You’ve got a hot date this weekend,
Your high school reunion is next month,
Maybe your sister is getting married and you want to look your best for the family photo.
Whatever the reason, we often find ourselves regretting our failure to stick to a healthy diet 1-3 weeks out from a big event. We need to lose weight quickly!!
While a week or two might not be enough time to transform you into a Calvin Klein model, it is enough time to at least take away the bloat and perhaps drop 5-10lbs.
Here are my Top 5 Rules to Lose Weight Quickly!
1. Nix the Sodium!:
- There is so much sodium in the average American diet.
- If it’s processed, you can guarantee that there is sodium in it!
- Check your labels, work to cut out as much sodium as possible.
- What’s wrong with sodium you ask? Your body needs to have a certain level of sodium to allow the body to function properly. When your sodium increases you must retain water to keep your sodium levels within normal saturation levels; unless until you have flushed the sodium out. If you always eat high sodium foods, you are ALWAYS retaining water. Nix the sodium and you might drop 3-5lbs in water weight right away!
2. Stick to your Ratios:
- If you want to lose weight eat 1g Protein for 1g of Carbohydrate you eat.
- Think about it, we call it low carb, but all you are actually doing is balancing your protein to carbohydrate ratio.
- This is why most diets seem to be “low carb.”
- Diets aren’t actually “low carb.” Americans just eat too many carbs to begin with which is why you want to lose weight in the first place.
3. Eat Veggies:
- If you eat enough veggies to balance out the protein you eat I promise you won’t be hungry.
- Veggies take up space filling your stomach.
- We often cheat on diets because we feel hungry: Fill up on veggies and you will have less reason to cheat.
- Veggies also contain lots of fiber to help you “push” some of the old crap you previously ate through the system.–You’ll feel less bloated when you have less sticking to your intestine walls.
- Season them with low sodium seasonings such as any of the Mrs. Dash line to add more flavor to your meals.
4. Drink Water:
- Your sodium levels do not balance out with one glass of water and the amount you drink can affect your eyesight, if your dehydrated and your eyesight is going away then try googling Eye doctors near me or visit your local clinician for treatment.
- Take eating sushi for example: When you go out for sushi and have soy sauce with your roll it’s like you just consumed 1 tsp of salt. Imagine instead of putting that tsp in your body you put it in a 8oz glass of water. Now add 8 oz of water and pour half the glass out. You are left with 1/2 a tsp of sodium. After the next glass you’ll have 1/4 and so on and so forth.
- The more water you drink, the less water your body needs to retain to bring it back to it’s normally sodium saturation.
- Oddly enough, the more water you drink the less water you will retain.
- DRINK WATER!
5. Don’t Restrict Calories Too Much:
- The mistake most of us make is we restrict calories too much.
- This causes your body to go into “starvation mode,” meaning your body will shut down bodily functions to conserve calories.
- If you cheat one day before you event you will stop losing weight and your body will for sure hold onto the calories during and after the function, making you rebound to a higher weight than you started at.
- Eat at least 1200-1400 calories if you are female or 1400-1600 calories if you are male to avoid going into starvation mode!
If you look at any diet you will see it typically follows these rules. The only difference is instead of telling you the science, they simple tell you the foods to eat. Here are some “Safe” foods to consume and still drop weight quickly. Stick to these foods, we’ll call it the What Courtney Eats Based on all the Diets she’s read about Diet.
Safe Foods:
- Chicken
- Turkey
- Round Roast
- Pork Loin
- Eggs
- Turkey Bacon
- Turkey Sausage
- Low Carb Tortillas
- Steel Cut Oatmeal
- Protein Power preferably whey
- Broccoli
- Zucchini
- Onions
- Peppers
- Carrots
- Low Fat String Cheese
- Cottage Cheese
- Think Thin Protein Bars (only 1 a day)
Get creative! Make something new! I bet you won’t be bored. Here are some recipes that might help you stay on track!
And a couple recipes that will keep you on track. Beware the following recipes do have cheese so make sure that you drink extra water to flush out that sodium!
