There is an overwhelming amount of advice on the internet about getting in shape, and though much of it is really good there is unfortunately a lot of noise to filter through if we want to focus our time and effort on the most important things.
When it comes down to it there are only three major things we need to focus on to lose weight quickly, and those are good nutrition, cardio exercise, and resistance training. These are the 3 pillars of rapid weight loss.
Sounds obvious right? It is, but it can be easy to be led into desperate tactics which give little to no return, and do not address these three major items. Any one of them can bring on change by itself, but a healthy balance of all three is by far the most effective and healthy way to reach your goals quickly.
You can always rely on the simple fact that all you need to do is eat better, raise your heart rate, and work your muscles.
But it is not enough to say that you should be exercising more and eating better, to be confident in the changes you make you will need to know why they actually work, or how they affect your body.
It is my hope that this article will give you a fundamental understanding of how rapid weight loss works that you can connect with, so that as you dig deeper you can go forward with confidence and have a basis for good decision-making.
Eating healthier will change your life
You will hear it over and over and rightfully so, that changing what you eat and drink is the most important change you can make in both terms of overall health and reaching your weight loss goals.
Changing my diet was the first major change that I made when I started losing weight.
Although I knew that exercising and lifting weights would multiply my results, I held confidence in the fact that I was addressing one of the three major concerns and that I could add exercise to my routine when I was ready.
For almost anyone who is overweight, whether you are seeking to lose fat fast or just be healthy, it is by far more important to change what you are eating, than how much you are eating. Luckily these two go hand in hand, and here is why.
Yes junk foods are delicious and it makes us want to keep eating them, but there is another much more crucial reason that we eat so much bad food, which is that we do not eat enough good food.
Sound too simple? How about “eat less, lose more?” Now that is much too simple. But if simply eating more healthy food sounds too good to be true for you then rejoice, because it may be simple for you to make a huge change in your weight.
Don’t get me wrong, it is important to reduce the amount of junk you are consuming, but rather than focusing on cutting things out all of the time, focus on filling your belly with good food instead and watch as you naturally eat less junk as a result.
Whole, nutritious food will sustain you, keep your metabolism running steadily through the day, and allow your body to burn its own store of fat at the same time. Not only can you lose MORE weight by eating clean than you can by starving yourself, more importantly you won’t need to feel hungry while you are burning fat.
This will also allow you to confidently add exercise into your routine, and increase your results even more without having to worry whether you are eating enough to do so. Your healthy diet will give you the energy to workout and build muscle, even though you are burning fat, and will allow you to take on the mindset of “eat more (healthy food), lose more.”
Can diet alone cause rapid weight loss?
Although the point of this article is to say that the most rapid results come from diet and exercise together, that is not to say that a change in what you eat alone can not dramatically change the way you look.
Make no mistake, you can completely change the way you are shaped by replacing bad food with healthy food.
This is one of the most powerful ideas, yet it seems so hard to embrace for so many.
The first thing you will think after eating a healthy meal might be, “I’m not hungry, it doesn’t feel like I’m losing weight…maybe I ate too much.” This is a hard thought and feeling to shake, that we need to be hungry, tired, or suffer in some way for our body to do it’s fat burning duties.
Make a dramatic change toward nutritious, home-cooked meals, in place of packaged foods…. see what you find in
the mirror only weeks later… you will be amazed!
Of course food is not the only thing we consume that packs on the pounds. As an added bonus, if you are drinking more water and therefore less sugary drinks, the reduction of sugar in itself will help you lose more weight, but the intake of more water will also increase your metabolism.
But what if you have already made a dramatic change in what you consume, and want to lose weight faster? When adding a whole new aspect to your method such as exercise, the combination will act as a catalyst and bring on a whole new level of results by combining them.
Lets talk about exercise by itself, and then discuss how combining healthy eating habits and exercise will bring on the most rapid and healthy results in your weight loss journey.
Exercising – Cardio and Resistance
Now that we have discussed one pillar, let’s discuss the other 2 which are both based in exercise.
If you want the fastest results, it is essential to combine healthy eating and exercise when losing weight.
So you’re losing weight with having changed your diet alone… now you’re ready to exercise. But which kind of exercise do you do? Do you do cardio or do you lift weights? Depending on your your accessibility to equipment, we could easily say that the optimal answer is both, but we are here to understand why and to gain the confidence we need to make a change.
I will discuss cardio first, but will go on to suggest that if you are overweight you should consider weight-lifting to be one of your greatest allies in losing fat, not just building muscle.
Modern training methods combine both resistance training and cardio which is excellent, but it is great to have an individual understanding of each. If in the future if you should decide to fine tune your diet and training, great! But know that you can always rely the power of simplicity, which has quickly led me to where I am today.
Eat better, raise your heart rate, work your muscles!
Cardio
The benefit of cardio towards fat loss is undeniable, as this type of exercise uses mostly fat for energy. What distinguishes cardio exercise from weight-lifting is that your heart rate and breathing rate are significantly elevated.
Cardio exercise is extremely effective but it is often relied upon too heavily in early stages of weight loss. Many people feel that they have to suffer through an hour of cardio to make the least bit of difference, when in reality a twenty minute workout that also includes weight training will bring on incredible change if done nearly every day.
Consistency is key, and so I recommend cardio in doses that will allow you to keep your energy and motivation high, rather than crashing your body and drive.
Modern training methods combine cardio and resistance training, where during intense exercise you can break down muscle and work your lungs simultaneously.
Whether performed separately from weight training or not, consider cardio as just one of the three major supporters of your goals, along with good nutrition and weight lifting.
After changing my eating habits, I went strait to weight training which helped tremendously, but I had neglected cardio exercise for quite some time. I realized this when I joined a CrossFit class and noticed that despite being fairly strong, my lungs could not keep up with my muscle and I could not sustain any exercise for very long. This was a good thing however, because it meant that lacking in a major area left room for more big change.
When it comes down to it, there is only so far that we can take each of these main pillars of weight loss by themselves. So rather than focusing on only one and reaping the diminishing returns as we push one aspect to its limits… adding a whole new aspect of weight loss into the system can have a much larger effect.
Cardio exercise is so unique from lifting weights, that adding it into your routine can bring on its own large result even if you were already lifting weights and eating properly.
Imagine that you have eaten a perfect diet for the day, and that your muscles are tired from lifting but you didn’t even break a sweat. There is one solid pillar waiting for us to be explored that has been untouched, and that is the heart.
Again, keep it simple for now. Raise your heart rate with exercises such as jogging, cycling, swimming etc… Even with choosing a low impact exercise, keep the intensity low enough so that you can perform the exercise for longer, and with more consistency.
Resistance Training
A common trend is to only concern ourselves with the amount of energy burned during exercise. Though cardio exercise does undoubtedly burn energy at a high rate during exercise, it is actually quite hard for most overweight people to reach the level of cardio exercise required to raise the resting metabolic rate for an extended period of time (days).
So great, you burned calories during an hour long exercise session, but what about the fat we burn during the other 23 hours of the day, or even the next day?
Lot’s of people including myself, take advantage of weight lifting, or for that matter any form of “resistance training” to get a super effective and enjoyable workout.
There are 3 different timelines in which the metabolism is raised as a result of weight-lifting, which are during the workout, for up to 36 hours after, and indefinitely once muscle is gained and maintained.
In addition to these metabolic benefits there are of course a variety of aesthetic benefits of having more muscle for both men and women.
As in cardio, the action itself of lifting weights will burn calories and elevate your heart rate and metabolism (not as much), but as in any exercise the benefits do not stop when the session does.
It is often much easier for an overweight person to raise their resting metabolism for an extended period with lifting weights, than it is to raise it with cardio exercise. If you have lots of weight to lose, weight lifting can be done without high impact, or even from a seated position if standing for an extended period hurts your knees.
Resistance training is a great way to raise your resting metabolism, for two major reasons:
The first, is that our body has been found to respond to high intensity resistance training by raising the bodies resting metabolism for up to 36 hours. This is incredibly significant, and is one of my most treasured pieces of knowledge that I make use of every day in my weight loss journey.
Lifting weights helps me to raise my resting metabolism and burn more fat at all times of the day, while gaining (or maintaining) muscle at the same exact time.
The second reason is that after muscle is gained, it will naturally and consistently consume more energy by just being there, meaning that your resting metabolism will increase in a more permanent way assuming that the muscle is maintained.
Unlike cardio exercise, with resistance training the heart does not have to be elevated for an extended period of time to raise your resting metabolic rate for days. It is only necessary to focus on muscle groups at an intensity that will cause muscle to break down (only slight micro-tears, not actual damage). A certain level of soreness can be expected and is good as it means that you are working your muscles hard enough.
And then of course there is the most obvious benefit of lifting weights, the reason why most people do in the first place, which is that it will make you look good.
If you’re going to be losing weight, why not have muscle waiting to show through once you’re thin enough? Why wait to start building or maintaining the muscle you’ll need to look your very best?
Not only will having more muscle make you burn fat quicker, but it will also help you reach your visual goal as the muscle fills out your body and changes your ratio of fat to muscle. Not only are you losing fat, but you’re losing fat percentage.
Don’t worry about the scale when you are gaining muscle. Let the mirror tell you the truth.
Last, remember that you will need to eat more when you are building muscle. Eat super healthy foods and you will not need not worry if you are eating too much, as it will both give you the energy to step up your game and assurance that you are still burning fat.
As mentioned before, any of the three changes mentioned above are effective enough to change your life completely, and you should not feel pressured in the slightest to start your journey with making perfect use of all of them. A healthy balance between good nutrition, a healthy heart, and a strong body, is something that is built as you become more physically and mentally strong throughout your journey.
Pick one, or start lightly with all three… but either way practice consistency above all.
Now that you have your foundation, it’s time to put these methods to use! To learn how to apply the main pillars of weight loss in your own life, read my top 10 weight loss tips, or even my top 3 tips to simplify things more!
If you’re ready to get started on your own weight loss journey, and want an effective plan that is easy to follow, try the 8-week weight loss challenge! The gradual diet and exercise plan will lead you towards your weight goals and a life filled with healthy habits, one step at a time.
If you want to learn all about healthy weight loss and how to change your diet, check out the “Ultimate Guide to Losing 100+ Pounds.”
