Knowing what not to eat is very important. Sugar is a high calorie item that is sure to add weight to a person, especially if they do not get up and move around a lot. By simply cutting out colas, desserts and chocolate, a person will lose weight even without a lot more activity in their lives.

A very good way to plan meals when a person wants to lose weight is to have a medium portion of all the good things, like vegetables, meat, rice or potatoes. Salads are always good to have with an afternoon or evening meal. In the morning, they should stick to a bowl of high fiber cereal or a piece of bread with nonfat butter and jelly. Practicing these types of healthy eating habits every single day will allow them to eat differently when they go out for a meal.

Eating out will have more calories than a home cooked meal, but that will be ok if they practice good eating habits during the rest of the week. Eating out once a day will most likely cause a person to gain weight – simply because they will be eating more caloric meals.

Losing weight is something everyone has experienced in some way over their lives. They all understand that it can be difficult to change the way one eats, so don’t feel ashamed to ask friends and family for help in planning fantastic, healthy meals. They will all have some wonderful ideas that have helped slim down themselves and their families.

Here are some other great foods to include in your daily diet. Fish, seafood, chicken, pasta and steamed vegetables are very good for meals. Potatoes can be made in various ways where they are not fried and do not have a lot fat in them. All fresh fruit, eggs and salad greens are also fantastic to fit in with any meal.

The battle of bulge takes the knowledge, the determination and the right eating habits to allow a person to slim down. Don’t forget that walking everyday helps tremendously and will allow the metabolism to burn off calories quickly. Never starve oneself, but eat good and healthy meals and you will be well on the way to a healthy, better you!

Ingredients

5 medium-large brown Onions, sliced

2 cloves Garlic, mashed and chopped finely

2 Bay Leaves

1 Sprig of fresh Thyme

1/2 cup Red Wine

2 quarts/litres Beef Stock

2 tsp Cornflour

Olive Oil or non-stick cooking spray

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Add 1/2 a teaspoon or a small squirt of cooking spray to a lrage saucepan.

Add the sliced onions, garlic, bay leaves and thyme and stir fry over a medium heat until the onions are very soft and starting to brown, around 15 minutes.

Add the wine and stir until the liquid is reduced by half.

Remove the bay leaves and thyme and add the cornflour. Cook while stirring for 1 minute.

Add the beef stock and simmer over low heat  for 15 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste before serving.

We recommend that for your own health, you do not follow our 1 week weight loss program more than 3 times in a 6 month period. Using this diet, you may lose up to 13 pounds / 6 kilos over the week. This amount of weight loss is not healthy in the long term, so do some research and plan a long term diet to follow up the gains you will make over the week on the quick weight loss diet.

Points to consider

This diet is extremely low carb, so some people may find that the low blood sugar levels resulting from this diet cause tiredness, headaches or nausea. If this happens, you can try eating one sandwich on grainy wholemeal bread with 1 slice of cheese and/or a few slices of lean lunch meat. If you have ongoing problems, check with your doctor before continuing this diet.

Although the quick weight loss diet has plenty of veggies,we also recommend that you take a good multivitamin pill daily while on this diet.

Exercise

To help your diet along it is important to get 20-30 minutes of exercise every day that you are on this diet. Check out our exercise section for some ideas.

The Quick Weight Loss Diet

• Day One

On the first day you can at any fruit except for bananas. Eat as much fruit as you want and as much soup from our recipes as you want.

• Day Two

On the second day you can eat as many vegetable as you want as as much soup from our recipes as you want. Eat them raw in a nice salad, or steam them if you prefer. Try to focus on eating leafy green veggies, and don’t overdo the peas, corn, potatoes or bean. If you stick to this for the day, reward yourself with a small tub of diet fruit yoghurt.

• Day Three

On the third day you can eat all the fruit and veggies you want as well as all the soup you want. As before, steer clear of potatoes, corn, peas, beans, and bananas.

• Day Four

On the fourth day, you are mainly eating the soup but keep eating all you want of it. Supplement today by having up to 3 banana and a few glasses of low fat milk. You can make banana smoothies using 1 banana, 1 cup of milk, and a pinch of nutmeg. Feel free to add an artificial sweetener to your thickshake.

• Day Five

On the fifth day, keep eating soup as you want it. You can also eat a small piece (the size of a deck of cards) of lean red meat, skinless piece of chicken, or tofu if you are a vegetarian. Spice these up by serving with a tossed tomato salad made with fresh ripe tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, and a little chopped fresh basil. Dress with a squeeze of lemon juice or a dash of vinegar.

• Day Six

On the sixth day you can eat 2-3 serves of beef, skinless chicken, fish or tofu today along with all the vegetables you want, but no potatoes. Eat more soup if hungry.

• Day Seven

On the seventh day you can include 1-2 serves of cooked brown rice to your diet as well as eating all of the vegetables you want, and all the soup you want.

By now you may have lost up to 13 pounds, or 6 kilos. However even a smaller loss should show you that you can get rid of the weight if you work at it! Start planning a long term weight loss diet to keep the weight off and go even further towards your goals.

Ingredients

• 1 pound (500g) Carrots, diced
• 2 Large Brown Onions, diced
• 4 Large stalks Celery, sliced
• 1/2 (250g) pound frozen green beans, cut into pieces
• 2 Quarts (2 Litres) Chicken Stock
• 2 Large cans of whole or diced Tomatoes
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste
• 1-2 Cloves of minced fresh Garlic (as desired)
• 1 Tsp dried Oregano
• 1 Tbsp fresh chopped Basil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp Olive Oil

Method

1. Heat a large pan to medium-high.
2. Add the olive oil, carrots, onion, celery and garlic.
3. Fry, stirring regularly until the onions start to soften and go clear.
4. Add the stock, Beans, Cans of tomato, tomato paste and oregano. Add a little extra water if needed so that the vegetables are just covered.
5. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until all of the vegetables are cooked.
6. Stir through the chopped basil, salt and pepper and simmer for another 1-2 minutes.

Ingredients

• 1 Whole Cauliflower, cut into pieces
• 1 Quart (1 Litre) Chicken Stock
• 1 Teaspoon Curry Powder
• 1 Stock Cube
• 2 Tablespoons Chopped Fresh Parsley
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Method

• Put the stock cube, curry powder and pieces of cauliflower into a large pan and simmer until the cauliflower is tender.
• Strain out the cauliflower, reserving the stock.
• In a food processor or blender, puree the cooked cauliflower
• Stir the cauliflower puree back into the stock mixture and add the chopped parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.

Ingredients

• 1 Head of cabbage, diced
• 1 Clove of garlic, finely chopped or mashed, or 1/2 tsp of dried garlic powder
• 3 Green Peppers (Capsicums), seeded and diced
• 4 Carrots, grated or finely diced
• 6 Brown onions, roughly diced
• 2 400g Cans of tomatoes, whole or diced
• 1/2 a bunch of Celery, including leaves, sliced finely
• 1 Quart/Litre of liquid Vegetable or Beef stock
• 1 Stock Cube
• 1 Bay leaf
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Method

1. Add all of the ingredients except the cabbage to a large pan.
2. Add enough extra water so that all the ingredients are covered.
3. Simmer over a low heat for around 20 minutes, just until the vegetables start to soften.
4. Add the diced cabbage and simmer for another 10 minutes or until the cabbage is cooked through.

This will keep well in the fridge for several days – or you can freeze individual portions and microwave when you want them.

Once you have your goals set for weight loss, it’s time to evaluate your caloric intake, and the type of foods you eat. Avoid eating greasy or sugary foods, which are full of empty calories and high fat content, and try to fill your meals with lean meats, fresh fruits, and steamed vegetables, which provide nutritious tasteful meals and are great weight loss foods.

Eating unhealthy food is won’t help you lose weight  but eating too much good food and at the wrong times, such as before sleeping, can also hinder progress, so try to program your eyes to “sight measure” your food. At first use measuring cups at home to train yourself to measure portions visually, and once you are confident then you can graduate to “visually measuring” without the cups. This will give you confidence when eating out, and you wont be prone to over-eat.

A very good point to keep in mind is to focus on eating low GI foods. Low GI foods are those that are digested more slowly, helping you avoid a sudden peak in your blood sugar levels. Check our sidebar for links to charts showing the GI value of foods.

Another good tip is to try splitting your daily meals up to 6 small meals or 3 normal size meals with small snacks between. There are many resourceful recipe books available to guide you towards delicious healthy recipes.

The best way to control your caloric intake is to divide your daily calories up between meals, snacks, and beverages. You should aim to drink 64oz. of water everyday, and replace all carbonated drinks, and sugary juices with water. If you don’t like the taste of water try adding a capful of lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, or unsweetened fruit juice for flavor, and soon enough you wont go anywhere without your water bottle.

Now comes the fun part, exercise! We are all aware of how important exercise is for weight loss, but many people lack the extra activity needed to burn the extra calories they have consumed. When you consume the correct amount of calories to lose weight for your body type, then any extra activity you do will really help to shed pounds. You need to burn 3500 calories to lose one pound of fat, and with a healthy diet and continued activity that pound is gone forever.

Here is a great formula to follow and help set your daily activity goals. Caloric intake minus activity calories burned equals daily calories burned. For example, if your caloric intake was 1800 calories, and you have burned 2800 calories from exercise, then you burned 1000 calories of fat. Continue this for four days and you would have burned 4000 calories, which equals one pound of fat! Check out our links section for information on how many calories you can burn with different exercises.

Try making exercise fun by playing sports, dancing, gardening, swimming, playing with children, and even cranking up the radio while housecleaning. Any vigorous activity is great so exercise doesn’t have to be boring. If you have some exercise equipment like a bike or treadmill, these are great activities as well. Staying motivated to be active, committed to eating healthy, and having fun are they keys to meeting your long term weight loss goals. And as we have said before, follow the Quick Weight Loss Diet to get your diet started with a bang.

If you’ve spent your whole life inhaling meat, going on a strict vegan diet tomorrow is asking for failure. It takes a strong person to totally change your lifestyle on a dime and stick to it. A better way is to find a program that seems doable and not too gimmicky. Remember, if your goal is to lose weight and keep it off, you want to find a diet that you can adhere to for the foreseeable future, not just for a few weeks. Using the tips in our quick weight loss program and following a restricted diet for a short period here will help as well, because you will really have something to look forward to after the first month is up!

2. Set Realistic Goals

You might go into a diet with the best of intentions and come out of it feeling like you failed if you didn’t reach your lofty goal. By all means, consider how much weight you want to lose ideally, but start with an intermediate goal that you can shoot for, and continue to lower the target as you meet each goal. If you do this, you’ll internalize the progress you’re making, rather than dwell on the distance between your current weight and your ultimate goal. As part of this, tracking your progress is an important way to stick to your plan, as you’ll be less inclined to break it if you are focusing on how well you’re doing.

3. Reward Yourself

One of the toughest parts of a diet is feeling like you’re being deprived. If you are eating a low-carb diet, for example, you won’t be having those candy bars or cans of soda. A few days might not be a big deal, but months of perceived deprivation will set you up for a big binge and guilty feelings. Don’t go for an all-or-nothing approach. Try it in terms of a game: “If I meet my goal of X, or I stick to my diet for X number of days, I can have Y.” Don’t go overboard on your reward, and make it healthy if you can, but recognize the importance of rewarding yourself for a job well done, so you can keep with it. Along with food, you can also reward yourself by going clothing shopping.

Final Thoughts

If you can, find people who can support you as you commit to a new diet. Often, peer pressure can be enough to dissuade someone from breaking a diet. Even better, try to go on that diet with someone else and help each other.

Finally, don’t forget why you’re on the diet. If you feel tempted by something, just ask yourself if it’s aligned with your goal, and internalize how important this goal is to you. If you really want to succeed, anything that interferes starts to seem less enticing. You’ll reach your goal before you know it! For further reading, here’s a similar diet plan looking at how to lose weight in a week, that references some of the fad diets around as well.

One of the ways to get moderate exercise is by jogging. If you don’t have exercise equipment like a treadmill you can create a plan for jogging around your neighborhood. If you’re afraid that you won’t stick to your jogging plan, try finding a friend, family member, or even a neighbor to be a workout buddy. If you work better alone, all you need is a good pair of jogging shoes and an mp3 player to keep you company on your jog.

Another way to exercise moderately is by lifting weights. If you have a couple of hand weights you can do some bicep crunches and lift the weights above your head to work your triceps. You can also step it up from our light exercise tips and run up and down the nearest stairs in order to build up your leg muscles. Don’t forget to do some sit-ups and push-ups while you’re at it for a full body workout. You can also do different moves that you find online. Looking up ways to lift weights online is a good technique, because it allows you to pick and choose what areas of your body you want to work on.

Moderate exercise can get very creative, especially if you have internet access. If you have internet access you can look up different yoga and pilates moves that you can do if you have a little floor space to stretch out. Different yoga poses can improve your flexibility or strengthen your muscles. Pilates can build your muscles as well. You can create your own yoga or pilates routine with different moves that you find online. Put on some peaceful music, find your center, and start your workout. If you don’t have internet access try local community notice boards or newspapers to find groups in your area. Doing these exercises in a group can be a great way to stay motivated and lose some weight as well as meeting new friends!

One of the ways you can use light exercise in the comfort of your own home is to utilize any stairs that you may have. If you live in an apartment, take the stairs to your door instead of the elevator. If you live in a house that is only two floors you can use a regime of walking up and down the stairs a few times per day. If you want a more challenging workout, you can carry laundry or groceries up the steps. Making sure you take the stairs a few times per day boosts your cardio and has a bonus of developing your leg muscles.

Another way to do some light exercise is to use some of the aerobic moves you might already know. Put on some music when you get home from work and just dance around for 20 minutes!

Try just a few repetitions of sit-ups or push-ups. Do three repetitions of ten for the best results, but anything that gets your blood pumping will help burn calories.

If you already have exercise equipment like a treadmill or exercise bike, even just a  15 minute session will make a difference during the month you spend on the quick weight loss diet. If you want to lift some weights but don’t have any, try taking two cans from your pantry and do a few repetitions with those. You can challenge yourself even more by using larger cans of food.

Possibly the best way to get some light exercise is by walking. If you have a lot of property, you can walk around the perimeter once or twice a day. If you live in a suburban neighborhood, take a walk around the block after dinner. You can also bring a member of your family with you when you go for a walk. Walking and talking is a good way to get your heart going while having a good conversation at the same time. Taking your dog for a walk in the morning and evening is a good way to give you and your pet some exercise.

Light exercise is easy, but make sure that once you have a plan you can stick to it. If you want to keep your body looking good, light exercise is an easy way to get your heart rate going a little bit while using your muscles at the same time.