When looking for fast weight loss advice and tips, there can be a lot of garbage that people try to sell you, or things that just don’t work (or can even make you gain weight in the long run.)  Fortunately, I am here to give you great tips for losing weight quickly (and safely).  Here are those four great tips for quick weight loss:

1) Use a smaller plate/bowl. When trying to lose weight fast, we need to use whatever we can, even psychological tricks. We’ve been taught over our lifetimes that we should eat everything on our plate, so if our plates are bigger, we will be serving ourselves more, and therefore eating more.

2) You have maybe heard that people who eat more often throughout the day actually are able to lose weight quicker than people who eat the traditional three meals a day.  When you eat a meal, your metabolism kicks in to start breaking down and processing the food.  This bodily process burns calories. Your body will store fat if there’s a long time between meals. So, if your body is processing more throughout the day, then your body is engaged in metabolism all day long, burning more calories.  This also helps in shrinking your portions, since you’re spreading out how much you eat over five or six meals, instead of just three.

3)  Drink more water, especially before and after meals.  Americans don’t drink nearly enough water.  Water is like oil to a car, and keeps everything running smoother and how it is supposed to be.  All of our bodily processes, especially those involved in metabolism and food processing won’t be running how they should be without water.  It is recommended that you drink half of your body weight in ounces.  So, if you weight 200 lbs, you should drink 100 ounces of water each day.  You’ll definitely want to eat before and after a meal, to help you to feel full, and not consume as many calories.

4) Eat until you are satisfied.  Because of being taught to finish all of the food on our plates, we often eat until we cannot eat anymore.  This is a bad habit, and needs to be changed if you’re interested in weight loss.  Therefore, you should eat until you are satisfied, not until you are completely stuffed.

If you follow these four simple tips, you’ll be on your way to quick and healthy weight loss.  A lot of it requires just re-training how we consume food.  And if you follow only one tip, follow the tip to drink more water.  It will suck at first, having to use the bathroom often.  But, after a week, your body will adjust as long as you continue to drink the same amount.

It’s great that you have made the decision to start losing weight, and you’re investigating different fast weight loss tips and methods.  But, you may have that nagging thought in your mind about whether or not losing weight quickly will have negative health effects on your body.  This is a legitimate concern, and I hope address your fears and offer some answers.

The first thing you should do before any exercise and diet plan is to consult your doctor.  More than likely, they know that you should lose some weight to help your health problems.  They just want to make sure what you’re doing isn’t too extreme and will hurt you.  They’ll more than likely give you the green light to start changing your life and losing the weight.

If you’re doing a fad diet, then you will more than likely just lose water weight, which will be gained back quickly.  In addition to not keeping the fat off long term, the extreme fluctuation both ways could be dangerous.

A lower-calorie diet coupled with both cardio exercise (such as on rowing machines and treadmills) and strength training is great for fast weight loss and is also the least dangerous to your body.  The reason I included strength training with cardio exercise is because building muscle helps you to burn fat quicker.  Don’t be afraid of muscle weighing more than fat.  Until you’re around 10-15% body fat percentage will the muscle weighing more than fat even be a factor.

If you don’t include strength training in your exercise plan, then you will probably lose lean muscle.  Yes, this will make you weigh less, but it will also not be healthy.  You do not have to look like a bodybuilder.  More reps of lower weights will allow you to build muscle without becoming bulky.

Eating less calories is important in rapid weight loss, but if you are exercising, then you’ll still need calories to burn, for the energy to continue your workouts.  It is dangerous to consume too little calories just as it is dangerous to consume too many calories.  Consult a fitness professional about how many calories you should be eating.  Eating too little, although tempting when wanting to lose a lot of weight, will actually stop you from losing weight because your body will hold onto the food that you do end up consuming.

As long as your dieting includes just a lower-calorie diet coupled with strength training and cardio exercise, quick weight loss will not be dangerous.  It should be noted that any type of athletic activity does have the potential for muscle tears, joint pains, and broken bones.  Ensure you use all athletic equipment properly to minimize your risk.