In this post I’m going to show you how you can lose weight at home in 7 days.
Weight loss itself is a hard goal for many to attain. In today’s world of convenient foods and inconvenient exercise, some would even say it’s impossible for them. With this beginners guide, I’m hoping to show you that not only can it be done, but it can be accomplished in just a week.
You’ll learn 10 important tips by reading this post, make sure to pay attention to each one.
How you can shed pounds in just 7 days
Losing weight at home in 7 days can be done through a combination of things. You need to track to be sure you stay in a calorie deficit, staying hydrated is a must, and you need to make the right food choices by avoiding high calorie sweets and drinks.
That is a basic definition you can come back to to stay on track.
Whether you wish to lose half a pound or 2 pounds in a week, your journey will usually follow that outline.
Having a week of weight loss is a great goal to strive for, it can help kickstart bigger accomplishments and prove to you that it is possible to control your health.
Regardless of the benefits, there are potential downsides that you should watch out for.
Problems With Losing Weight at home in 7 days
Be realistic
The first issue is that most people aren’t realistic when they want to lose weight in a short time frame.
1 pound can be done with effort, 2 pounds will be difficult for most people.
Anything more than that, can be attributed to water weight in a lot of cases. The problem here is that if you aim too high and fall well short of that, you are likely to quit.
Weight regain
For the ones that do succeed, it’s not uncommon to see them gain the weight back or more.
The reason for this when aiming for drastic results, like say 5 pounds in under a week, is that you don’t adopt healthy habits.
(read: Extreme Weight Loss Methods. 6 You Should Stop Doing Today.)
If you do indeed manage to achieve your lofty goal, how will you maintain it?
You probably won’t stick to your fad diet.
In fact, you might just go back to eating like you did before, and see your health take a step back as a result.
Unhealthy relationship with dieting
Finally, trying to figure out how to lose weight at home in 7 days can leave you frustrated and on the verge of giving up on a healthy body.
Goals like this tend to be made through negative emotions.
Maybe you hate the way you look, or the way you feel. Those feelings sparked motivation to get your life back on track.
That motivation won’t last forever, and you might just associate fitness and nutrition with negativity. Something you despise and is restricting.
The 10 weight loss tips
Increase protein intake
By just adding more protein into your diet, you can actually increase how many calories you burn each day.
Did you know the foods we eat need calories to be digested?
This is called the thermic effect of food.
Fats need 0 – 3% of their own calories for digestion, Carbs need 5 – 10% and protein needs an astounding 20 – 30%.
So by adding, say 400 calories of protein in your diet, you could be burning an extra 120 calories each day!
Luckily. Protein isn’t as hard to integrate as you might think. Good protein sources can come from things like; greek yogurt, milk, chicken, beef, fish, protein shakes and the various other protein supplemented products on the market.
If you want a recommendation, check out gold standard protein or magic spoon cereal
Avoid sweet snacks and drinks
If you want to lose weight, or just get healthier in general, then you obviously need to be making the right kind of food choices.
This means lowering your intake of sweets like snacks or drinks.
First and foremost, these types of foods are fine in moderation. Restricting yourself too heavily of things you enjoy can lead to burnout and bad nutrition relationships.
They tend to be very high in calories while also usually not being very filling. Something like a can of soda for example adds around 150 calories and does nothing for you except maybe an energy and blood sugar spike.
You may also find that after consuming these foods, you are left with more cravings than before.
That could lead to a food binge that ruins your entire week’s effort.
Bottom line: moderate or replace the sweets.
Track calories
Another basic rule of weight loss is creating a calorie deficit.
What this means is that the calories you burn each day should be higher than the calories you consume. A good starting point would be to use a calorie calculator and go from there.
Tools like myfitness pal are free to use and extremely helpful to keep you on top of a nutritional goal. You simply log your foods and pay attention to your daily totals.
If you aren’t convinced that tracking calories will work for you then consider this. It takes a deficit of 3500 calories to lose 1 pound. If you can aim for just a deficit of 500 calories each day, you would hit that number in a week.
Double that deficit to lose 2 pounds in a week.
See? Instant and measurable results.
Note: I don’t recommend going more than 2 pounds a week. Talk to your doctor before making huge dietary changes.
Hydrate
Next, you are going to want to stay hydrated to help keep your weight under control.
Drinking enough water throughout your day helps keep you feeling full and potentially reduces how much other sugary drinks you have.
Hydrating properly also can help regulate your water weight. Water weight is a very frustrating factor for weight loss, it can cause your number on the scale to jump up or down drastically from day to day.
In a short time period like just a week, water weight will be even more impactful.
If you make sure to drink water consistently each day, your body won’t have as much of a reason to hold onto so much. This helps to prevent so much bouncing around when all you want to do is step on the scale.
Get regular sleep
Sleeping is another important tool to learn how to lose weight at home in 7 days. Honestly, it’s important to lose weight in any time frame.
Your sleep affects many things, like your mood and cravings.
In fact, short sleep has been shown to influence two important hunger hormones, leptin and ghrelin. Leptin decreases appetite and ghrelin increases it. When low on sleep, leptin levels tend to be low and ghrelin levels are higher.
And you know what happens when you have a negative mood with high cravings? Usually, that means a high chance of binging on “junk” food.
To avoid that possibility, try to stick with the recommended hours of sleep for adults, 7 – 8.
Meal plan
Before you start your week, it might be wise to have a meal plan.
Meal planning can take away the chore of having to make healthy food choices each day. With that daily decision out of the way, you are likely to stay consistent.
I have a full guide on meal planning you can check out here.
But basically, you need to define your goal and how many calories you should eat.
Once that is done, you prepare your foods in bulk so they can be ready for you at each meal time.
Reduce carbs and sodium
We already went over how water weight affects your results. I also mentioned how staying hydrated can help.
But, reducing your carbs and sodium will also have a big impact.
Both nutrients are important to daily life, but most individuals eat more than needed.
Sodium and carbohydrates both cause your body to retain water, so by eating too much, you will definitely start feeling bloated.
An easy way to handle this issue is by consuming less processed foods.
Exercise
Eating less is not the only way to increase a calorie deficit. Moving, although takes more effort, is a big component.
If you want to learn how to lose weight at home in 7 days, you will need to use all the tools available to you.
You can do things like aerobic exercises, which are high calorie movements.
(read: 10 Exercises to burn belly fat at home you can start now)
Or instead, focus on walking.
Walking 10,000 steps each day, the recommended daily amount, can lead to an extra 400 calories lost each day.
(Read: Can you lose weight just by walking? 5 Reasons it can, and how to start now.)
Increase fiber
Having more fiber in your diet does more than just help you poop. High fiber foods can keep you feeling fuller for longer.
When you start losing weight, even if it’s just for one week, you will become familiar with hunger. That’s why it’s important to eat foods that can curb it.
Fiber, being one of those foods, can be found in nutrient rich sources like fruits and veggies.
You should already be including those whole foods, this is just another reason to do so.
Avoid alcohol
Finally, the last tip to help you lose weight in just 7 days at home, is to avoid alcohol.
Drinking leads to weight gain through various direct and indirect factors.
First, drinking affects your judgment, especially with food. You are likely to reach for some greasy fries or a hearty burger after a couple beers.
Second, alcoholic drinks can be very high in calories. A few of your favorite margaritas can quickly add up to hundreds of calories.
And third, when consumed, alcohol becomes your body’s primary fuel source. This means a higher likelihood that other foods you consume get stored as energy in the form of fat.
Conclusion
Remember, weight loss isn’t easy, especially if you want to do it in 7 days.
This easy beginners guide is your tool to look at to help avoid common issues.
If you want to fully take control of your fitness, I also highly recommend taking up a resistance training program.
I provide a free beginner friendly one that you can check out here.