you’ve got a big event around the corner. A mate’s wedding, a beach vacation, or your high school reunion. Or maybe you’re finally ready to shift those undesirable pounds but are a little impatient with how long it might take.

While slow and steady is the way to go when it comes to weight loss, it’s possible to lose weight fast. But remember, you’re more likely to lose weight and keep it off for longer if you make sustainable changes, instead of drastic ones.

To kick-start your weight loss journey, here are 10 effective steps to lose weight fast and safely.

1. Slash Your Calorie Intake

This may seem obvious, but it’s vital to keep track of your calories when losing weight. Even if you believe you’ve been eating healthily, you might still be consuming excess calories, resulting in weight gain or stalled weight loss.

Often, we’re eating too much. Cutting down on calories can lead to a deficit and cause weight loss.

Begin by tracking your diet with an app or food journal. That way, you can see the number of calories you’ve been consuming. To determine the exact amount of calories you should eat daily, ask your dietician or doctor.

Normally, you should eat 1,500 to 1,800 calories daily but the amount depends on your height, weight, activity level, and age.

2. Don’t Drop Below 1,200 Calories per Day, Though

Of course, eating fewer calories will make you lose weight–but dropping too low might actually slow your metabolism and put the kibosh on your weight loss efforts. Besides, consuming too few calories will make you too tired and unable to exercise, and puts your overall health at risk.

Don’t eat less than 1,200 calories a day as you might not receive the nutrients required to maintain your overall health.

3. Get Moving

You’ll realize that you don’t have to decrease calories as much when you get moving. And remember, you don’t have to take aerobic classes or play a team sport to exercise. Try various activities from dancing to hiking to cycling until you find what you like.

Not an athlete? Find alternatives to fit physical activity into your daily routine: use the stairs more instead of lifts, walk to work, get your hands dirty in the garden, and walk your dog– whatever gets you moving.

Your aim should be to exercise for up to an hour daily. But we all have to start somewhere. It’s OK to start out slowly and build up your fitness levels gradually.

4. Have 7-9 Hours of Sleep Each Night

Sleep is probably the number one habit to develop if you want to lose weight quickly.

Your quality of sleep matters a great deal as quality sleep gives you more energy to exercise and makes it easier to control hunger.

Lack of sleep can lead to muscle loss, increased hunger, and weight gain.

5. Swap Processed Foods for Whole Foods

Many things cause obesity, but processed foods are probably the root cause. Processed foods, such as French fries, donuts, cake, and cereal to mention a few, provide substantial calories without satisfying you.

Even worse, you can get hungrier shortly after eating processed foods, triggering a vicious cycle in which you lose and gain weight.

Consuming foods in their fresh form, like fish, eggs, yams, lettuce, apples, etc. will help satisfy you and stabilize your levels of energy so you can maintain that huge calorie deficit.

6. Load Up on Veggies

Filling up on veggies is one of the simplest ways to quickly jumpstart your weight loss. The fastest way to lose weight is to up your intake of vegetables while reducing your intake of proteins and grains.

So instead of eating a plate of pasta mixed with a few veggies, eat a plate of veggies mixed with some pasta.

Not only are vegetables filling, but they’re also nutrient-dense. By filling up your bowl with vegetables, you’ll feel full quicker, thanks to the increase in fiber, while eating fewer calories.

Moreover, this will outweigh more calorie-dense foods in your plate, such as animal proteins, grains, and carbs.

7. Skip Sugary Beverages

Liquid calories just don’t fill us up in the same way as real food. Plain and simple. For example, drinking a caramel coffee drink or juice won’t keep you feeling full like a bowl of protein-packed stir-fry and veggie will.

So, watch your intake of soda, juice, sweetened tea and coffee, and alcoholic drinks. If you drink each of these drinks during the day, you will have consumed lots of extra calories by the evening–and you still will be hungry.

And, by the way, alcohol can suppress fat metabolism, making it harder to burn off those calories.

8. Take Lots of Water

You definitely need to drink gallons of water to help speed up the process of removing excess sodium from your body.

Also eat foods filled with water, such as tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers, grapes, asparagus, pineapple, celery, grapes, cranberries, and artichokes. All of these have diuretic qualities that’ll also keep you feeling full due to their high amounts of fiber.

9. Eat More Spicy Foods

This can actually help reduce your calorie intake. That’s because hot peppers contain capsaicin, which can make your body release more stress hormones like adrenaline, speeding up your calorie-burning efforts.

What’s more, eating spicy food may help you eat slowly. Therefore, you’ll be more alert to when you’re full. Some great options offered by this company include ginger, black pepper, jalapenos, oregano, and turmeric.

10. Give Yourself a Break

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you inadvertently veer from your program. If you skip a workout or fall off the wagon, you’re likely to stew over it and simply give up.

Pick yourself up, congratulate yourself, accept that you’re human after all, and press on.

Wrapping Up Steps to Lose Weight

With these steps to lose weight, you can slim down fast–but you’ll need to do it in a healthy manner and avoid quick fixes. That way, you can lose weight, keep it off and finally find the answer to your weight loss woes.

For more tips on improving your health and wellness, including how to lose belly weight fast, please browse through our blog.