Wedding planning is stressful. Between the organizing, decorating, and budgeting, there are so many decisions to make! One of the more difficult decisions for some women who have been trying to lose weight can be figuring out how to do it effectively and in a healthy way to reach their wedding day goals.
Some women want to look as slim as possible for their wedding photos with hopes that it will help them feel better about themselves in an already nerve-wracking time. That said, if you want to look and feel your best on your wedding day, it’s critical to focus on more than just the number on the scale. While losing weight might be a good goal for some, body recomposition might be a better and healthier choice for most.
The question of which plan to implement can be difficult, as the answer will vary depending on your current body fat percentage and your goal of how you want to look. In this article, we’ll go through how to choose the right plan for you and offer practical suggestions to help you look your best on your wedding day!
The Difference Between Losing Weight For Your Wedding And Body Recomposition
The difference between weight loss and body recomposition is subtle but important. With both plans you will lose fat. With weight loss, you will lose fat and muscle. With body recomposition, you will burn fat and build muscle while maintaining your weight.
This is the reason why women with a healthy percentage of body fat should choose to focus on body recomposition instead of weight loss.
With both plans, you’ll need to follow a smart training program and do your best in the kitchen. Both plans will take hard work, but this post will help you achieve your goals in the most efficient way possible by focusing on what works.
When To Lose Weight And When To Focus On Body Recomposition
A healthy body fat percentage for women is between 15%-25% body fat. If you are over this percentage you should consider a weight loss plan first and then recompose your body once you’re close to, or within the healthy range.
If you’re already within range, you should focus on body recomposition to look better in your wedding dress. This is the healthy way to go about looking better on your wedding day.
Achieving your fitness goals can be difficult since they require changing your habits. To help make this as easy as possible for you let’s first focus on a game plan to get you where you want to be!
How To Measure Your Body Fat Percentage
To determine if you should start a body recomposition plan or begin with weight loss, you’ll first need to assess where you are with one of the following tools.
Body Fat Scale
If you have a body fat scale, then this will give you an idea how much of your weight is coming from lean mass and how much comes from your current level of body fat. This is much more helpful than just your overall weight.
Body Fat Calipers
Measuring yourself with body fat calipers will provide you with a more accurate measurement than simply using a body fat scale, but they are a little harder to use. These can also be used in conjunction with a scale if you desire a blend of convenience and accuracy.
Hydrostatic Weighing (dunk tank)
This test provides the most accuracy but is also the most expensive and requires making an appointment at a lab for testing. This test is considered the gold standard and is how competitors at the highest levels of bodybuilding assess their body composition.
The Healthy Diet Plan For Burning Belly Fat Before Your Wedding
Now that you know how to measure your body fat percentage, let’s talk about how to adjust it! If you want to lose weight before your wedding, I recommend taking a straightforward approach using following these steps:
- Burn slightly more calories than you take in.
- Focus on your macros (carbs, fat, and protein).
- Reduce your intake of processed meals, refined sugars, and fast carbs (such as chips) and replace them them with whole foods, healthy fats, and lean complete proteins.
It’s important when restricting calories to do this slowly over time, not by crash dieting and starving yourself. If you do this slowly, you will feel satiated, and not hungry.
Eating a healthy diet is important to melt belly fat safely. This macro calculator will help you determine the correct servings in each category to help you reach your goals for both weight loss and body recomposition.
How To Achieve Your Wedding Day Goals With Body Recomposition
When it comes to nutrition, getting enough protein will be important since increasing lean mass is one of your objectives. Make sure you are getting between .6 and .9 grams of protein per pound of body depending on your activity level.
Additionally post-workout nutrition is critical in order for muscles to recover and grow. Consuming an NSF approved whey protein isolate within an hour of exercise will help with recovery and rebuilding muscle tissue so you can maximize your effort.
Include 3 hours of resistance training workouts that are difficult in the 8-12 rep range, such as weight lifting or body weight exercises.
To get the most out of your lifestyle change, it’s important to find a workout that you enjoy and can do consistently. If you’re short on time, heavy resistance training is scientifically proven to increase metabolism and burn more fat over time than cardio only work outs like running.
Finally, the intensity of your workouts is important for how much muscle you will gain and how many calories you burn throughout the day. Ideally, heavy resistance training (of at least 70% of maximum effort) is combined with interval style cardio for the most effective exercise plan for body recomposition.
Get enough sleep to allow your body to recover and grow.
To maximize your hard work, getting enough sleep is the key to capitalizing on your gains. While exercising, it’s important to get at least eight hours of quality sleep in order to allow proper recuperation and growth from your training.
Now that you know how to loose weight before your wedding, it’s important to note that reaching your goals will take time. Once you understand what to do though, it will make the process easier and more enjoyable since you won’t be guessing if you’re doing the right thing or not. Following the steps above will help you achieve your goal of looking better in your wedding dress with the least amount of effort.
Weight Loss Journey F.A.Q.
Weight Loss Journey F.A.Q.
How Can I Lose Weight Fast For My Wedding?
There is no wedding diet you can get on that will allow you to lose more than a pound or two a week without health consequences.
Keeping a food journal and tracking your macros for a week or two will help you better understand what your diet needs to be in order to maintain your current weight.
In order to create a sustainable caloric deficit, you must eat slightly less than your base calorie requirements each day. This will take longer than a crash wedding diet, but it is the only healthy way to lose weight. Dieting slowly over time will also help prevent you from going on a crazy binge and gaining all your weight back after your wedding.
There is no way around this point. Only honest work at the gym and eating healthy over time will get you to where you actually want to be.
How Long Will It Take To Lose Weight Before My Wedding?
The short answer is it depends on how much weight you want to lose. For healthy weight loss, the rule of thumb is 1-2 pounds per week. Thus if your wedding weight loss goal is to lose 20 pounds before your wedding, you would need between 10 and 20 weeks to reach your goal in a healthy manner.
Should I Try To Lose Weight For My Wedding?
If you have a healthy body fat percentage between 15% -25% then you should focus on body recompostion instead of weight loss. Learning how your body reacts to macros will help you maintain weight while increasing lean mass. The easiest way to do this is to eat enough protein, exercise with weights at least 3 hours per week and sleep for at least 8 hours each night.
As an example, if your body fat percentage is 28%, it might be a good goal to lose weight if you desire a smaller frame. To achieve this, you should focus on your macros and consume less calories than your base needs by about 200 calories a day until you get inside a healthy body fat percentage range. Once you reach your body fat goal, you should then increase your calories to a maintenance level.
When Should You Start Losing Weight For Your Wedding?
The best time to start loosing weight is as soon as possible! That way, you have the most amount of time to reach your goal. Healthy weight loss doesn’t happen quickly so be patient!
It’s important to remember that how fast you want to lose weight will play a role in how much effort and how long it will take. You shouldn’t expect to loose 10 pounds in 2 weeks. A good rule of thumb about a pound or two per week on average, so make sure not to do anything too drastic!
Tips For Living A Healthy lifestyle
- Hiring a personal trainer or taking part in a spin class, Pilates session, or other group class may be motivational for some people.
- It is entirely up to you what exercise you choose to do. Just make make sure to exercise with vigor for at least 3 hours a week.
- Look to people who’s bodies you admire and learn their dietary and exercise habits. Mimic what they do and fine tune as you learn.
- Understand that strength training burns more fat over time and is more efficient than cardio alone.
- Make sure your wedding diet prioritizes lean proteins like tuna fish, chicken, eggs, whey etc. Adequate protein will keep you satiated longer and give you the building blocks to build lean muscle. Your workouts will literally be less efficient unless you supply your body with enough complete proteins!
- Invest in a Whey Protein Powder that is NSF certified. This is an excellent way to get more high quality protein into your diet when you’re on the go.
- You need to sleep at least 8hrs every night. Your muscles are built while you sleep. When you don’t sleep enough, the building process is less efficient.
- Eating fewer calories doesn’t mean starving yourself.
- Plan meals ahead of time so you don’t eat pizza for lunch and feel guilty.
- Have cheat meals once a week. It makes your wedding diet part a realistic lifestyle you can do for the rest of your life.
- Plan ahead and put emergency healthy snacks in your purse to eat when you accidentally skip breakfast.
- If all of this wedding diet stuff feels overwhelming to you consider hiring a registered dietitian to help you plan meals.
- Don’t stress! Hormones released during chronic stress can cause weight gain and make it harder to lose weight.
- Track your progress with a fitness tracker to keep you accountable for how much exercise you actually get.
Conclusion Of How To Lose Weight Fast With Health In Mind
I hope that this post has given all you brides to be lots of ideas to help you prepare for your most important day. Planning out an exercise routine and diet plan as soon as possible will help get your best self ready for your wedding with less stress then if you wait.
The most important thing is to figure out when doing this is to find a way to enjoy any lifestyle change you need to make to achieve your health goals. You will be glad you did!
Keep in mind that your wedding weight should not be the most important thing to worry about. Focusing on health is much more important!
The best tips for loosing weight are tips like exercising with weights, getting enough protein and taking supplements if needed. Make sure to get at least eight hours of sleep every night
Let me know in the comments what your fitness goals are for your wedding and how you plan to achieve them! If you liked this post don’t forget to share!
