Fastest way to lose fat/pounds

Both diet and exercise wise, what would be the fastest way to lose fat/poundage? I see many people saying that you should change your meals into smaller, more frequent portions. How many a day, what should the quantity be, etc.

A good goal for me would be about 20 pounds off, but I don't know how long that would take with a strong diet. I play 2 hours of tennis everyday, as well. Maybe one hour of match play.

Any help is much appreciated.

Verilious said:

Both diet and exercise wise, what would be the fastest way to lose fat/poundage? I see many people saying that you should change your meals into smaller, more frequent portions. How many a day, what should the quantity be, etc.

A good goal for me would be about 20 pounds off, but I don't know how long that would take with a strong diet. I play 2 hours of tennis everyday, as well. Maybe one hour of match play.

Any help is much appreciated.

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All you gotta do is NOT EAT ANYTHING THAT ISN'T GOOD FOR YOU. And then exercise (play tennis, run a mile a day, do sprints, lift weights)

Losing weight and getting into good shape, and building muscle ISN'T EASY. You can't keep eating crap and expect to have smaller more frequent meals save your life.

Use your will power. Don't eat anything unhealthy and if you keep playing tennis and exercising you'll eventually (it might take awhile) be in good shape

Fastest way to lose fat/pounds Don't think of it as what's the fastest way, because no matter what it won't be fast, you'll have to stick with it for a long time and stick with it to maintain it..

Either OO or Ano's going to step in and say basically this:


Your goal shouldn't be to lose weight, it should be to lose fat. They'll also say that starving yourself isn't good in the long term because your body goes into starvation mode and you'll hit a plateau. You still have to eat, but you have to eat cleanly and you have to do the right kind of cardio.

Spot reducing (losing just fat from one area) doesn't happen, so don't expect a bazillion crunches to do it for you.


I don't have the knowledge/education to give you a meal schedule...so I won't. Sorry, but I'm only 16!

Eat a healthy amount, lower fat, at more times during the day. And cardio.

Feel guilty for the off topic post..


But Swiss could you shoot me an email? myusername at gmail.com
I forgot the password and stuff for the FTP acct you gave me.

I have seen some new info saying modifying cardio work into an interval type of training is more effective than traditional long, slow cardio sessions. Evidently if you alternate going all out on your machine for a few seconds then back off long enough to recover and do it again, you will stoke up the body's fat burning to continue long after you are off the machine. I am trying it and will post more about it in time.

Yeah, the stuff I've read agrees with that. I've seen it referred to as HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). I don't know if I would try it on a treadmill because adjusting to the speeds could be dangerous. A non-moving bike would be fine as well as a stairclimber probably, but the best bet is most likely a track.

For those of you who are pretty serious, check out guerilla cardio.

Sweat it off. Wear extra clothing to enhance sweating. Pro fighters, wrestlers, lose up to 10lbs a day if they have to.

Ultra2HolyGrail said:

Sweat it off. Wear extra clothing to enhance sweating. Pro fighters, wrestlers, lose up to 10lbs a day if they have to.

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I have to disagree again. That's a very very unhealthy way to lose weight and states are now imposing tests for hydration in wrestlers. Sweating off four pounds is no longer acceptable because you will fail the hydration test and not be allowed to compete anyways.

That weight will be put back on very quickly after a few glasses of water, and zig-zagging like that isn't good. As a matter of fact, common advice is to drink (in water) the weight you lost while playing tennis during the day.

Butterbeans, worked for him http://cache.gettyimages.com/xc/732...35F8FA9CA92A60C9BC03D477DADA3329DF394FE942516

My advice would be to exercise, eat small meals through the day as opposed to a few large ones, avoid fat and sugar and do not exceed your recommended calorie intake. I would also avoid eating a few hours before sleeping and drink a lot of water. Dieting is different for everyone, but I do not believe in eliminating all natural fat and carbs from your diet. If you are just looking to lose weight fast you will be guaranteed in seeing it return - an overall change in lifestyle and food choices is necessary for long term goals.

xtremerunnerars said:

Either OO or Ano's going to step in and say basically this:


Your goal shouldn't be to lose weight, it should be to lose fat. They'll also say that starving yourself isn't good in the long term because your body goes into starvation mode and you'll hit a plateau. You still have to eat, but you have to eat cleanly and you have to do the right kind of cardio.

Spot reducing (losing just fat from one area) doesn't happen, so don't expect a bazillion crunches to do it for you.


I don't have the knowledge/education to give you a meal schedule...so I won't. Sorry, but I'm only 16!

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I'm not going to step in. I have replied that kind of question at least 10 times for the past year.

Enough is enough.

Btw, what you said was completely spot on.

EDIT : I've just realized that the OP is a new member. So I try to help the OP.

Verilious, the most bodyfat you can lose is about 2 pounds / week.

Click this link.

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=128778

Which is better to drink during tennis: Vitamin Water or just regular, filtered water?

Which is better to drink during practice? Vitamin Water or just regular, filtered water? Oh and many thanks, Ano. Your information is really helpful! =D

Woops! DP!

Verilious said:

Which is better to drink during practice? Vitamin Water or just regular, filtered water? Oh and many thanks, Ano. Your information is really helpful! =D

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Drink regular water, don't bother with vitamin water.

Vitamin water isn't water.

Smart water is water. If you buy bottled water, get smart water.

Ano said:

I'm not going to step in. I have replied that kind of question at least 10 times for the past year.

Enough is enough.

Btw, what you said was completely spot on.

EDIT : I've just realized that the OP is a new member. So I try to help the OP.

Verilious, the most bodyfat you can lose is about 2 pounds / week.

Click this link.

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=128778

Click to expand...

I not talking about the original poster necessarily but one of the reasons the question is asked a lot is because some people are looking for the easy solution that doesn't involve changing their eating habits or doing any hard work in the gym.

stormholloway said:

Vitamin water isn't water.

Smart water is water. If you buy bottled water, get smart water.

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I don't know if the ?Electrolytes? In smart water help, but it taste good(clean/fresh) and the bottle looks good. I feel very cool when I pull out my bottle of Smart water during a match. I think 50 cent or soemone uses it so it's gotta be good..... oh yeah he uses that other stuff.

Well Unless you live near a chemical plant you can probably buy a 20 filter and get the same "quality" water as in the bottle.

Or buy Fiji it's the coolest bottle of them all! ;-)

EricW said:

All you gotta do is NOT EAT ANYTHING THAT ISN'T GOOD FOR YOU. And then exercise (play tennis, run a mile a day, do sprints, lift weights)

Click to expand...

I remember reading in a fitness book that sprinting doesn't help when trying to lose weight because sprinting is an anaerobic exercise and you burn carbs, not fat.

If you perform aerobic exercises (walking, jogging, distance running), after a while the energy you burn will shift from carbs to fat. This will help you lose weight

^^^^ Combining sprints and jogs is a good way to lose weight. Its called interval training, and its very good.

Sprinting does help because it works the lower body harder=builds muscle there. Muscle===>more active metabolism

What kind of sprints do you recommend? =O

Quickspin said:

I remember reading in a fitness book that sprinting doesn't help when trying to lose weight because sprinting is an anaerobic exercise and you burn carbs, not fat.

If you perform aerobic exercises (walking, jogging, distance running), after a while the energy you burn will shift from carbs to fat. This will help you lose weight

Click to expand...

At first, all exercise is anaerobic. Once you run out of the stored energy (glycogen?) your body needs oxygen (among other things) to produce more. Running is referred to as aerobic because you use the anaerobic up quickly.

Combining sprints with jogging in between mixes the best of both worlds. You'll see HIIT, interval training, and possibly fartlecks to those of you who enjoy cross country or distance in track

As for the sprints, just sprint for 20/30 seconds and then jog for 45 seconds. Make sure the sprint is fast and the jog is slow enough so that you can recover but you're still making modest progress. Don't sprint too fast or too long because you want to last the whole 20 minutes, kind of like how some inexperienced boxers come out swinging in the first couple of rounds. That might not be the best for you so you'll have to take a look around the internet to figure out what will be the best. Remember to stay hydrated with something that has carbs in it (maybe dilute some gatorade) and a little protein if you don't mind the taste. I don't necessarily mean a protein shake because some of that stuff messes with the stomach during exercise, but take a look around at GNC if you are really serious.

Since I'm computer inclined, I overlayed beep noises in an audio file. I dragged my music files onto the track above it and every time there's a beep, I either start sprinting or stop sprinting. That way I can have it beep halfway through a song or whatever.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. Okay so maybe that isn't the best...but you get the picture!

Make a habit: Eat no less than 5 times a day (every 3 hours)

I find myself in the position of having to drop some pounds myself at the moment, but I can tell you from experience that smaller meals spaced evenly throughout the day is one of the best habits you can learn to effective shed the extra pounds.

I mean, C'mon, how easy is it to skip meals? Very. The problem is, your body does really go into a sort of starvation mode when it is deprived of energy. Fat is nothing more than stored energy, something your body thinks you need if you are not giving it regular meals.

If you are already eating breakfast lunch and dinner at the usual time, then all you have to do is add a healthy snack in the morning and in the afternoon. While it seems like eating more would be counterintuitive to losing weight, you end up eating less because once your body adapts to this schedule (about 3-6 days for me), you find yourself not eating as much during the main meals because your body just isn't as hungry. It "knows" it's never more than 3 hours away from more energy, so it doesn't want to store it. Unlike the flipside of the equation, when you skip all meals except a late dinner and you gorge. Keep doing that and your body will think there's not that much food available, so it will work to store fat each time you eat even if it is only once a day. So, simply put, eating more often = less fat, eating less often = more fat.

Does it suck to have to remember to carry around fruit, granola bars, yogurts or whatever to make sure you don't go 3 hours without giving your body food? Or when everybody else is still working on something and you excuse yourself briefly to eat? It is kind of pain in the ass in the beginning to build this simple but important habit, and since it is so easy not to eat regularly I will even set a timer alarm on my watch to remind myself to eat. But it does work if you give it the chance. It's not the only thing you can do to lose weight, and there's a lot more to consider than just this. And it hardly gives you an excuse to eat as much as you want either. But I think making a commitment to eating 5 times a day (with about 3 hours in between the times you eat) is one of the most important and overlooked things you need to do if you are really serious about dropping some pounds.

xtremerunnerars said:

At first, all exercise is anaerobic. Once you run out of the stored energy (glycogen?) your body needs oxygen (among other things) to produce more. Running is referred to as aerobic because you use the anaerobic up quickly.

Combining sprints with jogging in between mixes the best of both worlds. You'll see HIIT, interval training, and possibly fartlecks to those of you who enjoy cross country or distance in track

As for the sprints, just sprint for 20/30 seconds and then jog for 45 seconds. Make sure the sprint is fast and the jog is slow enough so that you can recover but you're still making modest progress. Don't sprint too fast or too long because you want to last the whole 20 minutes, kind of like how some inexperienced boxers come out swinging in the first couple of rounds. That might not be the best for you so you'll have to take a look around the internet to figure out what will be the best. Remember to stay hydrated with something that has carbs in it (maybe dilute some gatorade) and a little protein if you don't mind the taste. I don't necessarily mean a protein shake because some of that stuff messes with the stomach during exercise, but take a look around at GNC if you are really serious.

Since I'm computer inclined, I overlayed beep noises in an audio file. I dragged my music files onto the track above it and every time there's a beep, I either start sprinting or stop sprinting. That way I can have it beep halfway through a song or whatever.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. Okay so maybe that isn't the best...but you get the picture!

Click to expand...

Oh OK I see, I thought it was just sprinting with no jogging in between that was meant.
Thanks for clearing that up.