How to Lose Weight in Time for Your Wedding!

Question:

Doug, I am 23 years old and 5 feet tall and getting married 11/7/2009. I used to play hard core softball which kept me in great shape of weighing 135-145 depending on what i was doing for weight lifting. Now, I work fulltime and seem to not be motivated like i should be. Please let me know what would be the best way nutritonally and physically to lose the 25+ lbs by next September (dress fitting begins) and KEEP IT OFF. Hope to hear from you soon, thank you!

Answer:

Congrats on the wedding. With well over a year until your important date, you have plenty of time to lose this weight. As I’ve said before on here, there are two important components to fat loss–nutrition and exercise.

You already know you have to make a change in order to see results. So what do you change?

Nutrition

Well, you didn’t give me much information on what you’re doing with nutrition, but for starters, sit down and pinpoint certain aspects of your nutrition that you could correct IMMEDIATELY and improve your diet.

Do you drink soda, pop, or juice? If so, simply stop it.

Do you eat sweets? If so, stop it-eat fruit instead. Peaches and strawberries are sweet!

Do you go long periods of time without eating and then gorge? If so, pack healthy snacks (nuts, fruit, meat) so you don’t get too hungry. Plan ahead.

Is there anything else that you know you do wrong that you can fix? Eat chips? Replace with veggies. Can’t help snacking on junk at home? Don’t buy junk.

Simple, but very important.

You’d be surprised at how making one crucial change can add up over a long period of time. Just eliminating the really bad habits can easy drop you a few pounds without you having to do any real work. The hard part is making yourself stick to it. For this, you just have to get tough on yourself–find a way to not eat the crap that doesn’t contribute to your health.

Once you’ve gotten rid of all the blatantly terrible habits you may have, check out Precision Nutrition and sign up for the free E-mail course. You’ll learn a lot in the 7 days and it will change the way you view your own nutrition.

Exercise

You mentioned that since your softball days ended and your working days began, you’ve come to struggle with your weight. What this shows is how important it is to exercise with the right frequency. Remember going to softball practice 5 days a week? You probably didn’t think much of it then, but that’s one thing that kept you from gaining fat.

So I’m going to recommend you get back to your old ways and commit to 5 days of exercise per week. Depending on how busy you are in your pre/post work responsibilities, you may have to budget your time. Sit down with your schedule and look for 30 minute-60 minute slots where you are free and can commit to exercise. And if there’s no time, you should consider making time–investing in yourself an hour a day shouldn’t be too much to ask–your health is worth it, right?!

Enough lecturing..

With your 5 days, I recommend three of the days be spent doing total body strength training-spaced out evenly throughout the week–like Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Make sure your program includes total body movements, circuits, and incomplete rest periods– preferably with reps in the 12-20 range. Seeking out a good personal trainer with experience in designing programs geared toward fat loss may be a worthwhile investment.

Along with your strength training, commit to doing energy work or cardio two days a week–preferably some form of interval training–like Tuesday, Thursday.

These are some ideas to get you started. Remember that it’s not a question of whether you can lose the weight and keep it off. It’s more a matter of taking the attitude:

“I am going to lose the weight and get to my goal in time for my wedding no matter what.”

I find the no matter what part to be extremely powerful in going after any goals in life.

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