To lose weight, you need to cut calories. To lose weight fast, you need to cut more calories. For every 3,500 calories you cut, you lose 1 pound. (So minus 500 calories a day equals a loss of one pound a week).

How low can you go? Generally, not lower than 1,200 calories per day, say weight-loss experts, including Jean Harvey-Berino, Ph.D., chair of the University of Vermont’s Nutrition & Food Sciences Department and co-author of The EatingWell Diet. 

But for a quick fix, you could shave off a few more—going absolutely no lower than 800 calories—for up to three days (no longer), Harvey-Berino told nutritionist and Eating Well advisor Rachel Johnson, Ph.D., R.D. Harvey-Berino also suggests creating rules that add structure—essentially creating your own diet plan.

1. Nix Alcohol: A 5-ounce glass of wine or light beer generally packs about 100 calories. Consumed every day for one year, 100 extra calories adds up to a 10-pound weight gain.

2. Have a Salad Every Day for Lunch: I’m talking a big salad with loads of fiber-rich vegetables, topped with a little lean protein: chicken, salmon or baked tofu. Research suggests that both fiber and protein are particularly satisfying.

3. Eat Every 3 or 4 Hours: When you’re cutting calories, it’s important to spread them out so that you don’t get too hungry. I find that having a meal or snack every few hours keeps my hunger in check. Keep in mind, though: the more frequently you eat, the lower in calories your snack should be. Good choices: an apple and a few almonds or some raw veggies with a few tablespoons of hummus.

4. Chew on sugar-free mint gum after a meal: Mint flavors send signals to your brain that it’s time to stop eating.

5. Snack on pistachios instead of pretzels.

6. Eat more avocados: They’re loaded with the kind of healthy fats you need to keep your body burning fat.

7. Get a Dog: (Or borrow your girlfriend’s.) Taking Fido for a walk 20 minutes a day can help you shed 14 pounds a year.

8. Combine cardio and weights: Try jumping rope between sets, or string together some exercises into the circuits

9. Get off the couch: do quick sets of push-ups, sit-ups, or jumping jacks during the commercial breaks of your favorite TV shows.

10. Don’t quit cold turkey on your favorite foods: You’ll be more apt to fall off the wagon.

11. Load up on fiber: Lentils, beans, edamame, and pears are all great sources.

12. Stash sweets in out-of-sight places: like on high shelves or deep inside your cupboards.

13. Get at least seven hours of rest: Sleep deprivation can wreak havoc on your metabolism.

14. Train with a buddy: especially one who's stronger—he/she’ll push you to work harder.

15. Brush your teeth before bed—shirtless: You'll see your progress in the mirror and get psyched to work out the next morning. 

16. When eating out, ask for sauces on the side. You’ll eat less—and save tons of calories.

17. Don't hold on: The guys on the cardio machines who hold onto the frame are usually out of shape. That's not an accident.

This full-body, equipement-free workout flames calories and unroll your mind until you become stressless.

Even-though you have a gym membership and lift heavy weights, doing body weight workouts will be hard and get you sore. Plus you will focus better when you are alone and not zoning out at the gym and cheating both your body and mind. 

This full body workout will benefit your brain and give you a good sweat—exactly the detox you need in a manic month.

Stress can be caused by normal daily life tasks, forgetting to do a job task, running late to meetings, or just not remembering where you put your things. Your energy starts to diminish thus your fat diminishermechanism start to weaken. Which leads to skipping workouts and eating without a schedule.

Just one rule: Give it all you've got during each strength move. That means pushing hard for the entire minute, focusing to beat your previous score.

You will need: Your Body

1. Squat One-Two Punch

A.Stand with feet staggered, right foot forward, and hands in fists by chin. Squat to start.

B.Stand, then quick-snap a punch with right hand straight forward, rotating fist palm down at shoulder height. Then quickly punch left hand across body, pivoting on left foot to turn hips forward slightly, rotating fist palm-down at shoulder height of right arm. Switch sides; repeat.

Sets:1

Reps:30 seconds per side

2. Crisscross Squat

A.Stand with feet hip-width apart and arms by sides. Jump, crossing right leg in front of left, landing that position for a brief second.

B.Then jump to uncross legs and landing in a squat. Without pausing, switch sides; repeat. Continue quickly alternating sides.

Sets:1

Reps:1 minute

3. T Push-Up

A.Start on floor in plank on palms. Bend elbows back 45 degrees to lower body until chest grazes floor.

B.Then push up, rotating to right to come into a side plank on left palm, extending right arm straight up from shoulder and stacking feet. Switch sides; repeat. Continue quickly alternating sides.

Sets:1

Reps:1 minute

4. Side Lunge to Tuck Jump

A.Stand with feet hip-width apart and arms by sides. Turn toward right and step right leg forward, pivoting on left foot, to come into a long lunge with right knee bent and left leg straight and bent left arm forward and bent right arm back.

B.Push off right foot to return to start position and quickly jump as high as you can, tucking knees into chest. Land softly. Switch sides; repeat.

Sets:1

Reps:1 minute

5. Lateral Hop

A.Stand with feet together, knees soft, hands in fists with elbows bent at sides to start. Explosively hop to the left as if you were jumping over a small object (you could place something like a water bottle or a towel here to ensure that you get some height), landing on balls of feet. Switch sides; repeat.

Sets:1

Reps:1 minute

6. Plank Jack

A.Start on floor in plank on palms with feet together. Without moving upper body or raising hips, hop feet wide. Hop feet back to start position.

Sets:1

Reps:1 minute

7. Lunge Kick

A.Stand with feet hip-width apart and arms by sides. Step right leg back into a reverse lunge, bending both legs 90 degrees, bent right arm forward and bent left arm back to start.

B.Push through left foot to stand on left leg, kicking right leg in front of you and driving left arm forward and right arm back. Return to start position and continue for 30 seconds. Switch sides; repeat.

Sets:1

Reps:30 seconds per side

8. V-Up

A.Lie face up on floor with legs long and arms extended overhead to start. Curl head, neck, and shoulders up as you reach arms and legs up to meet, balancing on tailbone so body forms a V shape. Simultaneously lower arms and legs back to start position.

Sets:1

Reps:1 minute

9. Squat Hold

A.Stand with feet hip-width apart and arms by sides. Squat and extend arms straight out at shoulder height. Record the number of seconds you can hold position with excellent form (hip crease below parallel, knees pushed outward, chest lifted). Once you can go the full minute, do this exercise with arms overhead for more of a challenge.

Sets:1

Reps:1 minute

10. Up-Down

A.Start on floor in plank on palms. Jump feet toward hands. Immediately jump feet back to start position.

Sets:1

Reps:1 minute

Personal trainer and Today show lifestyle and fitness correspondent Jenna Wolfe believes the best way to achieve weight loss is through making manageable lifestyle changes.

The fitness expert curated a list of easy-to-follow tips in her new book out Tuesday, Thinner in 30: Small Changes That Add Up to Big Weight Loss in Just 30 Days.

“I did every single tip, and I lost all my baby weight,” she said. “I realized that all these tips that are second nature to me are things that could help my friends, whether it’s a new workout or a new way to eat.”

Wolfe is breaking down five of the main tips that helped her lose weight:

Drink 20 sips of water (about 8.5 oz.) the moment you wake up.

Water is the key to absolutely everything. Yes, it’s a little boring, and yes, you’ll want to pee every 13 seconds, but water is literally what fuels you – it is what keeps your body moving. 

Drinking first thing in the morning lets your metabolism know, okay, we’re here for business. It also helps crush your cravings, and makes you feel fuller longer. It’s really important first thing in the morning because you’re dehydrated overnight. 

Try to drink half your weight in ounces daily. You will see how much fewer calories you will actually eat over the course of a day.

Redo how you chew.

When you’re eating a meal, you rush through it without even knowing it. We end up eating so much more than we need to, and that’s because our appetite never really gets the chance to catch up to our brain. 

If you slow down, you will see how full you actually get. Chew your food longer. Make the actual process of eating last longer, and it will give your appetite and your brain a chance to come together. 

If you chew your food 20 to 30 times per bite, you will actually slow down the entire meal process, you will save yourself an abundance of calories over the course of the meal, and you will feel fuller longer.

Stop eating simple carbs – like breads, pasta, white rice and sugars – after 6 p.m.

By the time dinner comes around we are literally exhausted, so all we want to do is dive into the breadbasket and eat junk food. 

We are weakest at night, but when you are at your weakest, you need to be at your strongest. After 6 p.m., no more indulging. Eat protein and vegetables instead. If you can nail 6 p.m., after a couple of weeks, you should try to inch that up to 5:30 or 5. 

If you do nothing else, this will actually cut out the majority of your calories, because people don’t realize how much damage they do at night between dinner and dessert. 

If you save those 400 to 500 calories every night for a week, that’s a pound every week.

Eat something smart before and after every workout.

It’s important to work out with something in your stomach, even if it’s some coffee with milk or a piece of fruit or a teaspoon of peanut butter. I want your body to be able to draw from that. 

Afterwards, within 30 minutes of working out, get some protein in you – hummus with vegetables, or some turkey and string cheese microwaved in a pita, chicken sausage and half of a baked potato, or cottage cheese with salsa. 

Get creative, get crazy, get fun – just get some protein in you. This rebuilds muscle fibers and helps with your recovery process.

Keep a food diary and share it with friends.

If you write down every single thing you eat, and at the end of the night, you email it to a group of people that are looking to lose the same amount of weight as you or one of your friends, not only are you accountable,but now they’re going to see what you wrote, and I guarantee you are going to make some immediate changes. 

The next time you go for a handful of M&Ms when no one’s watching, now someone is watching because you have to send that in. Suddenly you don’t eat that, and you don’t have a slice of pizza. You start autocorrecting.

1.BE REALISTIC

Expecting to lose about 5 to 10 pounds of weight in the first week is possible in most cases. Then you will notice a decreasing of weight loss rate after each week.

If you are new to how to diet and have a considerable amount of weight that you need to lose. Then things will probably happened quickly and you will lose weight faster.

Starting diet isn't a walk in the park. Your body needs to adapt from burning carbs all the past years and adopting new chemical reaction and get used to burning fat instead.

You may experience some clanks. It is called “low carb flu” and it end withing few days. Balancing the nutrients that your body needs like drinking juicing recipes for example would help a lot. Also some sodium can help with the fatigue episodes.

After passing the first steps and getting used to your new diet you will feel good and energetic.

The low-carb diet improves your health in many other ways:

• Blood Sugar tends to go way down on low-carb diets.
• Triglycerides tend to go down.
• Small, dense LDL (the bad) Cholesterol goes down.
• HDL (the good) cholesterol goes up.
• Blood pressure improves significantly.
• To top it all of, low-carb diets appear to be easier to follow than low-fat diets.

2.FAST THINGS UP

Some tips to apply during your diet to lose weight even faster:

1. Drink More Water. All studies show that drinking water before any meals helps you feel fuller, thus eat less and lose about 40% more weight. It also shows that it boosts your metabolism.
2. Drink Coffee or Tea. Being a coffee or a tea drinker isn't always bad. In this case we recommend that you drink a reasonable amount of coffee and tea during the day. It is proven that can both raise your metabolism.
3. Protein for Breakfast. A study conducted by Harvard School of Public Health shows that people who replace carbs based meals for breakfasr with high protein foods feel more full throughout the day and lose up to 60% more weight.
4. Eat Viscous Fiber. Get your fiber supplements and eat them on a daily basis. It help get rid of stubborn fat around the belly area.
5. Sleep Better. Lack of sleep makes the body reacts strangely like putting on extra unneeded weight. It is one of the biggest factor of being obese.

3.DON'T STARVE YOURSELF

Always talk to your doctor in case you have ant medical condition. A diet could be considered as starving your body from nutrients in case you have a medical condition.

When you cut carbs, insulin levels go down. A hormonal change takes place and make your bran “want” to lose weight.

It leads to an overly reduced appetite. Hence, you are eliminating the main reason that most people fail with conventional weight loss methods.

This is scientifically proven to lose about 3 times as much as a low-fat diet.

Another great benefit for the keen folks is that any amount of weight you lose can lead to a big difference on the scale as early as the next day.

This may sound like it's too good to be true. With this plan you can eat good delicious food until fullness and still lose fat.

Apple cider, eggnog, candy canes, fruitcake, Christmas ham, hot chocolate, hot buttered rum, gingerbread, mashed potato, pecan pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, and all kinds of pies and main dished, snacks, and drinks, which gives your liver a 24/7 duty of processing all that sugar, and turns the majority of it into fats. 

In this article we are not giving you advises regarding NOT eating all that delicious food, the holidays must be fun times, eating whatever we want is mandatory in this time of the year. 

Controlling the eating habits during the holidays allows you to enjoy all the good food, by not feeling full after one delicious meal and suffer all day long from a bloated stomach afterwards. By following these tips you will be able to almost maintain your weight and eat all the goodies during the holidays.

1. DRINK A LOT OF WATER

Water is the keystone for flushing out all the extra fat you receive from the meals. Drinking a glass of water before and after a meal, allows your digestive system to break down the food easily, thus you would not feel bloated if you are having a continuous eating habit. It is recommended to drink at least 15 glasses of water on daily basis.

2. WALK

Yes I know, it is the holidays, why should you walk instead of zipping on an eggnog and laughing at some common jokes? Taking a walk around the bloc for 15 minutes is not a biggie, it is not an intense activity, however it will gives you some blood flow to you muscles and prevents you from transforming some of the sugar intakes into fats.

3. CONSUME ALCOHOL MODERATELY

The best way to consume alcohol is to stick with one kind of drinks during the day, mixing alcohol and having cocktails will shock your system, and consider those empty calories as 100% extra intakes, which leads to bad hangovers. Drink a glass of water after every glass of alcohol to keep the % of alcohol stable in your blood stream.

4. DO NOT NEGLECT THE HEALTHY ADD-ONS

The best add-on to not neglect is CINNAMON, it slows down the passage of food from your stomach to the intestines, i.e. you will not be eating as much as usual. Check out this article to learn about the best juicing recipes to lose fat.

AS PROMISED, CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE 12 WEEKS POST-CHRISTMAS WORKOUT PLAN

The abs, the dream of each one of us is having a chocolate tablet abs, they are responsible of showing how lean you are, unfortunately, even with the presence of a big amount of articles, videos, and tutorials about getting abs, the majority fail to achieve that goal.

The causes can varies for each individual, but the most common main ones are the following:

1.You Need To Lose Weight

The fat surrounding your mid section needs to be flushed away, doing exercises that targets only the abs will not make that fat go away, you need to do big compound movements, such as deadlifts and squats. 

2.You Need To Do The Right Exercises

Your abs are always in action, once you wake up, they are responsible of holding your posture straight, thus you need to approach them while respecting that principal, which is having a good posture. 

Doing sit-ups are good, but it's not a great exercise, your spine become in a vulnerable state, and you only target the outer fascia of your abs. 

All you need is one exercise, which is leg raises, it's the most effective exercise for the abs, actually it makes your mid section so strong, and it gives you a stable strong middle section, thus you will be more comfortable while doing the deadlifts and the squats.

3.Be Aware Of Your Body Anatomy

Believe it or not, the shaped outer abs are obsolete comparing with transverse ads and the obliques, these late ones are more important, they are responsible of keeping you away from the snapping your back or having a hernia while lifting weights. 

Ergo you need to add a very important exercise to your routine in order to target these muscles, doing one arm dumbbell squats will allow you to fix any muscle imbalances.

Also will make your transverse abs and obliques stronger, and of course it has an aesthetic output too, it will give you a very nice bottom sweeps on the sides, like a warrior shield.

4.Learn How To Breath

This might sound very basic, but believe it or not, breathing during exercising is very crucial, thus knowing when to exhale and inhale is important, the principal is simple, inhale and hold your breath while the weight is moving, and exhale when the weight is not.

However the pause must not reach a rest state, so exhaling and inhaling fast but effectively in order to get all oxygen you need and not pass out needs a lot of focus. 

At the end of this article you'll find a breathing exercise that will allow you to increase your capacity regarding this matter.

5. Detox Your Body

Sometimes even if your have a very low body fat, you body can hold water and make you bloated, meaning your skin will be full of water and makes you look like you have more fat to lose, thus your abs will not show up. 

Detoxing your body will let your skin look thin, which allow your muscles to stand out, including the abs of course, in order to do that you need to eat organic food and stay away from processed food, here is the top juicing recipes to detox your body.

Losing weight as extra fat while gaining muscles is what everyone dreams about, many think that it's impossible or unreal, but the science is clear and loud, understanding the mechanism of how your body creates fat will make things clearer. The body is an engine that needs fuel 24/7, so it is safe to say that the fats get burn as fuel, the problem is that fats are the last resort for the body to call as a fuel, misleading concepts make people wondering what diet they should believe in, i say don't believe in any diet, just follow these two simple principles down bellow and you'll get the wanted results :

Some Motivational Stuff To Break The Boredom of Reading 

Following a low fat diet does not work

If you take the fats out of foods, it tastes like cardboard - so what do they do ? - they dump the food in sugar, thus you start getting first level fuel intakes, not only you give your body a big amount of first level calories, but you get sugar rushes, and your liver transform all the extra sugar into fat, ergo following a low fat diet makes your fat.

Following a high protein diet does not make you big

The trending norm, says that you need 2.5 grams per 1 Kg ... it's wrong, and right at the same time. The pro Bodybuilders can follow that norm, they train twice a day, each workout is so intense and last for hours, no vacations ... so they need a lot of protein intakes, in order to fix the damaged cells in their muscles, but for us amateurs, we don't need that much protein, training 4 or 5 times per week, working out for 2 hours max ...  the extra protein intake will be transformed into fat, and/or become residues, thus you will be wasting money and time, also your digestive system, and metabolism could get shocked and decrease their performance.