How to Lose Weight Safely in One Month

Dropping a dress size and getting into that great outfit for a party next month is possible by cutting back on calories, exercising and thinking thin. From hunger strikers and the miners in Chile, we know how much weight people can lose in a short space of time, but it isn't healthy. According to "USA Today" you can have "The Biggest Loser" experience without being on television if you want to pay $2,295 to $2,695 a week (plus tax) to go to a weight loss "boot camp" in Malibu. There are less expensive ways to do it if you would rather opt for a DIY weight loss approach. Healthy weight loss involves a combination of diet, exercise and determination.

Instructions

• 1

  Set a realistic weight goal--a healthy weight loss is about two to three pounds a week--unless you are prepared to do strenuous workouts and drastically reduce your calorie intake. Maintain a steady weight loss over a long period of time, rather than trying to crash diet, because it doesn't work.

• 2

  Cook your own food. Buy fresh produce because when you eat in restaurants or purchase processed food, you don't know exactly what you are eating, but you do when you prepare it yourself. Make large quantities of one-pot recipes with lots of vegetables and limited starch (potatoes, rice, pasta) as well as some protein (chicken, fish, beans). Divide it into meal size portions--about two and a half cups--to take to work for lunch or freeze.

• 3

  Avoid oil, sugar and fat. Stay away from fast foods as they are loaded with all three "poisons." Cut back on bread and other empty calorie foods, including alcohol, and load up on vegetables instead.

• 4

  Plan your eating times: breakfast at 7, fresh fruit snack at 10, lunch at 12, vegetable snack at 3, dinner at 6. Eat your biggest meal at lunch and don't put anything solid in your mouth after 7 in the evening.

• 5

  Head for the stairs instead of taking the elevator if your office is on the fifth floor, Take the elevator to the 15th floor and walk up the last five flights of stairs if your office is on the 20th floor. Do the same when you leave work.

• 6

  Buy two five-pound weights. Lift the weights over your head, do arm curls and drop the weights behind your back to get rid of the wiggly underarm fat that develops on women of a certain age while you are watching television. Bend over and touch the floor with the weights to develop back-leg muscles and to help prevent osteoporosis.

• 7

  Exercise hard for at least an hour, four to six times a week. Swim, run or play tennis, and learn to enjoy sweating.