How To Lose Those Last 10 Pounds: Getting Started

This is the first in an ongoing series about “How To Lose Those Last 10 Pounds”.  I’m going to cover getting started, if “the last 10 pounds” are a myth, how to overcome obstacles and make this work for your lifestyle, setting goals, exercise, eating, and more!  Please subscribe to my RSS feed, so you don’t miss a post!

Know What You Want

When a local fitness club invited a diet expert to speak to members about weight loss programs, the question most people wanted answered was not about specific exercise routines or diet programs. It was, ‘Why is it so hard to lose the last 10 pounds?’

Why Is It So Hard to Lose The Last 10 Pounds?

You could consider this the most famous dieting complaint ever recorded. Many people can lose tens of pounds when they first start dieting but find it difficult when it comes to losing the last ten.  Before you dismiss this as a myth, let us assure you it is not. There are practical reasons why it is indeed difficult to lose the last 10 pounds.

When you first start on a diet, you have many pounds to lose. Your body burns calories depending on your weight – the less the weight, the less the calories being burnt. In order to make sure that your body does lose those final 10 pounds, you need to make sure that you are consistently burning more calories. The best way of doing this is to reduce the number of calories from your diet and increase the intensity of your workouts.

Take Jill who weighs 200 pounds. With her workouts, she is able to burn up to 750 calories every hour. Take Jane who weighs only 140 pounds. With the same workout, Jane can only burn about 300 calories every hour. All this means is that while you will certainly lose weight by continuing with your weight-loss exercises, you will not lose it at the same rate as when you first started.

You now start to get the picture. At some point in your weight loss program, you will find that you are losing weight at a slower rate than before. This will mean making adjustments to both your diet and to your workout routines. For example, you may have to workout for longer periods or exercise more intensely. Anything that helps you burn more calories at that point.

If you were starting off when you were 300 pounds, by limiting yourself to around 1200 calories every day and exercising regularly, you could easily lose 5 pounds every week. After a few successful weeks of eating right and working out, you are down to 120 pounds. You will slowly notice that by continuing with the same kind of diet and workouts, you are not losing much weight at all. You then try to reduce your intake of calories. You keep reducing till you find some change in weight. However, you will be shocked to see that even if you are eating only 600-800 calories everyday you still do not manage to lose more than one pound per week. The other danger is that it is strongly recommended by medical experts that you do not eat less than 1200 calories every day.

Is it possible to cut calories and still get all the nutrition you need?  Absolutely.  My favorite way to do this is with protein shakes.  I have one for breakfast and one for lunch and then a healthy, colorful dinner.  I use soy milk, juice, or water, protein powder, and frozen fruit, like strawberries, bananas, and blueberries.  I whip them up in my Magic Bullet.  They are SO good!  With vitamins, herbs, and minerals, and ranging from 180 – 250 calories a piece, they can’t be beat.

It therefore essentially comes down to this – when you have very little body weight there is not much weight to lose and this makes losing the last 10 pounds difficult. But remember, we said difficult – not impossible!

With the right combination of a proper, well-balanced diet and more intense workouts, you should still be able to lose those last 10 pounds and we are here to tell you exactly how!

Subscribe to my RSS feed so you don’t miss my next post!

Click here for a FREE video revealing how I lost 35 pounds in 3 months & kept it off for 15 years!

*****************************************************

Read More!

Next:  How To Lose Those Last 10 Pounds, Part 2: Why Before How

Next:  How To Lose Those Last 10 Pounds, Part 3: Overcoming Obstacles