There is a lot of noise regarding what it takes to lose weight. Some would have you take hormone based drops or injections. Some would have you undergo some dramatic or not so dramatic detoxification programs. Many other would argue that you must take some “dieting pills” to suppress your appetite or alter your metabolism.
Weight loss only requires you to engage in 2 disciplines.
The first discipline is self-regulating your daily caloric intake. Your daily caloric intake must be lower than your maintenance level. That is it. It need not be, although it can be, dramatically lower than your maintenance level.
For the sake of argument, let us say that your daily caloric need is 2000, the default number from the USDA. To lose weight you must essentially consume less than 2000 calories every day. It does not have to be the 500 calories that the popular HCG programs advocate. In fact, many would argue that if you can just achieve and sustain a small difference; that small difference can eventually translate to big results.
The second principle is daily activity. Some would argue the notion that exercise builds muscle while dieting loses fat is too general or too vague to be true. Yet I hold that this principle is basically sound.
You want to lose fat and reveal a strong, muscular or lean body underneath. It is not about just losing weight; so that you have just a smaller you at the end of a chosen time frame. Rather to lose fat while building a leaner, more muscular you should be the goal.
To do this, you must consume enough nutrient dense calories to nourish your muscles while staying underneath your maintenance caloric number. You need the calories to fuel your activities. You do not want to cannibalize your muscles to fuel your activities.
By mastering these 2 disciplines, you can achieve your goal of shedding fat while revealing a leaner, more muscular you underneath. Even better, you will have done so without falling for the empty promises of fad alternatives like detoxification.