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Methods to Lose Weight Fast

Losing weight quickly to fit into a bikini, dress or certain clothing size, requires you to make adjustments to your lifestyle. Sometimes these adjustments are drastic measures. Rapid weight loss is often temporary because the methods used to lose the weight are so extreme they cannot be maintained over the long run without damaging your health. Consult with your doctor before starting a diet or exercise routine.

  1. Crash Diet

    • Crash dieting requires that you drastically reduce the amount of calories and foods you take in. This often goes together with extreme exercise routines, diet pills and diuretics. This weight loss method, which is comparable to starvation, is unhealthy and dangerous. It can lead to nutritional deficiencies, organ damage and eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Rapid weight loss is that of muscle tissue and water; not fat. Once you start eating normal again, you will gain the weight back.

    Low-Carb Diet

    • Low-carb diets such as Atkins and South Beach, require you to reduce your carbohydrate intake. The diets works by stimulating your body to use fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates. You start with an induction phase, during which you can only have 15 grams of carbohydrates from vegetables in addition to a variety of meats, fish, fowl, eggs and cheese. During this phase you may lose up to 15 lbs. in two weeks. The further you progress into the diet, the more carbohydrates you can incorporate. Low-carbohydrate diets are associated with kidney failure, osteoporosis, high cholesterol and cancer.

    Low-Calorie Diet

    • Low-calorie diets require that you replace foods with low-caloric alternatives. You can replace whole milk with non-fat milk and full-fat cheese with low-fat cheese. This diet doesn't require you to eliminate entire food groups; you eat a large variety of low-calorie foods to make sure you still get the nutrients your body needs. Obese people can follow a low-calorie diet under supervision of their doctor. They can eat as little as 800 calories per day and lose up to 5 lbs. per week. Temporary side effects of low-calorie diets include constipation, fatigue, nausea and diarrhea.

    Exercise

    • Combining both cardiovascular and strength training exercises with healthy eating habits will help you lose weight rapidly. Get at least two and half hours of cardiovascular exercise per week. Include interval training into your cardiovascular exercise to burn more calories than you would with regular cardio. Interval training requires that you include several bursts of high-intensity cardio into your training. You can go back and forth from jogging for two minutes to sprinting for one minute. Strength training twice a week, will increase muscle tissue, which helps you burn fat even when you are at rest.

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