I am a 31 year old who weighs 160 pounds and wants to lose 20 pounds - how can I do this?

Answer 1

There is no safe, easy way to lose weight fast. It requires expending more calories than your body burns (exercise) and reducing your calorie intake (proper nutrition). This is the same whether you want to lose 2 pounds or 200 pounds.

Answer 2

Doctors and dieticians recommend losing weight gradually, allowing a whole month for every 4 to 8 pounds you want to lose. Do not starve yourself, or skip meals, or try throwing up.

Here's a program for the period in which you want to lose weight:

Get plenty of moderate aerobic exercise (intense exercise may damage your joints). It isn't essential to join a gym; you can do sit-ups, pushups, dumbbell-lifting, jumping-jacks, and many other basic exercises at home. Walk as much as possible. Bicycling and swimming are good too.

The most important point is to avoid junk foods and sweetened drinks such as soda. Try to avoid refined flour and pasta, processed foods, fried foods, and fatty cuts of meat. Preferably consume no added sugar, and as little added salt as possible.

Our great-grandparents didn't have the epidemic of obesity we see today, because they had a less-sedentary lifestyle, a much more natural diet, and they ate reasonably-sized portions.

Eat 3 not-large-portioned meals per day; do not skip breakfast; and avoid sugary snacks. If you want a snack, try (for example) an apple or a handful of unsalted nuts.

Limit your calories (best to consult a doctor or nutritionist concerning the amount), and weigh yourself at the same time each day, 2-3 times per week. If you see your weight diminishing at a safe, reasonable rate (1-2 pounds/week), keep it up.

Once you've reached your goal, increase your calorie intake somewhat, so that you can maintain your present weight. And you can then have small amounts of sweetened foods or junk food on occasion (if at all), along with your regular healthy foods. But keep checking your weight 2-3 times/week.

Avoid crash-diets, fad diets, diet pills, etc. These may be harmful, and need not be considered by people who have adopted an otherwise healthy diet.

More guidelines:

Don't concentrate on specific foods so much as on a balanced, healthy diet plus exercise.

Healthy nutrition means eating what your body needs, while ingesting as few harmful things as possible. It has also been described as getting enough of each of the major food categories, in healthy forms (grains, fruits, vegetables, protein, dairy, etc.; plus plenty of water).

In general, an example of a healthy starting point could be a menu of whole-grain foods and bread, a good amount of vegetables, legumes, some fruits and nuts, fish, lean meats in not-large amounts, and some dairy. However, this may need adjusting according to one's lifestyle, age, health, weight and other factors at the outset; and also later, as one sees what works for him/her in particular.

Also...whenever you feel queasy, nauseous, constipated or otherwise not completely well, try to remember what you've eaten over the last several hours or the last day. This is one factor in adjusting one's food habits.