You can safely lose around four to eight pounds of fat in one month.
You can have a slimmer body in one month. Exactly how slim, however, depends upon your current weight, you current body composition and what steps you start taking today to reduce your body fat. Through a combination of diet and exercise, one month from today you can have a slimmer waistline, slimmer thighs and so forth. But you have to make a commitment to do so. There are no shortcuts. The only way to reduce body fat is to consume fewer calories than the body requires to satisfy its energy needs.
Instructions
Evaluation
1. Weigh yourself using a bathroom scale. Record your weight.
2. Measure the girth of your biceps, forearm, abdomen, hips, thigh and calf using a cloth tape measure. When taking measurements, position the tape measure so that it wraps around the biggest part of the body part being measured. Pull the tape tight enough to be snug, but not so tight as to pinch the skin. Record each measurement.
3. Calculate your body fat percentage using the appropriate formula:
Men 18 to 26
Bicep Measurement + Abdomen -- Forearm -- 10.2 = Body Fat Percentage
Men 27 to and Over
Bicep Measurement + Abdomen -- Forearm -- 15 = Body Fat Percentage
Women 18 to 26
Abdomen Measurement + Thigh -- Forearm -- 19.6 = Body Fat Percentage
Diet
4. Use an online calorie calculator tool -- such as the ones offered on the American Cancer Society or Mayo Clinic websites -- to estimate your daily calorie needs. This is the amount of calories required to maintain your current weight and body fat composition.
5. Subtract 500 daily calories from the calculation recorded in Step 1. The result is the approximate number of calories you should consume daily to trim your body fat. Avoid reducing your calorie intake too much. Otherwise you risk depressing your metabolism and sending your body into starvation mode. In addition to losing fat, you will also lose muscle when you starve your body. The goal is to keep muscle while losing fat.
6. Eat several small meals throughout the day or three moderate-sized meals and several snacks. This works to fuel your metabolism. Monitor your calorie intake as you go along in order to hit your target calorie intake number, calculated in Step 2. Eating a large percentage of fiber rich foods throughout the day will help you to feel full on fewer calories.
Exercise
7. Engage in 30 to 60 minutes of daily aerobic exercise such as power walking, jogging, biking, dance, tennis or some other sport. The goal is to get moving at a pace that increases your heart rate to 75 percent of maximum, the fat burning zone. Your maximum heart rate is calculated by subtracting your age from 220. Multiply the result by .75 to determine your fat burning zone heart rate.
8. Engage in 20 minutes of strength-training exercise such as calisthenics three to four days per week.
9. Look for opportunities throughout the day to move a little more. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, for example.
Tags: your body, calorie intake, Forearm Body, Forearm Body Percentage, heart rate, Abdomen Forearm, Abdomen Forearm Body
