It is important to lose weight at a healthy rate, usually half a pound to 2 pounds per week should be your aim. With losing more than 2 pounds per week you risk losing mostly water and even some muscle mass and your all over weight loss is less likely to stay off permanently.
Do not starve yourself but keep an eye on your calorie consumption
You should never cut back to less than 1,000 calories per day without medical supervision. If you need to find out how many calories you are currently spending, a good method is to keep a detailed food diary for at least one week. Just write down what you eat and drink each day, be as accurate as possible, and measure and weigh you food when you need to. You can check the calorie content and / or other nutritional information like fat or carbohydrate content of any food item online.
Create new eating habits and use lower-calorie alternatives
To lose weight at a healthy pace, you do not necessarily go onto a special diet. Just choose lower calorie options for the foods that you are eating daily anyway. For example, there are many ways to cut back those 250 calories a day for losing one pound per week: the milk in your cornflakes ... the can of soda you are having daily ... the butter on your bread, and so on. Making these little changes in your daily eating habits will really add up in the long run. And always make sure to check the calorie content of the foods you recorded in your food diary or in an excel table on your computer.
Reduce portions
Keep in mind to pay attention to serving sizes, if your portion consisted of two servings, be sure to take down double the amount of calories. Use a food scale or at least a measuring cup to measure your portions until you learn to estimate their calorie content. Next, find foods you can do without altogether, reduce your overall portions and switch to lower-calorie alternatives. And guess what? It's easier than you think.
Slow and steady wins the game
Take it one meal and one day at a time. Or even one food at a time. Today exchange your soda to diet soda, even if the taste is not exactly the same you will get used to it very soon and save a lot of calories over time. Tomorrow or next week, trade whole milk for reduced-fat milk, then switch to whole wheat bread instead of white bread. With all these calorie-reductions you create a calorie deficit and as you turn you new way of eating into a habit, the weight will come off slowly but steadily . These tiny changes will add up in the long run while you will not even notice that you are consuming less calories than you were used to.
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