Fine-tune your fat loss: 15 proven steps to drop 12 pounds in 6 weeks—for your fittest summer ever

Men's Fitness, July, 2002 by Matt Fitzgerald

There's a way you can lose dozens of pounds in just six weeks. Unfortunately, it's called a hunger strike.

To lose fat rather than muscle, to avoid bringing your metabolism to a screeching halt, to elude fat rebound wherein the day you stop dieting you immediately start regaining lard, and to become healthier instead of nearly decomposing, you can reasonably aim to drop about one or two pounds per week. That still gives you time to get your trimmer self to the beach this summer to wow potential future exes.

The following 14 fat-loss tips are designed to help you turn your body in the right direction over the next six weeks. But do yourself a favor: Make these healthy habits into a permanent part of your diet, and they'll take you all the way to optimal health.

1 Wake Up and Chow Down Three out of four people who lose a large amount of weight--and keep it off--eat breakfast every morning, according to a study published in the journal Obesity Research. It appears that a well-chosen repast in the early a.m. jump-starts your metabolic furnace early in the day; it also reduces the risk of overeating and other poor food choices throughout the day.

To keep the fat-furnace cooking, you should add extra, smaller meals to your day, not skip your regular ones. In addition to charging up your metabolism, this will help stabilize your blood sugar and minimize strain on your digestive system. "Changing your eating patterns toward more frequent and smaller meals is one of the best changes you can make," says Susan Kleiner, Ph.D., author of Power Eating.

2 Turn Up the Density Call it food efficiency. One of the keys to shedding flab is getting more nutrition per calorie consumed so that you fill up quickly, stay satisfied longer--which minimizes hunger--and get all the nutrients you need despite eating fewer calories.

"When you eat a balance of nutritionally dense foods, including protein, healthy fats, unprocessed carbohydrates, fresh fruits and non-starchy vegetables, your food digests more slowly. This keeps your blood-glucose levels steady," explains Diana Schwarzbein, M.D., a Santa Barbara, Calif., endocrinologist and author of The Schwarzbein Principle. "Hunger signals result mainly from a drop in blood-glucose levels."

Getting a good mix in your menu is easier at night when you have time to think about what you're cooking (or ordering), but it's tougher when you're in a hurry. For breakfast, follow a V8 aperitif with a cup of low-fat yogurt sprinkled with granola and berries. For lunch, try a PBB (peanut butter-banana) on a whole-wheat bagel with some carrot sticks, or a TLT (turkey-lettuce-tomato) on lightly light-mayo'd oat bread with an apple chaser.

3 Slow Down Stress will make you fat as surely as fast food will. "When you're chronically stressed, your adrenal glands are continuously releasing cortisol, which in the long term causes your body to hold fat and redistribute it along the waistline," says Schwarzbein.

Don't think you're stressed? Think again. "Stress is not a matter of being unhappy or irritable," she explains. "It's a matter of doing too much on a day-to-day basis." If you're getting too little sleep and depending on caffeine and sugar for energy, your adrenal glands are probably working overtime--and fattening you up. Your body also pumps cortisol during your long commute, when you're waiting in long lines, and when you're spending that interminable weekend with your in-laws.

Stress and its companion cortisol are everywhere, but you can control both with such simple efforts as thrice-weekly brisk walks of two or three miles. Or resistance training three times a week. Deep-breathing exercises, meditation, and stretching programs all provide measurable relief.

4 Keep Score Successful fat losers keep a tally. "It's called self-monitoring," says Jean Harvey-Berino, Ph.D., an associate professor in the department of nutrition and food science at the University of Vermont. "Consciously tracking your health-related behaviors by keeping exercise and food logs is a very effective way to keep yourself moving in the right direction."

Make sure to note periods of high energy and low energy. When you analyze the logs, you'll realize why you experience these reactions and adjust your eating and training accordingly.

It's helpful to assess your progress using a scale, a measuring tape and/or a body-fat monitor. But give yourself every second or third day off. That will help keep you from obsessing over constant minor weight fluctuations, most of which will be water in or water out.

5 Plan Your Snacks When you're away from home and you feel your stomach rumbling, chances are the most readily available options will be of the junk-food variety. And chances are you will succumb--unless you plan ahead. Nutritionist Susan Dopart, R.D., advises her clients to anticipate these hunger pangs and carry convenient, nutritious snacks such as dried fruit and whole-grain cereal bars.

Ironically, to get the biggest hunger-busting bang for your snacking buck, always include a little fat, which is the slowest-digesting macronutrient of all. A handful of jicama sticks will only tease you, but add an ounce or two of string cheese, and your gut will shush till dinner. Try a tablespoon of reduced-fat peanut butter on celery stalks; a small box of raisins and a Hershey's Kiss; two ounces of soy trail mix or a cup of Cracker Jack. None of these munchies will cost you more than 250 calories and six grams of fat.