Experts Explain If There‘s a Right Way to Lose Weight Fast—and Safely
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You’ve got a lot going on in your life, and deciding to lose weight is a big commitment. If you’re interested in losing weight for health or personal reasons, it’s understandable to wonder how to lose weight fast, so that you can reach your goal and move on.
Here’s the thing: Experts generally do not recommend losing weight fast, and there are a few reasons for that. “Big picture, your body likes things to be stable,” says Jessica Cording, M.S., R.D., author of The Little Book of Game-Changers: 50 Healthy Habits For Managing Stress & Anxiety. “If there is a very sudden weight loss, your body is biologically wired to view that as a response to a threat.”
That can then stress out your body and make it think that you’re somehow in danger or that there’s a food scarcity, she explains. In response, your body can slow down your metabolism, making it harder to lose weight and keep it off. “Also, most people losing weight too fast are being extremely ‘strict’ or restrictive, which isn’t realistic and short-lived,” says Beth Warren, R.D.N., founder of Beth Warren Nutrition and author of Living a Real Life With Real Food.
Meet the experts: Jessica Cording, M.S., R.D., author of The Little Book of Game-Changers: 50 Healthy Habits For Managing Stress & Anxiety; Beth Warren, R.D.N., founder of Beth Warren Nutrition and author of Living a Real Life With Real Food
Basically, trying to lose weight fast isn’t setting you up for success in the long-term. That doesn’t mean you have to lose weight at a snail’s pace. You can still lose weight at a steady rhythm that will give you results you can see. Here are methods that dietitians recommend for losing weight.
How to lose weight fast (and safely)
The main goal with weight loss is usually to drop pounds and keep them off. While weight loss isn’t simple, dietitians say these steps are your best bet to lose weight and keep it off over time.
1. Load up on fiber.
Dietary fiber is an indigestible carbohydrate that can’t be completely broken down by your gastrointestinal tract. Fiber is usually found in foods like oatmeal, beans, seeds, and fruits. It’s recommended that men get about 38 grams of fiber a day, and women have about 25 grams, but most Americans only take in about 14 grams of fiber each day, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Not only is a high-fiber diet good for your heart health, it can keep you feeling fuller, longer, Cording says. As a result, you’ll often feel less hungry during your day. Just introduce more fiber slowly: “Otherwise it can cause gastrointestinal upset,” Cording says.
2. Fill your plate with half vegetables.
Revolving each meal around vegetables means you’ll get plenty of fiber- and nutrient-rich foods in your diet upfront. These foods also tend to be lower in calories, Cording points out. They can even help with portion control, since you’ll fill up on vegetables early on, leaving less room for more calorie-dense foods, Warren says.
3. Do weight training.
Strength training is important for your overall health, and current exercise guidelines recommend doing at least two days a week of strength training activities. But weight training also increases your muscle mass, which ultimately ramps up your metabolism, Cording says. Just keep in mind that the number on the scale may not budge as much as you’d hope with this route because muscle weighs more than fat by volume. Still, you can firm up and lose fat at the same time, making you look different, even if the scale isn’t moving as low as you’d like.
4. Eat breakfast.
If you absolutely can’t stand breakfast, then you don’t want to force yourself to eat. But getting in a good meal early on can help set you up for a successful day of eating. “It keeps you satisfied and gets your metabolism moving the right way, leading to more healthy decisions throughout the day,” Warren says. She suggests trying to get plenty of protein in as well.
5. Pass on sugary drinks.
Sugar-sweetened drinks like sodas, juices, cocktails, and sweet teas and coffees add empty calories to your day, working against your weight loss goals, Cording points out. “It’s an easy way to remove calories if you were drinking these regularly before,” she says. Avoiding sweetened drinks ultimately shaves off excess calories and helps decrease your sweet tooth, Warren says.
6. Add activity to your day.
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends getting at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity. “This helps burn calories and allows you to see your weight loss progress quicker,” Warren says. If you haven’t been as active as you’d like in the past, keep in mind that you can break it up into smaller chunks to make it manageable throughout your day—and week.
7. Focus on what you’re eating.
It’s easy to scroll through your phone or watch TV while you eat, but taking the time to focus on what you’re having can make a big difference in how much food you end up taking in. Mindful eating, which means paying attention to the smells, tastes, and textures of your food, “allows you to reconnect intuitively to learn how to honor your true signs of hunger and fullness as well as food choices that feel right for you,” Warren says.
8. Get plenty of sleep.
This is an “underestimated tool for weight management,” Warren says. Research has found that Getting less than the recommended seven-plus hours of sleep a night can slow your metabolism and endocrine function, and can even mess with the hormones that control hunger. Lack of sleep also causes your body to release the stress hormone cortisol—and chronically elevated cortisol levels are linked with weight gain.
9. Write down what you eat.
Keeping a log of what you eat helps you to keep track of what you’re taking in. Research also shows that this can have a significant impact on your ability to lose weight over time. “It keeps you accountable as a great self-help tool,” Warren says. You can physically write everything down into a journal or add the info to an app like MyFitnessPal.
10. Don't skip meals.
It can be tempting to cut out an entire meal in hopes of saving on calories, but Cording says this usually backfires, leaving you hungry and eating more than you would have if you ate consistent meals. Eating regular meals “keeps your metabolism moving, cortisol at bay, curbs cravings, and allows for a steady flow of energy,” Warren says.
11. Focus on healthy fats.
Fat is often portrayed as the enemy, but Cording stresses that it can be a helpful tool in losing weight. “It helps fill you up,” she says. The goal is to hit that sweet spot of having enough fat, but not so much that you end up taking in more than you burn. She recommends trying to get your fat from healthy sources, like avocados, nuts, eggs, and fish.
12. Set small goals for yourself.
Cording says she often sees patients who set lofty weight-loss goals, and then become frustrated when they can’t meet them. Instead, she says smaller milestones are a better way to go. Warren agrees. “Small goals are more realistic to accomplish and add up,” she says.
13. Add more protein to your diet.
The recommended daily allowance (RDA) of protein is 0.36 grams per pound of body weight, or 0.8 grams per kilogram. But some scientists think that it should be more like 1.2 to 1.5 grams per kilogram, especially if you’re exercising regularly. Protein helps with a slew of processes in your body, including muscle repair, Cording says. But it also helps you to feel fuller, longer. Having enough protein in your diet “improves satiety so you are not looking for less healthful options to munch on,” Warren says.
14. Increase your water intake.
At baseline, it’s important to take in about 11.5 cups (2.7 liters) of fluids a day for women and 15.5 cups (3.7 liters) of fluids a day for men, according to the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (That’s fluids from liquids and foods.) Being well hydrated allows your body to operate well at baseline, so you can exercise regularly and have good digestion, Cording says. “It also helps with weight loss and bloating,” Warren says.
15. Limit ultra-processed foods.
Ultra-processed foods tend to be packed with calories, sodium, preservatives, and poor sources of fat, which can work against your weight loss goals. Limiting these in your diet “decreases calories, curbs cravings, and reduces inflammation,” Warren says. If you have some processed foods here and there but you eat an otherwise healthy diet, Cording says it’s no biggie. You just don’t want these to dominate your diet.
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