How to Lose Weight in a Month: 5 Steps to Quick Results
When you have the right system in place, understanding how to lose weight fast and executing it is fairly easy.
Losing 7 pounds in the first 7 days is not only possible, but our clients have done it time and time again.
It’s amazing that some people still believe that losing weight at a snail’s pace is more “healthy” and “natural.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. On top of that, most fast weight loss advice given is not really “crucial.”
Here’s the real deal.
There are 5 crucial steps to fast weight loss. Think of these like the unbreakable principles of fast weight loss. If you break any of these, your results will suffer, and you will not get weight loss results as quickly as you’d like.
However, if you follow these, you will see results quickly!
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Why the Speed of Your Results Matters
1. Great Short-Term Results = Better Long-Term Results.
According to the latest science, militant diets win out vs. standard diets. Those who lose the most weight in the first 2-4 weeks of dieting have the greatest weight loss results in the following year (study).
Therefore, losing weight fast will better impact you in both the short-term and the long-term.
2. Fast Weight Loss Leads to Increased Motivation
On average, dieters will try 3-4 diet plans every year, and less than 1% of people will ever reach their goals.
It is obvious that people want to get results but often lack the motivation to finish what they started.
There is a painfully obvious reason for this:
Waking up after 3-4 days of eating like a rabbit and pounding hours on the treadmill makes not seeing the scale move downward a very frustrating process.
It is also what leads people to diet failure.
It’s no wonder only 1% of people complete their diets when they’re putting in all that work for hardly any results.
The studies show that the faster the weight is lost; the more motivation you will have.
3. Losing Weight Fast is Perfectly Safe
People die from being overweight, not from trying to lose weight quickly.
In the United States alone, there are over 300,000 obesity-related deaths per year (source).
Do you know how many people die per year from trying to lose weight?
Virtually ZERO.
So saying that losing weight fast is unhealthy is silly, because when compared to the risk of being overweight, there is NOTHING more dangerous to your health.
Even the Mayo Clinic admits that done under the right protocol, fast weight loss is safe.
So do not fear losing weight fast, because it’s actually much more safe and effective than most people realize.
5 Key Steps to Lose Weight in a Month
1. Do a complete carbohydrate detox.
The most important part of fast weight loss is the part most people miss.
Your body needs a carbohydrate detox.
When the majority of people try to lose weight, they start by counting their calories and eating slightly less than their body needs.
As shown above, this “slow and steady” approach to weight loss hampers long-term success and is extremely difficult to do when willpower runs out.
That’s why you should do a carbohydrate detox instead (check out our detox diet plan for a better understanding of what to eat).
This will naturally lower your calories down and force your body to expel any excess water weight you’re carrying. Doing this will typically result in a 5-6 pound weight drop in your first week of dieting.
This also will help to reset your insulin levels and help your body become more sensitive to carbohydrates when you reintroduce them back into your diet.
You will notice that you will probably get some light headaches and feel “off” for the first few days. This is a natural part of the carbohydrate detox process.
2. Get high-quality sleep.
If you really want to know the secret to how to lose weight fast, it’s getting high-quality rest.
While it seems most people underestimate this, here is some compelling evidence why you should not:
- Sleep helps you make better eating decisions. Getting a full night’s rest of 7-9 hours has been shown to give people more control over their daily eating habits. It seems that a full night’s rest correlates with your willpower and craving control.
- Good sleep = properly functioning hormones. Sleep is where your hormones recover. Getting only 6 hours a night throws your hormones out of whack and raises the cortisol in your body.
- Lack of sleep is linked to almost every major disease. From obesity to heart failure, lack of sleep is associated with many diseases.
We used to struggle with getting a good night’s sleep until I learned these simple tips:
- Blackout all of the extraneous light. Not a photon of light should be in your room. If you can see your hand, it’s too bright!
- The room should be cold. 68 degrees at the warmest.
- No electronics 1 hour before bed. Reading a kindle with a black screen is fine, but anything else will throw off your hormones, and you’ll have trouble falling asleep.
- Use your bed for sex and sleep but nothing else. Working on a computer or doing anything else will put a damper on the quality of your sleep.
NOTE: Trouble sleeping can be a sign of other underlying problems such as a poor diet. If you need a plan to get your diet back on track, check out our Fat Loss Challenge at the bottom of this article!
Next on the list is what you SHOULD be eating…
3. Eat a TON of protein and low-carb vegetables cooked in high-quality fats.
So you’ve cut our carbohydrates and are focused on getting great sleep. Your next question should probably be, “Well, what do I eat?”
During the carbohydrate detox, you will want to consume lots of protein at every meal.
Foods like organic chicken, organic eggs, grass-fed beef, and salmon are great sources.
High-quality whey protein is another good source if you’re not a meat eater.
You will always want to cook and cover these foods in lots of high-quality fats like extra virgin olive oil and organic coconut oil.
Do not fear fats when losing weight, because they are key to healthy hormone levels and blood flow.
Finally, make sure to include a low carbohydrate source of vegetables at every meal.
The best foods are asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, spinach, romaine lettuce, and much more. (Here’s a good list of low carb vegetables).
4. Anaerobic exercise 3x per week AFTER the detox process.
This is one of the most common mistakes people make when learning how to lose weight fast.
When you start a detox, most people make a very crucial mistake.
They try to add in lots of cardio or long-distance running into their workouts in order to burn more calories. Here’s why you SHOULD NOT do this.
- You have a limited amount of willpower. Making a massive change in your diet becomes much more burdensome when paired with a grueling workout routine.
- You can lose weight without exercising. It has been proven over and over again in the scientific literature that you CAN lose weight without exercise.
- Long-distance cardio causes increased cravings and depletes glycogen. Long-distance cardio is particularly bad because it raises your cortisol levels and will increase cravings from sugar depletion (source, source).
Instead, you want to insert exercise after you are done detoxing.
Once you have started to eat carbohydrates again, this is when you should pick up an exercise regimen. You do this to prevent something called the down-regulation of metabolism.
This is where your body’s metabolism slows in response to the lower amounts of food you are eating. All it takes is a 3x a week exercise regimen to mitigate this (study).
We recommend two types of anaerobic exercise here at Avocadu:
- Fat Burning Yoga and Specialized Circuit Training.
These forms of exercise will help prevent your metabolism from slowing, help you build lean muscle tissue, and burn more calories the SMART way.
You can get started with our 20-Minute Yoga Workout for Beginners.
5. Focus on the QUALITY of your food.
It’s not that calories don’t matter. They definitely do.
The problem is that when most people look at food as simple numbers and data, they ignore many of the big questions:
- What does this food do for my body?
- How will I feel in 5 minutes after eating it?
- How will I feel in 5 hours after eating it?
- Does it have the nutrients my body needs?
- Will this food make me full and satisfied?
- Will it leave me with cravings?
If you focus your attention instead on how the particular type of food makes you feel, you will naturally move away from eating bad stuff.
Sure french toast tastes amazing in the moment. There’s no denying that. The problem is the sugar crash you have in 2 hours that leaves you feeling lethargic. Then the guilt you have 2 hours after that for breaking your diet again.
Focus on getting in high-quality foods instead that make your body feel good!
Wild Atlantic salmon, lean organic chicken breast, and fresh from the farmer’s market fruits and veggies.
Do this, and weight loss will come much easier to you.
Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t make this point:
If you’re doing these things but not seeing weight loss results, then it’s time to look back into your calories.
If you’re not losing weight after doing a carbohydrate detox, then you need to count your calories.
Plain and simple, the problem will lie in the amount of food you are consuming.
While it’s extremely difficult to eat over your calories if you are focused on consuming lots of fresh veggies and protein, it’s still possible.
If you liked this article on losing weight and are READY to get your diet back on track, our 21-Day Fat Loss Challenge is a great place to start!
People lose an average of 10-21 pounds in 21 days and absolutely love it! But even better than the weight loss is the feedback we get from people about how the program has taught them how to change their eating habits and find a diet that truly works for them in the long-term.
We have over 1,000 people in our private support group going through the Challenge together, and every day they are sharing experiences, results, motivation, and lots of recipes!
If you are ready to make some changes in your life, this is the ONLY place you should start. We will teach you exactly how to make the necessary changes in your diet and your lifestyle and how to keep them “beyond the diet.”
Click here to start YOUR 21-Day Fat Loss Challenge today!
Leave a comment below if you enjoyed this article on how to lose weight fast, 5 crucial steps to quick results or have any questions!
Hi ! Thanks for this idea.
I want to start carbo detox. For how many days do I need to do days? I’ve read but maybe I missed or miss understand it. But I’ve seen the 3 days detox which I will will do first. And after that , Do I continue carbo detox? For how long?
Looking forward for your response.
Thanks a lot .
Sarah
Hey Sarah. On average most people need from 5-10 days for best effects. You will want a good amount of time separated from carbs to see insulin sensitivity go up & weight loss to take effect 🙂 I’d go into more detail, but the carb detox is a key component of our fast fat loss program and it wouldn’t be fair to our customers for me to share all the goodies here. Hope that helps!
What kind of circuit training do you recommend?
Vivienne, we have an article that has core exercises that can be a circuit workout. Just perform ever exercise for 30 seconds each and then repeat the entire set of exercises (circuit) 3x. The workout is here: https://avocadu.com/exercises-to-lose-belly-fat/
We also have a full set of circuit workouts for the entire body (arms, legs, butt, abs) in our new program, the 21-Day Fat Loss Challenge, which can be found here: https://avocadu.com/21-day-fat-loss-challenge/
I hope that helps!