Hopefully, you have thought about your wedding weight loss plan well before your wedding day, but if not, there are some really handy tips that you can use to help speed up weight loss and get yourself on track a little bit quicker. Try the following:

Eating the Right Foods can Really Speed up your Metabolism

Although logic says that eating fewer calories is cornerstone to a wedding weight loss plan, in some cases you may actually be consuming too few calories. If you have been trying a lot of different diets over the past few years don’t be surprised if your bodies metabolism hasn’t slowed down in order to protect itself with the lower levels of calories coming in for fuel. In fact you may need to consume additional calories in the short term so that your metabolism speed up and begins to burn these calories faster.

You can check online for a Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculator that will determine what level of calories you should be consuming for your body type and for the level of exercise you are doing.

There are some really handy BMR calculators available online that can give you an indication of how many calories you need each day dependent on your body and your lifestyle. In other words those who exercise more will need more calories – or maybe your daily work is quite physically demanding. This also will tax your need for calories. A great source of calories is vegetables together with whole grain foods, along with lean types of protein – lean meat or beans.

There is a chance that when you may actually be under consuming calories – especially if you have been on fad type diets that literally starve the body. In this situation don’t be surprised if your weight goes up marginally in week 1. It is simply your body balancing out your calorific intake – once this is rectified your metabolism can speed up and start burning calories faster. The the weight will begin to fall off – combine the right amount of calories with exercise and you will easily drop a couple of pounds a week. Over three months that will be 25 pounds you can drop!

Exercise is Essential in a Wedding Weight Loss plan

The problem with most of the “Fast Wedding Weight Loss Plans” is that they forget about exercise. They mainly focus on some form of starvation as a means to drop weight – the problem with this approach however is that nobody can maintain a starvation diet without it seriously affecting their health, so as soon as you stop the diet and start normal eating again, the weight comes piling back on. And lets face it – starvation weight loss is NOT healthy, it is unsustainable. For healthy weight loss you need a balanced diet and exercise in combination.

So what type of exercise is going to be best? All experts on weight loss agree that you should include cardio workouts together with strength conditioning for the best results.
If you can do a total of 7 hours exercise per week – 5 being cardio and 2 being strength conditioning – you will notice a dramatic improvement in your body. The cardio workouts can include elliptical trainers, treadmills, kick boxing, traditional jogging and power walking, spinning bike classes….there is a huge variety of cardio you can do and the great thing about cardio is that you can combine many different types to get variety in your workouts.

Light weights are good for strength conditioning – use barbells that are no more than 1-1.5 kg’s and high repetitions to get lean toned muscles that also help consume caloires and burn fat.

Yoga is also a great exercise that includes stretching together with some strength conditioning and cardio workouts.

All this exercise will lead to a better, leaner body, you will be able to sleep more soundly, clear toxins and fat from your body. By wedding day time you will look and feel absolutely terrific!

Forget Starvation Wedding Weight Loss Diets

You really have to avoid starvation diets – those celebrity diets you hear about are extremely short term and the aftermath result is a rapid return to the pre-diet weight.

These types of extreme wedding weight loss diets can be really stressful on the body and the last thing you want leading up to your  wedding day are illnesses related to infections or viruses brought about by a low immune system. You need to be fit AND strong leading into your wedding because as it gets closer there will be a lot of activities going on that you will need to be at your best for. Starvation diets can lead to mood swings, dehydration, low immunity and fatigue.

To be able to sustain a healthy wedding weight, first of all your body needs to be healthy. You need to give it the right amount of food, make sure you exercise and keep hydrated so that your wedding day is something to remember.

A long bridal gown can hide thighs that have accumulated excess fat over the years. However, thighs are still an area where you can easily burn fat and at the same time get rid of excess fat on other parts of your body. Fat can easily accumulate on our thighs if our day-to-day jobs are not that active, and can be a real honeymoon dampener if you are planning a getaway to somewhere hot where you can don a swimsuit.

Looking great for your wedding can mean more than just looking great in a bridal gown. If you want to look great before during AND after your wedding then dealing to over-sized thighs should definitely be on the agenda!

OK lets get down to some strategies that will deal to thighs! Burning fat on the thighs and elsewhere comes down to a combo of diet, cardio workouts, and strength conditioning.

Using Exercise to eliminate oversized thighs

The key to trimming your upper thighs is cardio exercise. No amount of leg presses is going to help reduce size – all you will get from leg presses is awesome muscle hidden beneath a layer of fat. So prepare for regular cardio workouts.

Why is cardio so important in your wedding weight loss plan? The great thing about cardio workouts are that they are fantastic for increasing our heart rate and for increasing the blood flow – this in turn really ramps up our metabolism. As your metabolism becomes faster you will find that your body is more quickly able to convert the calories you consume each day into energy – rather than converting excess calories into stored fat.

In order to lose weight you really need to be doing 4-6 hours of cardio per week, and obviously the more you can do the better.

Additionally, if you can do cardio workouts that also emphasize the legs muscles, you will get toned muscles as well. Some such cardio workouts include spinning bike classes, cardio-martial art classes (kick-boxing, boxing), elliptical cross trainers, stair climbing machines, as well as the regulars of jogging and walking.

For the really adventurous, you could try Bikram Yoga classes. Bikram Yoga is hot yoga – 26 postures performed in a heated room over 90 minutes. These classes I can attest will really get your heart rate up, help remove excess fluid from your system, tone your muscles AND help get your mind in the right place for your coming wedding. All yoga is good but Bikram yoga in particular I can recommend highly as part of a wedding weight loss program.

How to Lose Thighs through improved  Diet

Although Cardio is super important for reducing thigh size, changes to your diet can have an equally important affect as well. Diets that are high in saturated fats, sodium and sugar are number 1 causes of excess fat on our bodies. So eliminating or reducing these three no-no food types is essential for getting the size of our thighs down. Look for sugar substitutes, reduce the amount of high sugar sodas you are drinking – a switch to soda water with a dash of lemon cordial is going to help a lot.

The next thing to look at is portion control. Take a smaller plate for your meals and in this way you can reduce your portion size down to 75% of normal consumption. Practice the concept of “80% Full” – this is a Japanese dietary control concept that says stop eating when you are 80% full. The reason being that your stomach takes a while to send messages to your brain that you have satisfied your hunger. So even though you stop eating when you are 80% full, within 20 minutes you will feel content as your stomach catches up with the amount of food you just consumed. Try it – this works! Smaller meals means less calories consumed but you should not feel hungry because we are consuming way more food than we actually need in the first place.

Make sure that each meal has lean protein included – chicken breast with no skin is good – along with vegetables. In between meals if you need a snack, roasted almonds (no salt) are great, together with low-fat dairy and fruit such as bananas. Fruits will also give you natural sugars and can help wean you off of sugar in coffee or desserts.

Make sure you have some good quality carbs in your diet like wholegrain pasta, if you are planning on doing a cardio workout that day.

Water, water, water – keep hydrated and this will aid in keeping your kidneys functioning properly, removing toxins from your system as you exercise, AND keeping your metabolism working as fast as it needs to.

Strength Training Helps Reduce Thighs

Why do we need strength training to reduce the size of our thighs? Strength training helps muscle development – not big bulky muscles, but lean toned muscle tissue. The great thing about muscle is that it burns calories really fast, even when you are resting after a workout or sleeping in bed, your muscles are still burning calories. They are your best friend – and because muscle is denser than fat they take up less room and look a lot more toned than fat does. So replacing fat with muscle is an essential goal in your wedding weight loss plan.

Other than gym type exercises – leg curls, lunges with light weights – you will find that yoga provides a great workout for leg strength conditioning.

Strength building exercises should be interspersed with cardio workouts on alternate days. You don’t want to spend every workout focussing on leg strength alone.

Remember to incorporate these three components – Cardio, Diet, and Strength Conditioning – into your Wedding weight Loss program, and you will be well on the way to trimmer, leaner, great looking legs.

One really good program we have come across that is excellent for wedding weight loss is “Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle” by Tom Venuto. Check out the review below and see if this weight loss program could suit you.

First, the Pros: The program is really targeted at each individual’s body being different.

Basically, the ‘Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle’ weight loss program is all about being a  diet for your particular body type. Because all our body types are completely different,  the fact is that we all process food types differently. Some bodies do better with diets that are hi in carbohydrates and other body types do better with less carbs and more protein. It really depends on how individual bodies metabolize certain food types.

So the very first thing that this program does is determine what body type you are – because without that knowledge it is impossible to figure out how your body can metabolize particular food groups. Once this is determined, the system then designs a plan involving both diet and fitness based on what is going to work best with your body. Because the weight loss plan is tailored specifically to your body type, you will find that it is faster to lose weight than if you were using a generic diet that may or may not be suitable for your body type. And that is what it makes the plan so great for a wedding weight loss program – because it will work faster.

Pro #2: The Plan give you a lot of nutritional information

Once your body type has been determined you then will gain a lot of information about the foods that are suitable for you and the nutritional content of these foods. There are pages and pages – 270 in total – dedicated to macro nutrients, calories, vitamins and nutrition. Tom Venuto has been very diligent in getting a lot of information together around this aspect of weight loss. And this is very important when it comes to reviewing the guides that detail your rate of metabolism and how many calories you need to consume each day.

Pro # 3: The “Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Plan” has a lot of backup info that you can access.

As well as the “Burn Fat Feed Muscle” plan, there is a website with a lot of additional information that you can access. together with interviews with Tom Venuto. Access to this information is not essential to the success of your plan with this book, but I thought it a nice addition with literally months of content to review. I also like the idea of the weight loss calculators, and lots for great recipes to assist in the diet – plus there are forums of other members and users and its really nice to have the support of peers who are at different stages of their weight loss programs.

If you are just aiming at hitting a certain weight and achieving a desired body shape prior to your wedding day, the additional information available on the website will not be that necessary I feel, its more for those who want to make a life change with their weight loss and body shape.

Every product has its downsides of course and here are my views of the limitations of “Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle”

Limitation #1: This plan is not really designed for for casual dieters. There is a lot of information and substance in the book – around 340 pages in all and that doesn’t include all the extras that are supplemental. So from that point of view an individual looking for a quick 3 minute diet plan could find Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle overwhelming – too much information for them. This book is really suited to individuals who have made a serious commitment to change their body shape and the type of food they eat. From a wedding weight loss perspective this book is not something you would take on 3 weeks before your wedding day.

Because Tome Venuto is a body builder there is an emphasis on lowering overall bodyfat content. So that emphasis on getting the right body shape, although it seems like it is intensive, can work well when considering one of the goals of a wedding weight loss program is to have a great body shape to go with weight loss.

Limitation #2: There is not a of of content in the book on actual weight loss exercises

Even though exercise is critical to weight loss as well as attaining a more athletic body shape, there is very little content relating to exercise in the book. There are around 25 pages out of 340 given to explaining the effects of cardio exercises and weight training on the body however Venuto doesn’t actually explain how to do these exercises. So this is not an exercise book. The emphasis is on identifying your body type and finding the right nutritional balance for that body type.

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Review – Conclusion

‘Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle’ is a very comprehensive and detailed approach to weight loss with a huge number of followers and advocates. It is not he best program fro someone that needs to lose 5 pounds in a week. But for someone with a 12 month plan and a desire to maintain that new bodyshape beyond that period then this is an excellent program to participate in.

There are three very popular foods that can aid in your goal to reach your perfect wedding day weight – lets take a look.

Basic Beans Core Food for Bridal Weight Loss!

You will find the common bean being a preferred source of protein for vegetarians and dieters alike. The great thing about beans is that they combine a very balanced mix of both protein and carbohydrates AND they are extremely high in fiber.

Fiber is critical for the well being of all of us but is particularly important for dieters as it keeps the digestive system in good working order and it also maintains a steady blood sugar level. You really don’t want spikes in your blood sugar levels during the day as this can set off binge snacking attacks. Beans keep you full longer as it takes more effort on your digestive system to process them through your body – so they metabolize a lot slower than many other foods.

However not all beans are ideal. You want to avoid baked beans if the sugar content is high, also refried beans as the fat content can be high in many of these processed foods. Try to get plain beans and add them to your salads or make an entire bean salad mix with a low fat vinaigrette. That can keep in the fridge a few days and is a great meal in itself or serve it together with grilled chicken breast that is simply basted with a squeeze of lemon juice, and seasoned with a little sea salt and cracked pepper.

Skim Milk Essential to Wedding Weight Loss Diet.

Dairy has been given a bad rap dating back to the 1960s and 70’s when milk was full fat. However milk contains important elements that really are essential to a healthy lifestyle and the most important ingredient for dieters is calcium. In scientific studies undertaken with separate groups of individuals eating the same foods except for calcium – the group that received extra servings of calcium each day actually lost more weight! In fact they lost not just more weight, but THREE TIMES more weight as the group that didn’t receive extra calcium.

Calcium is a proven metabolism booster and dairy is by far the best source of calcium readily available on the market today. Try to use skimmed milk as your calcium source – in particular the 2%, 1% and the fat-free versions – you are not looking for calories – so these low fat options deliver the most calcium for the least amount of calories.

Bridal Weight Loss Miracle Food 3 – Green Tea!

The results are confirmed – drinking 4-6 cups of green tea a day helps the body burn fat faster than not drinking green tea.

As well as being a fatburner, green tea also contains really powerful antioxidants that can help fight cancerous free radicals in our bodies. Green tea has a tiny amount of caffeine, just enough to give your metabolism a bit of a lift, but is nowhere near as powerful a  stimulant as coffee, PLUS, green tea also has a mild diuretic affect on the body, helping remove any excessive fluid buildup.

Not a food but essential all the same: Water!

One of our basic human needs – water. Yes it doesn’t have anything in terms of nutritional value as such, however, it dies help by removing toxins from the body, dilutes out sodium that we may have consumed when eating, assists in healing as well as helping to full up our tummies and give us that satisfied feeling after a meal.

Water also serves another purpose – and that is to keep our metabolisms on an even keel and properly functioning.

The kidneys are the organs in our bodies that process fluids – they filter out toxins and wastes and they need fluids to keep them flushed and clean.. So consuming lots of water keeps the kidneys operating at full potential. When the kidneys don’t get enough hydration then the liver takes over the job of the kidneys. However the liver is not the ideal organ to do t he job of the kidneys and when called on to do so, then it can’t do its primary job at anywhere near the level of efficiency that it should.

The livers primary purpose is to convert stored fat into usable energy – this is very important to anyone who wants to lose weight – we want the liver performing at its highest level of efficiency and not diverted off doing other jobs. If the liver has to do the work of the kidneys then it cannot metabolize fat that quickly.

So the key is to drink lots of water during the day, keep the kidneys clean and working 100%, then the liver can do its job of converting your stored fat into energy.

Thats it, some simple foods that you can find everywhere that will help you burn fat faster and achieve your bridal weight loss goal. Add extra water to your diet each day, and you have the cornerstone in place that will lead to a future of permanent weight loss.

Getting rid of love handles should be at the top of your wedding weight loss plan. Not only can love handles spoil your walk down the aisle, but they’re incredibly unhealthy as well. The good news however is that you can get rid of love handles before your wedding day simply by making a few minor lifestyle changes.

Lose Fat All Over Will help you Look Great in Your Wedding Dress

The presence of love handles is a clear sign of an abdominal fat problem. Abdominal – or tummy fat – if allowed to remain and increase in volume can lead to serious metabolic disorders or even heart disease later on in life. If you are planning to start a family after your wedding then you owe it to your future children, your soon to be spouse, AND most importantly to yourself. So if you are ready to start on your wedding weight loss plan, taking action to get rid of love handles is one of the first things you should be considering.

Reducing your tummy fat will not only help you look great on your wedding day , it will decrease your chance of becoming diabetic or suffering a heart attack alter in life, and enhance the quality of your marriage. Your children will love having a healthy happy Mom to come home to each day. So make losing the love handles top priority on your wedding weight loss plan.

There are a lot of programs advertised on TV in infomercials claiming miraculous reductions in tummy fat by using the latest contraption sponsored by a physical fitness “guru”. Unfortunately it is not actually possible to spot target one region of your body for fat reduction.  So to get rid of tummy fat and “love handles”, you have to get rid of fat all over your body.

The three key ingredients for ridding yourself of love handles are:

Cardio Wedding Weight Loss Exercises - cardio exercise burns fat faster than any other form of exercise. Treadmill, Cross Trainer / Elliptical Trainer, Exercise bikes, Running & Power Walking are all great cardio workouts that can be included in your wedding weight loss exercise regime.

Strength Conditioning - using light weights combine with high repetitions helps increase lean muscle mass and muscle burns calories faster.

Diet – Changing your diet slightly so that you are consuming less calories each day than you are burning, will prevent any excess calories being converted into fat.

Of course the best way to get rid of love handles is to make all three integral to your wedding weight loss plan!

The following are recommended by the American Council on Exercise to be the very best ones for strengthening the muscles beneath the tummy fat, and subsequently are very helpful in ridding yourself of love handles:

Bicycle crunches- lie down on your back and perform crunch-twists while pedaling your legs as if you were riding a bicycle.Its hard to maintain this one for long periods but is worthwhile to incorporate into your overall regime.

Captain’s chair leg raises uses a captain’s chair – these can be found in most gyms.

Try vertical leg crunches – these are done just like regular crunches, but with your legs raised perpendicular to the ground.

Incorporate Fat-Burning Foods in your Diet.

There are certain foods – basically anything high in sugar or sodium – that will quickly add inches to the waistline and should be avoided at all cost.

Now that you are serious about getting rid of love handles, you’ll need to incorporate into your diet foods that fight tummy fat. Doctors recommend heart-healthy fats, typically those that you find in olive oil, nuts, and salmon; 3 servings of calcium from green, leafy vegetables or dairy products; and plenty of fiber from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

These foods tend to be digested slowly, so your tummy stays full longer and there is less chance of wanting to snack. You can also drink green tea instead of coffee or regular tea  green tea gives you a fat-burning boost. Drinking three cups  of green tea per day day can increase your metabolism and keep disease at bay.

Start Your Wedding Weight Loss Plan NOW!

Losing love handles and tummy fat doesn’t happen overnight, so if you know your wedding day is 12 months away, don’t leave it till 3 months before your big day to start a wedding weight loss program. It is very important to begin wedding weight loss exercises now – so get started today!

Tummy fat can be unsightly in a form-fitting wedding gown – however it has also been shown to be a very dangerous type of fat that Doctors believe is associated with numerous health risks. Before you start on a life long journey with your partner, takes steps to both look great and BE great for your future life together – so its a great idea to incorporate tummy exercises early on in your wedding weight loss program.

If you have built up a little extra around your middle and you are ready to get rid of that tummy fat, here are some fantastic wedding weight loss exercises aimed at helping you lose lower belly belly fat and decrease the risks to your future health at the same time.

Tummy Fat Exercises: Cardio

Cardio exercise is one of the best workouts to help you burn fat from all over your body – and this is a good thing, because if you want to reduce tummy fat, you also have to lose fat from other parts of your body. We accumulate fat in specific areas, and some of that has to do with genetics, however a lot also has to do with our lifestyle and the choices we make each day with the food we eat. If you tend to store fat around your tummy, then reducing your overall bodyfat percentage will make you healthier and lead to a flatter tummy.

Now, there are a lot of different types of cardio exercises out there – treadmill, cross trainers/elliptical trainers, exercise bikes, running, power walking…..the options are endless. The great thing is that if you are looking for the BEST cardio workout that will help you reduce your tummy fat then I have great news for you. They are all good!

The key to reducing tummy fat for good is to find the cardio exercise or combination of cardio exercises that you enjoy doing and that you can stick with long term. The trick to cardio workouts for weight loss is to make sure your cardio session last at least 1 hour per session. You need to get your heart rate up which will in turn improve your health, but also, the hourly workouts will force your body to burn excess calories and then begin to convert your fat reserves into energy to feed your muscles. Aim for 5 hours of cardio per week, and start as soon as possible to get the maximum benefit in the lead up to your wedding day.

Tummy Fat Exercises: Core Strength

To achieve a flatter tummy, it takes a lot more than endless sit-ups or abdominal exercises – that is the good news for those of you who hate traditional sit-ups. Variations on these exercises can help reduce your tummy faster – vertical leg crunches can be used – this is where you lie on the floor with your legs raised to 45 degrees and then perform a tummy crunch.

You can also develop your core strength using a Swiss exercise ball. Most exercise balls come with a full set of exercises aimed at building your core strength, while maintaining balance on the ball. If using an exercise ball with the specific aim of reducing tummy fat – or tightening the tummy – make sure you also work the lower back muscles as well.

Tummy Fat Exercises: Yoga

Another great form of exercise that will not only help you lose tummy fat but also help you manage your stress levels as you get closer to your wedding day is yoga. There are a lot of yoga classes in every city now and this is a great choice of a class that will break up your cardio routines, assist with building core strength, and remove excess bodyfat.

Yoga is particularly good for strengthening your tummy muscles, making it an excellent workout that will help you to lose belly fat.

Stress itself is a big cause of weight gain for the average person. Doctors know that in times of stress our brains release a hormone called cortisol – a self preservation hormone – that basically tells our body that it needs to start storing fat. So the more stressed out we become the more likely we are to gain excess fat – and for most of us that excess fat gets stored around the tummy.

Because Yoga deals with both the physical AND the spiritual – it is almost the perfect exercise routine to imcorporate into a wedding weight loss program.

Yoga includes stretching and breathing exercises that strengthen the muscles, removes toxins and excess fat from your system, and reduces the production of Cortisol. Yoga also has this wonderful emphasis on calming the mind, lowering blood pressure, and de-stressing the mind.

Yoga will have an immediate impact on toning and tightening your your tummy.

Whether you pick one form of exercise for your wedding weight loss program, or mix them up, the key is to start as soon as possible. Slow gradual reduction in tummy fat is the best for your long term health – so mix up cardio exercise with yoga, or core strength exercises and you will get rid of your tummy fat and have a healthier married life.