold glass or two of ice water to get your metabolism moving and enjoy cold water throughout the day to keep it at a slightly higher level. You can double the amount of weight you lose in a week simply by drinking ice water several times a day.

Have Regular Meals and Snacks

Snacks are an integral part of any weight loss plan and they can significantly affect your body’s metabolic rate. Your choice of snacks should always include foods like fruits and vegetables, nuts, whole grain products, low or non fat dairy. It’s important to stick to a single portion size with any snack, and it might be helpful to divide snack foods into single portion containers or purchase snacks that are already separated into single portions. Eating 2 or 3 small snacks every day can hep you consume fewer calories at your main meals, because you aren’t ravenous by the time you sit down to eat. Many snack foods also contain dietary fiber that can help you feel fuller. If you’re significantly curtailing your caloric intake and don’t seem to have room for snacks, consider that a serving of sugar-free flavored gelatin contains less than 5 calories. This can be an easy way to feel like you’ve eaten, without going overboard on calories. In addition, sugar-free gelatin is rich in water that can help you lose weight.

Losing Weight in a Week

Self-discipline is probably your best ally when you’re trying to lose weight within a week, but you don’t necessarily have to feel deprived. Increasing your physical activity, eating smaller portions but more frequently and having regular snacks can encourage your body to shed pounds quickly without compromising your health or sanity. Also, try not to weigh yourself frequently because it can set you up for frustration, especially if you don’t appear to be shedding pounds as fast as you’d like. Keep in mind that the scale isn’t necessarily an accurate measure of the amount of inches you are losing. Get through the week and stick to healthy eating and exercise, then at the end of the week, try on the clothes you want to wear to that special occasion. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much you can accomplish in a single week and you can continue on your path to lose even more weight.