Tips to Lose Weight Fast!

Here’s a list of the things that I did faithfully, or tried to do faithfully, to lose weight FAST!! 15% of your body weight in 12 weeks is impressive, but I know I had to do a lot of little “tricks” to get there.

1. WARM WATER WITH LEMON every morning, cleanses the body, detoxifies, and helps reduce water retention

2. GREEN TEA, 3-5 five cups every day

3. 12+ cups of water a day, forget what I said about the 8, 12 or more is the way to go!

4. CALORIE-CYCLING, have higher calorie days in the days that follow your weight in, then slowly trickle down to the low calorie end.

5. SUBSTITUE MEALS, like a bar or shake. I don’t like many shakes personally, but having my Kind Bars in a pinch were the right trick for me. Long as it’s around 300 calories a bar, it’s a meal. I’m not saying do these every day, but for me, they help keep my calorie range in check and help with my portions---you don’t overeat when lunch is a bar.

6. NO SALT! And I am a salt addict, but totally cutting it out (even though the food tasted blah to me) helped prevent extra water retention. Some days I was as low as ZERO sodium (which actually is not a good thing, we need some sodium!)

7. No/Low sugar/carbs. No bread, no added sugar, even tried to stay away from artificial sweeteners. Also, last meal of the day, NO CARBS.

8. Stay clear of BANANAS and GRAPES, yes it’s fruit, but both of these turn into the bad sugar and not good for a speedy weight loss. Okay, once in awhile you can have some, just know that these are forbidden fruits for maximum weight loss.

9. 60+ minutes of CARDIO 6 days a week. Go for 2 hours every other day if you can.

10. LAST CHANCE WORKOUT before weigh-in, that means intensify your workout and go for as long as you can, be that two hours or three.

11. STRENGTH TRAIN 3 times a week. You don’t have to go heavy either, but make sure you hit all muscle groups. The more muscle you build, the more fat you burn!

12. SWEAT it out before a weigh-in either in a sauna or workout in sweats. Reserve this little tip for the last week. I did it for the last two and I think it helped. Or if you are aiming for a specific event, like a photo shoot, or wearing a bikini to the beach, this will let those muscles pop.

13. SLEEP…me talking about this? Yes, sleep helps with weight loss. I saw this tip and tried best to follow it. If I don’t have enough sleep, I won’t have enough energy to fuel my crazy workouts!
14. RESIST ALL CHEATS. Now this may contradict with the next tip, but by no cheats I mean, nibbling French Fries here and there, eating the break room donuts/bagels/pretzels, or whatever else is back there, eating random candy, etc. You get the picture. When I say cheats, I mean those little nibbles that add up.

15. BUT ALSO SCHEDULE IN “TREAT” DAYS. This could be semantics, but what I call a treat is, treating yourself to a meal out, or a slice a pizza, or whatever you crave once in awhile. I would have gone crazy without it.

16. WEIGH-IN EVERY DAY, I know some disagree, but this helps tremendously! I weigh and track it on a chart. I can study the ups and downs and actually anticipate the loss.

17. Schedule official WEIGH-IN days on the best day of the week for you, before any possible cheats or treats. I have found (this is me totally honest) that setting your official weigh-in day can affect your success. I prefer later days of the week, Friday or Saturday, but in all honesty, when I started this 12 week challenge, Monday weigh-ins kept me in check over the weekends. I couldn’t go out and eat Chinese on Saturday and then weigh-in on Monday! Which is why I gradually moved it to Thursday…but that just began a vicious cycle of bad weekend, and 3 days to get it off. NO! I was kinda sabotaging myself. (Still won’t make Monday my official weigh-in, but I know I had better success with it)

18. Give yourself a TIMEFRAME for losing FAST, no more than 12 weeks and have a good concrete goal. Some of these tips you just can’t maintain for that long, for me it’s the no salt. I’ve finally added it back and all my food is tasty again.

19. Find SUPPORT that cheers you on with forums like Spark, Weight Watchers or so many others!

I'm sure there is something I am missing, but this is the bulk of it. NOW LET'S BURN SOME FAT!!

Just Lose It Challenge: Go all in!

I will start a 12 week challenge starting tomorrow. I am going all in! The last few weeks I have been lax with my healthy lifestyle. Been eating frozen entrees, eating way too many not so good for me protein bars, snacking on pretzels a few of my kids tata tots and fries here and there….yes, you get the picture.

Although my workouts are always full out, my eating needs a lot of help. A LOT! I don’t have a whole lot to lose, but what I do have to lose is even harder to get off than someone who has to lose 100 pounds. The only way I know I can be successful is to eat totally clean, totally unprocessed foods.

I will drink 12+ cups of water a day. Twelve is my magic number. Anything less than that I am dehydrated. Most days I try and aim for 16, but on average 14 most days. I will *try* and stick to plain water, but I am addicted to Crystal Light and will add that to maybe half of it. Also, my first cup of the day will be warm water with juice of about one lemon in it. This is MAGIC to the body! Trust me, you have to make this a daily habit.

NO ADDED SALT! Very, very, very hard for me! I am a salt addict, forget the sugar, I’ll pick salt over it anyway. By eating more unprocessed foods, that will eliminate added salt to foods. When I cook my veggies…no added salt. When I eat my chicken, fish, even eggs….no salt. No boxed foods, no foods from a bag, no frozen entrees, all loaded with salt.

No sugar! I don’t add much sugar to things, but I will be cutting out any kinds of breads, cereal, sweet treats, cookies and candy. Which brings me to….

LIMITED CARBS! Cutting out all the bad culprit carbs, but keeping the good ones. Jeannette Jenkins thinks oatmeal should be the only carb for the day. Well, I’ll try and add that and a bit of quinoa and maybe Ezekiel bread. Everything else, I’m cutting completely out, at least for the next 12 weeks.
No cheese. Bad for my belly because I am lactose intolerant, plus, I like all the fatty cheeses! And I always overeat it! Two, it bloats you like crazy anyway.

I think doing all these things will help get me back to my goal weight in the quickest amount of time.