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To lose ten pounds, you need to burn about 35,000 more calories than you eat. If you ran an entire marathon, you would use about one pound worth of calories. Assuming your legs have the energy to claw their way out of bed the next morning, you'd need to run about ten more of those in the rest of the week, and that's if you're only eating about 500 calories per day. This is simply to say that losing ten pounds in a week is basically a physical impossibility.

Still, when procrastination strikes, many dieters find themselves looking for a shortcut solution to weight loss. The ideal weight loss diet will result in a loss of between one and two pounds a week; yet while not the wisest practice, a quick crash diet can trim a few more pounds in the same time frame. If you push yourself, it is possible to lose about five pounds in a week, but it is not to be repeated for weeks at a time as it is both unhealthy and unlikely to yield permanent results.

Drink a lot of water:

Dodge the coffee, toss the soda, and ditch the sugary drinks. If you want to lose weight fast, the only liquid you should be drinking is water (save for a glass of real fruit juice in the morning). Try to drink three or four cups of water more than you would in a typical day. Drinking water rather than other liquids can speed up your metabolism and flush waste out of your system faster

Start your day right:

Try to take a short walk or run in the morning. Beyond the obvious benefit of burning calories and fat, starting your day with a mile or two can get your metabolism going strong early and increase your energy level throughout the day. You will feel better about exercising later and your body will process food more efficiently.

Don't starve yourself:

While you will want to cut your calories down, don't take it to the extreme. Beyond the fact that it's terribly unhealthy to go without eating for days at a time, if you try to lose weight by starving yourself, you will just put the weight right back on as soon as you start eating again. Start your day with a good healthy breakfast and reduce the amount you would typically eat in the afternoon and evening hours. Make dinner the smallest meal of the day and never eat right before going to bed.

Exercise different muscle groups:

If you walk or run a few miles for your exercise on day one, focus your workout on your upper body on day two. Lift weights (with limited weight so that you can perform more repetitions), do abdominal exercises, pushups - anything that allows you to get quality exercise for an extended period of time without overworking any one area. Alternate the type of exercise you are performing from day to day. This will let you exercise at a high level each day by giving your muscle groups recovery time between workouts.

Get a full night of sleep:

A lack of sleep can often be linked to low energy levels and overeating. To keep your cravings down and your energy high, get a full seven to nine hours of sleep per night. With a full night of sleep, you will feel much better than you would if you were under-sleeping and you will aid in your body's recovery from exercise.

To lose ten pounds in a week is akin to finding the Fountain of Youth, the Loch Ness Monster, and Atlantis. Still, while not the healthy way to lose weight, it is possible to lose as many as five pounds in a week, with the qualifier that you do not make such a goal a permanent lifestyle. Beyond the fact that crash dieting is unhealthy, weight lost in such a fashion rarely stays off because the body needs the time to adjust to weight loss in small increments.

Learn more about this author, Art Vandelay.
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