What is the healthiest or fastest way to lose weight ?

The healthiest way to lose weight is by boosting your metabolism. Eat healthy and exercise. Cut out junk food. You can still eat meat as long as you have a balanced diet. Everyone is different though so I’m not sure how many pounds you need to lose or what is the cause for your excess weight.

Maybe try fiber pills before you start taking diet pills.

Buy the Food Tree and follow it, the diet is easy, healthy and truly works. See the author’s website

@Luffle has it right. I’ve tried all kinds of fadish diets, but I always go back to doing two things: cutting calories and doing modest exercise. I lay off meat and eat only chicken and fish, lots of veggies, fruit, no soft drinks or desserts, and no bread (which I love). Smaller portions of everything, and lots of Lean Cuisine.

exercise and diet based on a strict plan.

I’ll tell you what I did. It took me 3 months to lose 20 pounds.

I basically did cardio exercise (running and elliptical) for 30–45 minutes 3 times a week for 3 months straight. During that time I limited my calories to 1200 each day. No LESS. 1500 max. I also did some calisthenics, and crunches, and yoga. 2–3 days of rest each week. I ate a lot of salads, drank a lot of soymilk, and a lot of green tea. I took walks on my breaks at work. I never took any supplements, pills, etc.

Think you can do that?

Well rounded diet, learn the appropriate proportions, and PORTION SIze! Cut back on indulgent things while losing. Then when you’ve loss the weight, you can have most anything IF it’s just a small portion and not all the time. I came to learn, one can not live on Baskin & Robbins alone.

An interesting note about the Food Tree. Dr. Ranveig Elvebaak the author, says you can lose weight without exercise if you eat properly, and it is true. You lose more quickly and your body is fitter if you exercise, but it is not necessary in order to lose weight.

My doctor (after practicing for a decade or so) did not feel his knowledge of medicine was complete so he went to China and studied tradicional chinese medicine for 4 years there (they have a college for that). Then he returned back home and now he combines the western medicine with the eastern practices. One of the key things I learned when visiting him is separating food groups (which also helps with losing weight). Knowing which foods make your stomach produce acid, which base… So its things like not eating meat and bread, or cheese and bread etc… This can helps a lot with losing weight, trust me and really makes digesting food much easier on the body (acid and base cancel each other out and this makes digesting food much slower which is not good if you are planning on losing weight) and also makes you feel better,lighter. This is not really a diet its more common sense (even though it is usually found under diets) and I stick to it more or less all the time. Id suggest you google it (separate food diet or something like that).

Healthiest and fastest don’t go together when it comes to losing weight. I believe a balanced diet with a lower calorie intake than what your current weight requires is the best way to go. Just cut your portions down, and unless you’ve been eating in a very unhealthy way you can continue to eat the foods you are used to. Fast foods and sugary snacks should be limited at the very least, and it is true…..start with breakfast because it really does rev up your metabolism for the day. Also, it’s always good to drink water as they say. Good luck!

One rule, and one rule only: Burn more calories than you take in.

For me, walking every day makes a tremendous difference, because I already eat small portions of healthy foods and drink lots of water.

I go to the gym on Thursdays, and have a trainer. More exercise helps boost your metabolism, and eating healthy foods, without stuffing yourself is a good way to switch to a healthier lifestyle. I workout, every other week, on Thursdays in the mornings. When I’m not working out, I’m eating fruits and vegetables. Don’t eat till you’re full, eat till you’re satisfied. Everything in moderation. good luck! :)

First, the disclaimer: I answered a question similar to this on Askville. This is a cut and paste of what I wrote there.

If you’re willing to change what you eat, how much you eat and your relationship with food, you will set yourself up for success. It’s really the only way. I tried different diets in the past (SlimFast, fruit & rice, etc.) and until I changed the above mentioned things, nothing worked. Oh, they would work temporarily, but that was it.

What worked for me:

1. Portion control. American restaurant portions are far bigger than an actual portion. That can skew in your head what you think a portion should be. Portion guide this link will take you to a guide that you can print to see what a portion really is. (You may have to copy and paste it into your browser to go to it. Not sure if it will make a link.) It covers basic sizes for many foods. The other thing that will help you is to buy a food scale and use your measuring cups and spoons. Use them to measure all of your food. Once you’ve done that for a while, you won’t need to any more. But, until you really know what a portion looks like, you need to measure, measure, measure.

2. Exercise. Get up and move. You can do almost anything for 15 minutes. Go outside, walk for 7 minutes in one direction. Turn around, walk home. (The walk home is always longer!) Can’t walk outside? Walk around in your house. Go to the mall and walk. I would avoid buying any equipment at first. Once you know that you’re going to stick to it, start checking out equipment. Start small. Some adjustable handweights or resistance bands are good things to start with and aren’t super expensive. You need to build muscle and do aerobic movement. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does so if you have more muscle, your body will burn more calories for you even when you’re not doing anything. And the aerobic movement helps you to burn fat. If you’re already active, add to what you’re doing!

3. Learn about food. Or at re-learn what food is good for you and what isn’t. Lean proteins, vegetables, complex carbohydrates, low-fat dairy and fruit are keys to success.

4. Find some support. Whether it’s in person or online, find a group of people with the same goals and issues. TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), OA (Overeaters Anonymous), Weight Watchers, etc., are places to consider. I believe that OA is free, although I cannot swear to that. I’ve lost 70 pounds and I can tell you that the reason that I did it (and will continue to lose) is because of the online group that I found. They understand, listen and encourage in a way that I found beneficial. Online websites include sparkpeople.com and everydayhealth.com . There are others, I’m sure; those are just two that I know.

5. Try to figure out if you’re an emotional eater. If so, check out this book as a source of help.

I hope you find success with your weight loss!

When I want to lose weight I have a very simple tried and true method (basically what @Gemini said ^ but with more specifics):

1.) Eat whatever you want, as you normally would, three times a day – but eat only half. Save the second half for the next day/meal.

2.) Do something athletic (that you enjoy) as much as possible. The quickness of weight loss will be directly related to the amount of effort you undertake (not just time). (If you’re strapped for time, you need to walk stairs for 20min, not walk the neighborhood for 45min (or what have you.)

No counting of calories, no regimented time windows, nothing extra to purchase, no quotas of working out 5 times a week or whatever, no guilt if you don’t work out at all one week because of work schedule – none of that. Just eat half. That’s the only real rule.

Make whatever enjoyable workout you do a positive fun experience: like exploring your neighborhood on a road bike, like walking up and down local stairs in the evening when you can smell everyone’s dinner cooking, like hiking every trail in your local mountains, like exploring every inch of beach within 100 miles in each direction, like doing as many pushups and situps as you can every now and again, like walking your neighbor’s dog, like walking or riding your bike for local to-do’s vs. driving.) If the workout becomes a regimented chore, you’re not going to have as much fun.

In-n-out burger, steak, donuts, beer, BBQ ribs – you can and should literally eat anything that fits your fancy. I find myself not getting hungry between meals with half portions, but starting to become more sensitive and fascinated with variety. I find naturally I’ll be drawn one day to say Indian food, or even Panda Express, or a vegi burger – things I normally would not consider. Not a problem in my book. Each meal becomes much more savory good. Like a drink of cold water when you’re hot; when you need it.

I have found rather profound results from this homegrown method (up to 30 pounds in under 3 months), when wanting to lean up for specific sporting events. But there was a whole lot of workout involved.

I think eating half of whatever you crave is the healthiest approach. If you want fast, then you have to really ramp up your exercise effort to as much as you can withstand.

It is all math. Calories in, and calories out. If you use up more calories that you take in, you will lose weight. If you exercise (vigorously as in cardio) you will lose it faster and keep it off. If you exercise vigorously and emphasize protein (for a while anyway) in your diet you will burn off fat. There are charts everywhere that help you figure your minimum caloric requirement for your age, gender etc. There are similar charts that give you the caloric content of food. Here is how to figure the heart rate you need to maintain in exercise to burn off fat http://exercise.about.com/od/cardioworkouts/ss/findtargetheart_2.htm

I exercise about 4 times a week doing (at the moment) 40 mins. of cardio (I have started to add 5 more mins. every week). Then I do my strength training. I also eat as if I am on a date or out with people I do not know. Usually when I am around strangers I tend to not be very comfortable and therefore eat less (Not in an unhealthy way; But not clean my entire plate). I loose about a pound per week, which I think is great.

I did the following, and i did lose weight in a short enough period, but it was a very lenient “diet”, so there was plenty of room for improvement to lose weight quicker: cut out all breads (except low GI health breads), eat smaller dinner (and even any other meals, make them smaller and never eat until you’re so full that you feel uncomfortable). I didn’t even cut out “junk/fattening” foods, i just limited the amounts/frequencey that i ate them.

Sex and have it with someone 15 years or younger then yourself.

I did for 2 years. I was in friggin great shape. ;-)

Oh, and yes, you’ll most likely lose a lot of weight by eating only fruits and veggies. It’d be a good idea to add some legumes and quinoa and bean sprouts to that diet as well, and eat as wide a variety of fruits and veggies as you can.