I didn’t need an article in a prestigious medical journal to tell me that exercise doesn’t provide a magical key to how to lose weight fast. If that were true, I’d have had no trouble losing weight for the past 20+ years, during which time I’ve exercised regularly.
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It’s no wonder that exercise alone won’t cause most people to lose weight. According to MyFitnessPal’s exercise calculator, walking at a moderate pace for an hour burns only 225 calories for a person weighing 150 pounds. That means you’ll be walking an awful lot to lose a pound, assuming you don’t eat more food to make up for the extra calories burned. If you eat a snack bar or “energy bar” after your walk, you’ve just negated all the calories you burned, and then some.
Granted, exercise, combined with a low fat diet, did help me lose weight many years ago. It also helped me maintain the weight loss for a number of years, and helped keep me from putting on a lot of extra baby weight during my two pregnancies. Plus, exercise definitely offers numerous health benefits.
However, to maintain my weight, I followed a low fat diet and exercised for roughly 6 hours total every week. This was before children.
Having two kids along with my full-time job made it impossible to continue exercising at that level. Nowadays, I work out for about three and a half hours per week. Even though I was eating what I thought was a healthy diet, my weight started to creep up.
I’ve never been a stereotypical fat person like the ones you might see on TV. I couldn’t eat a whole bag of chips or an entire carton of ice cream on a bet. I rarely eat junk food or fast food. I don’t even eat restaurant food very often. I take my lunch to work almost every day. And, I’ve exercised regularly for many years.
The Dukan Diet is the only diet that has worked for me – to lose weight and keep it off. While studies have shown that low carb diets are better for weight loss than low fat diets, the Dukan Diet isn’t a super low carb diet like Atkins, which I’d also tried before.
The Dukan Diet is high in protein and fairly low in carbs, but the best part is that you never have to go hungry. That was the kicker for me.
Eating a low-fat, high-carb diet left me feeling constantly hungry and tired. With the Dukan Diet, I never had to count calories or feel like I was starving. I never had to feel hungry at all. If I started feeling peckish, I’d grab a low-fat cheese stick.
Many people have lost weight and kept it off using the Dukan Diet, but it’s not for everyone. Some folks do better on an easy, pre-fab plan like the Medifast Diet, where you purchase all of your meals and don’t ever have to worry about measuring, calorie counting, portion control, finding special foods at the grocery store or struggling with unfamiliar recipes.
If you’re looking for how to lose weight fast, Medifast makes it easy and straightforward. There’s no guessing at portion sizes or food choices. You buy all the food you’ll need from one place.
No matter what your weight loss plan is, exercise alone isn’t going to cut it. Exercise is good for you and may help you to lose weight faster than you would with diet alone, but it’s no substitute for a poor diet.
The fast food and junk food industries would have you believe that our sedentary lifestyles are causing our weight problems. However, our carb-heavy, sugar-laden and deep-fat fried food options are the real culprits.
Many diet plans and pills claim to know the secret to how to lose weight fast. What has worked for you? What hasn’t worked?
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