Ten No BS Tips to lose Weight

These are ten ways to lose weight quickly and effectively while still being healthy (to a point.) After seeing so many touchy feely lists to lose weight that I knew would never work, I decided to put together this list of straight forward no BS ways to lose weight. I'm not saying it won't be hard, but you will lose weight. By following these simple rules I lost 107 lbs over one and a half years. I'm not going to give you little inspirational tips like "Don't give up!" or "I know it's hard but you have to try try try!" I'm just telling you how to do it. Either you will or you won't.

1. Cut out the carbs COMPLETELY - Yes that's what I said, and I'm not joking. I'm not asking for half measures either. You do it to the point where you're only eating between 0g and 60g of carbohydrates a day. Focusing on protein will put your body in a state called ketosis. You shed pounds FAST in ketosis. If you can make that huge lifestyle change then you're 90% of the way there. If you'd prefer to eat carbohydrates, that doesn't mean the rest of the life won't help out. You can lose weight while eating carbohydrates as your primary food, but it won't be as fast. If you insist on carbohydrates just make sure you're eating complex carbohydrates and not simple ones. And cut out the sugar.

2. Exercise - Duh, right? As they say it's hard for the first two weeks, but if you do it everyday for those two weeks, and find ways to enjoy it, you'll keep doing it after that. Yes, the first two weeks will not be fun. After that it becomes routine. Yes, routine. Exercises where you maintain a steady high heart rate (running, biking, etc) will burn calories. Exercises where you're stopping and starting a lot will build muscle (weight lifting, basketball, football, etc). I know a lot of people recommend burning calories, but there is nothing wrong with building muscles. Muscles look good, and while they're there your metabolism increases and they eat up more calories. If you don't lift or do that sort of exercise for a while, they shrink and you're left with less fat anyway. The best tip of people who don't like to exercise is finding a way to love it. For me it was simply walking and jogging daily. I didn't like doing it during the day so I did it at night when there were no cars around. I would keep an ipod with me and constantly keep it updated with new songs, and books I wanted to listen to. By doing this I often looked forward to going out to walk.

3. Eat Less - This is another obvious ones, but we humans tend to often miss the obvious ones by over-thinking everything. I know everyones answer to this one "I can't do it." Well, you can. And I'll admit during the first 9 months of my weight loss I ate as much protein as I wanted. Which worked great! But as I hit plateau after plateau I knew that I had to decrease my calorie intake. I was the very first to stand up and say "I just can't" but when I finally said alright, I'll try it, it wasn't hard at all. What I found actually was that it was easy to eat almost nothing, and naturally easy to eat everything, but what was the hardest was balancing it just right so I ate enough to keep my metabolism up, but didn't eat too much where I wasn't bringing in calories. That goes to my next tip...

4. When you Plateau, Fast for 24-48 hours - This is a great way to breach a plateau. A plateau is when you are taking in the right amount of food, and exercising the right amount but you're stuck at a certain weight. This is when your body gets used to the routine and tries to stabilize. A good 24 hour fasting period, with coffee and lots of water can assist greatly in breaching a pesky plateau. I don't recommend more than 48 hours as on the third day I couldn't hardly move.

5. Drink coffee - Yes, coffee affects your blood sugar causing it to fluctuate. That doesn't concern me. What does concern me is that when I drink coffee I'm not as hungry. Stabilizing blood sugar in the wake of coffee is as simple as eating some protein. No big deal. Coffee also acts as a natural diuretic. You'll hear a lot of advice on weight loss about how coffee is so bad. Keep crying fatty, I'm down 107 lbs. Drink some coffee in the morning, I usually drink 2-4 cups a day.

6. Don't overdue your Workout - If you work out too hard or in rough weather this can actually cause problems. Your body will hold a lot of water and go into a sort of shock. You won't lose as much weight this way so just be careful about overdoing it.

7. Drink a lot of water - Another obvious one, but hey there it is. People often overlook this simple suggestion and write it off like "Oh I drink enough." Drink MORE water. Drink it all the time. It flushes your system and keeps your metabolism up. Also, keep some water in the fridge and drink it first thing when you wake up. Studies show it increases your metabolism throughout the day.

8, Leave weights in your living room - This one always helped me. I leave some hand weights and a bar with around 100-150 lbs on it in the living room. So when I'm not busy or sitting around watching TV it acts as a constant reminder to get up and work out a bit. You can do some reps while watching a movie or while listening to the radio. It's also a good reminder overall to keep working hard.

9. Green Tea can be helpful - Naturally don't go crazy with this one, but a cup of green tea here and there can keep you more alert and burn calories. It also helped me on tired days when I wanted to work out but couldn't.

10. Exercise late in the Day/Don't eat at Night - Obviously don't eat at night because while you're sleeping your body doesn't burn calories as fast. So don't skip dinner. Eat dinner around 5:00 or 6:00 PM. Exercising late in the day always seemed to garner better results for me. It brings up your heart rate late in the day when its usually falling. Everything you've eaten during the day is being processed later in the day making it a prime time to get the heart rate up. Be aware this can make it harder to sleep for 1 to 2 hours after you get back.