For those of you that want to lose weight for the big day!

Exercise is an investment. And like any investment, it's ALL about the numbers. Here are some numbers for you:

1 pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories.

The only way you are going to lose a pound is if you burn 3500 MORE calories than you eat. It's that simple! In order for you to lose 17 lbs in one week, you must burn (you ready for this?) 59,500 calories more than you eat. broken down into seven days that averages to 8,500 calories per day. Even if you ate NOTHING and worked out for an hour a day for seven days you would not be able to burn 8,500 in a day. It is physically impossible.

Now I'll switch gears for a second. Try this: go to the gym, weight yourself, then go on the treadmill for an hour. Get off the treadmill and go directly to the scale and weight yourself again. Guess what? You lost like 5 pounds! FIVE POUNDS OF FAT? Nope. Think about it.... 5 lbs. of fat = 17,500 calories. You cannot burn that many calories in an hour. So what did you lose? WATER! And guess what? Your body needs that water back so you replenish it.

The only way the cabbage diet can possibly get you to lose 17 pounds in a week is by causing a decrease in water weight, which you will replenish eventually. Losing 1-2 pounds per week is a safe and realistic approach to losing fat. That is accomplished through consistent cardiovascular exercise at the appropriate intensity level coupled with a balanced and conservative eating plan. I hope this addresses your concern.

Jeff Mendoza, CPT, HFS

Yes, I'm sure what I've lost is water weight, no argument there. This diet has helped me to detox my body from all the junk that I was putting in. Now that I have lost 10 pounds (water weight) that has been my motivation to continue eating right and exercising. Yes I did say that exercising has helped. I am not going to continue this diet till the day I die, I just wanted something that would help me lose some of the extra weight that I was carrying around, and for me this did it.

I am not on the diet right now. I'm eating healthier, lots of fruits and vegetables and being careful of what I put in my body. But I do have the soup ever other day to eat something that is calorie-free.

I'm sorry if I have upset some people by sharing what I felt was something that was working for me. I found results with this and I wanted to help out others that were struggling with those pesky pounds right before their big day.

P.S. I haven't gained all the weight back, in case you were wondering.

Debbie, thank you for sharing what has worked for you. Honestly I know some of the soups do work for losing weight, that's why I added that the Veggie Soup helps lose weight as well as Campbells or Progresso (and hearing this come from the mouth of someone who studied Nutrition for 6 years will tell you soup diets can work for weight loss). I didn't mean to stirr up anyone on here by letting them know that soupd diets are an unhealthy way to lose weight, truthfully you and I both know that they can in fact help.

Here are also some other ideas that come to my mind that can help lose weight with eating right and exercise before the big day! If you're one who hates to go the gym and works in Retail, something that helped me lose weight w/o even realizing it is climbing up and down ladders all day upstocking items and downstocking items. Not only are you bending and lifting merchandise (light or heavy) but you're using muscles you would normally be working out on in the gym. For those who love to walk and have the time, since it's Winter Time now, walk around the mall, quite a few laps talking with your pals or FI's or even your children in their strollers will help you shed some weight. I do that all the time with my son since he loves being in his stroller so much. I even do it in our house for hours if I can't get him to calm down at night or even during the day time, while he's getting pushed around by me, I'm getting in a work out

I know all of us love sweets, but if you're really wanting to shed some weight food wise and eat healthy the Yoplait Yogurts especially that are flavored in our favorite desserts are a wonderful way to not only help fill your craving for something sweet, but a source of calcium too (sadly I can only eat Yogurt every now and then) and not even touching a piece of pie. My mom recently gave me some advice on instead of using salad dressing which everyone loves, if you enjoy eating salads, either at home or in a restaurant squeeze either a 1/4 or 1/2 of an orange onto your salad. It will give it a nice sweet citrus taste to it w/o the additional calories in salad dressings and also part of a fruit serving for you I've learned not to put croutons in my salad anymore and add in dried fruit such as dried blueberries and flavored almond slivers in it, which still add flavor to salads without all the extra carbs. I hope this helps everyone

Also something else with keeping to eating healthy foods that will help with weight loss for the big day, if you're craving sweets, go for the Yoplait Yogurts that are flavored in the Dessert Flavors. You will cut your need to eat a tempting dessert eating that. For salads instead of croutons or salad dressings, squeeze either 1/4 or 1/2 of an orange on your salad (for dressing) and add flavored almond slivers and dried fruit to salads (instead of croutons). If you're not one to eat breakfast or need that inbetween meal snack, carry a nutrition bar and a bottle of water with you. I used to do this in college for my 8:00am classes instead of going to the cafeteria and it gave me not only more energy, but a healthier breakfast solution instead of grabbing a donut or muffin. I hope some of these help everyone too

For those of you who are obsessed with going to the gym, don't work out too hard and for too long. My sister when in college (before she became a Dietition) was a collegiate cheerleader and was so obsessed with working out to maintain her 6 pack for her Size 00 Body, that she went down from a healthy 105lbs. for her height to 75lbs(which wasn't healthy at all). You can actually get anorexia from working out too much as we learned from her. I hope this helps all of us who know we need to lose weight, but really don't put your bodies workout wise through more than you can personally handle. Every time I step into the gym with my hubby, I do what I can and if I can't get a full workout in, well at least I tried to do something. To truthfully tell you all if you're not able to lose the weight before your wedding and your dress doesn't fit, if you can get matching material within a reasonable amount of time, it isn't the end of the world to have material added to your dress.