Loosing weight for spring break?!
Question: im goin on spring break in 3 weeks and i wanna loose 5 pounds by then...any ideas? i play soccer so i work out every week day....and i dont eat too much junk food....any snack or meal ideas?
Answers: im goin on spring break in 3 weeks and i wanna loose 5 pounds by then...any ideas? i play soccer so i work out every week day....and i dont eat too much junk food....any snack or meal ideas?
Heya Jill,
Being active is good; great first step. Aside from that, the only other part of weight loss you need to concern yourself with is nutrition (barring any medical conditions).
Just shift your macronutrient intake more towards protein, and less towards fat and carbs. I like a ratio of 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat (in calories from each source). You can't exclude any of the major food groups, that will screw over your body and your athletic performance.
Also, do try and space your meals out more. This bit makes intuitive sense as well; your body doesn't just need energy and nutrients at one time of the day, but rather throughout the day. Spread your meals out more, perhaps five meals a day with some healthy snacks in between. Don't take that to mean 5 three-course meals a day though; a meal is roughly 300-400 calories if you have 5 of them a day. That plus the snacks should bring you to around 2000 calories a day, which given your athletic description, should put you around 700 - 800 calories or so (VERY rough estimate) below your daily expenditures.
Given that fat is roughly 3500 calories per pound, in 3 weeks * 7 days * 700-800 calories (grr... math.. carry the two...) you should be down about 14700 to 16800 calories below maintenance at the end of three weeks... that's 4.2 - 4.8 pounds of pure fat.
And trust me; you'll be MUCH happier losing that much fat versus a crash diet, where you'll lose MUCH more muscle than fat.
I'll put some links in the sources page you can check out too.
Stay Healthy,
Jared