Health & Fitness : Exercise & Fitness

Generally, trying to lose weight fast is a recipe for disaster, disappointment, and ultimately, failure. Even if you have the motivation, determination, and "willpower" to diet hard and lose weight rapidly, the body's metabolism tends to drop like a rock when you crash diet, sabotaging your weight loss in the end. Also, even you do lose weight fast, who's to say that you have developed habits you can live with in the long-term to KEEP the weight off?

For these reasons, I generally advocate losing weight slowly but steadily (1-2 lbs. per week, max) and following a plan that will be similar to what you'll follow when you're simply trying to maintain your weight loss. I detail this approach in my book, "Mind Over Fatter."

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Health & Fitness : Exercise & Fitness

But, you're probably reading this page because you are determined to lose weight fast. Hopefully, you can understand that you still need to be smart about losing weight, even if you'd like to lose weight as fast as possible. You see, you can't have the best of both worlds: there is an inverse relationship between how fast (and how stupidly) you lose weight and how good you look afterwards (more muscle, less fat) and how long you keep the weight off.

While it's true that, in general, losing weight fast is a recipe for disaster, there are certain "tricks of the trade" that very few people know about that are safe and effective for losing weight fast. It took decades of scientific research coupled with people who had the time and interest to perform real-life experiments with the techniques to find the best ways to undergo a crash diet or to lose bodyfat when you're already super-lean to begin with.

Why has this information taken so long to gather? For one, most scientific research is catered to disease states, meaning that the studies are done on the clinically obese, the heart-disease victim, or the malnourished due to a terminal disease. It makes sense that we would spend our research money on these issues, which, if you really think about it, are more important to mankind than whether you fit into your size 12 or size 8 jeans! Over time, certain individuals have taken the rather limited number of studies on "normal," healthy people looking to lose a bit of weight, and tested it in the real world to see if there was a way to lose as much bodyfat as possible with minimal repercussions and minimal risk of the diet backfiring due to the metabolism slowing.

Lyle McDonald is the guru of body recomposition: that is, losing the most amount of fat and the least amount of muscle when you're losing weight. Losing fat but maintaining muscle is the number one way to look phenomenal and have everyone ask you, "what are you doing? You look amazing." Lyle is a "nerd" for lack of better words that has basically spent the better part of his life learning the secrets even the pros didn't know about losing weight fast. See, people who look good enough to be models or bodybuilding champions tend to have such good genetics that almost ANY type of diet and training will lead to them looking great. It's the REST of us, those who weren't born with a gorgeous body, who need more specific, scientific help in our quest to get rid of the fat!

I highly recommend these books by Lyle McDonald books for everyone looking to lose weight:

If you're already very lean, you might benefit from:

*The Ultimate Diet 2.0

I own all of these Lyle McDonald books and more, and I believe they are worth at least 5 times the price I paid for them...they are a steal at the prices he's selling them for. You could spend years online researching and still wouldn't come up with concise, specific, step-by-step strategies to lose pure bodyfat at a rapid pace, and learn how to keep it off for good. I base many of the diets I use myself or those I give to my clients on Lyle's teachings, and have never had better results, or easier diets to follow that work great. He has a Rapid Weight Loss to Lose Weight Fast book that's really great.