For example, if your BMR is 3, and you currently get moderate exercise, all you have to do is multiply 3, by 1. For a goal of 20 pounds in a single month, you'll have to cut at least 2, calories a day using both diet and exercise. A steep goal, indeed. Sweat the pounds away. Since water comprises so much of the human body, our cells have a tendency to stash it away for future use. This can result in bloating and accumulation of water weight, tipping the scale higher and higher.
Get rid of excess fluids by releasing water from the body in the form of sweat. An hour of continuous cardiovascular exercise or a twenty minute soak in the sauna can help you dump pounds of water weight.
Get plenty of sleep. Aim to get at least six hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep every night, though eight is preferable. While you rest, your body will repair damaged cells and tissues, allocate calories for internal use and restore fallen energy levels. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Try not to obsess about your actual weight -- the numbers don't really matter. Muscle is denser than fat, so it weighs more but takes up less room.
The scale may not match what you're seeing, so go by how your clothes fit instead. Helpful 3 Not Helpful 0. Helpful 5 Not Helpful 0. Have a constant workout routine. After it gets easy, push yourself harder.
On top of that, be sure to have a healthy, balanced diet of greens, dairy, meats, etc. Helpful 4 Not Helpful 0. Eat a variety of low-fat dairy products. Milk, cheese and yogurt actually break down fat cells in your body and provide you with much-needed calcium. Helpful 2 Not Helpful 0. Soy-based foods are healthy alternatives. They're chock full of vitamins and minerals and are generally lower in calories and in fat than their meatier counterparts.
If you have a sweet tooth, substitute honey for sugar. Though neither are ideal, honey is more natural and better for you. Avoid fruit juices and canned fruit. They are full of sugars that take away from the nutrition you think you're getting. Helpful Not Helpful Avoid alcohol. Not only is it full of empty calories, but after a few drinks that burrito may not seem so shameful.
Related wikiHows How to. How to. Board Certified Family Medicine Specialist. Expert Interview. More References About This Article. Co-authored by:. Co-authors: Updated: December 7, Categories: Weight Loss Goals. Article Summary X To lose 20 pounds in a month, reduce the number of calories you're eating every day by eating less and cutting out junk food. In other languages Deutsch: In einem Monat 9 Kilo abnehmen.
Italiano: Perdere 10 Chili in un Mese. Nederlands: 9 kilo afvallen in een maand. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 2,, times. I'm currently pounds. I've been working out 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. Hopefully, I will be able to lose at least 16 or 18 pounds a month. Thank you. More reader stories Hide reader stories.
Did this article help you? Cookies make wikiHow better. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Vonnetta Jordan Apr 27, Barbara Pleasant-Wade Nov 20, I am 61 and I eat a lot of fast foods and white foods; after reading this article, I am done. I will lose 15 lbs. Nouman Jaffar Jul 19, Do less workout, but do it accurate. Burpee is one of the best exercises for fat burning. Anonymous Jul 16, I'll do this every day from now on to become a WWE diva.
Everything stated in this article was helpful, keep up the good work. Justina Valdez Sep 13, This has been the most helpful article I read so far! I love how honest it was. Thank you! If our goal is to open our minds and change our habits, my guess is that patience and empathy win most of the time. Is that possible? If so what should I do? And workouts? Will it stay off? Will it be mainly water weigtht?
They will cut weight very quickly; often times up to 10 pounds the day before an event. This weight is primarily water. Many fad diets and crash diets show rapid weight loss.
This weight is largely water. How do you lose fat? Losing body fat is pretty straightforward and simple, but it certainly is not easy. Whether your goal is to look better, feel better, have a better immune system, or have more energy — losing fat, NOT weight — is the thing that will get you there.
There are 3 ways to create a calorie deficit and you should do all 3 for the quickest results: 1. Eat less calories 2. Burn more calories through cardio and HIIT exercise 3.
Increase your metabolism by lifting weights. They fill you up with a bunch of fiber, making it difficult to overeat at meals. For 2: Find something safe for your cardio — biking, hiking, elliptical, etc. Avoid running at first since it has the highest injury rate of any exercise. By doing all 3 of the above you can expect to lose pounds of fat per week. Peoples bodies are built different, so the only way to look at it is to create a healthy lifestyle.
This means eating Raw, exercise within your ability, and maintaining these life choices for a longevity. I so appreciate your patience in your responses and knowledge in the matter. Thanks for these tips! Trying hard to put them in place for the long term. Just found this blog and am loving your advice. What are you thoughts on a Keto diet for weight loss?
Any diet that results in someone consuming less calories over a period of time will result in weight loss. Some diets are more or less sustainable and some affect performance and brain function. This keeps your diet open to any hurdles life may throw at you and is backed by a lot of science.
I just hit 20lbs since early May. It was almost completely due to my diet. Heavily restricted calories cals for breakfast, not a large dinner, nothing else. I did a very small amount of exercise due to a torn shoulder and then pulled achilles while running.
I also did research and adjusted my diet in order to minimize muscle loss. Aiming to lose more the next few weeks. Did you do body composition testing to monitor your weight loss? Inflammation can cause water retention, for example. Menstrual cycles can cause women to retain up to 10 pounds of additional fluids for another example.
Losing water weight does mean one is dehydrated. It could mean you have a lower sodium diet which is causing you to retain less water as well. Lastly, the behavior part of non-linear weight loss occurs because of adaptation. Your body is designed to adapt to whatever circumstances it routinely experiences. For example, someone could start running a mile a day as a way to lose weight. If someone is carrying around extra weight body fat , their body will shed the extra weight to allow it to adapt to their 1 mile-a-day routine.
At a certain point, the body weighs exactly what it needs to in order to run a mile. If the runner wants to keep losing weight, they will need to change something about their routine. They could run 2 miles, run 1 mile faster, or reduce calories. The reason that weight fat loss is non-linear is because the person losing the weight will need to introduce new stimuli into the calorie-deficit equation. Eating more or less food. Working out more. Working out at a greater intensity. You get the idea.
Hi Matt, your advice is good for these people who are struggling. I can tell you love what you do and want to help. Yes lifestyle changes are important. Yes calories are important and so is effective workouts. And yet, some people have problems with resistance to fat loss because of a set point from insulin resistance and thyroid issues. For them and a lot of people they need to go beyond the traditional eat less and workout more formula.
They need to do intermittent or time restrictive eating. The body is more likely to turn to fat stores and burn the fat and in the process heal the body from alot of dis -eases. Here are just a few of the science based results from intermittent fasting: Raises HGH Body becomes insulin sensitive Stem cell production increased after 3 day fast Burns body fat Thyroid free T 3 and TSH starts to normalize Other body functions start to normalize- blood pressure , triglycerides etc.
As you can see our genetics are devised to fast and have periods of feasting. With using intermittent fasting and eating Whole Foods instead of sugar and junk food and other poisons we can support our bodies to do their job and lose those pesky pounds.
Keep up the good work Matt in helping people. Get the blood work from a licensed functional medicine physician. Your body is an ever-changing network of complex chemistry that is impossible to evaluate on feeling alone.
So before going down the road of elimination diets, keto, IF, etc… get your blood work checked. In the example of ketogenic diet, there are 5 single nucleotide polymorphisms SNPs associated with individuals who experience weight loss on the ketogenic diet.
Why start such an extreme diet without knowing if your genetics would respond well? Thankfully we live in a time when we can answer these questions with technology and science. Always get your blood work before and every 12 weeks or whatever your doc recommends when starting any elimination, fasting, or no-carb diet. I want to lose the fat. I go for a run everyday 30 mins its a hilly area so there are a lot of ups.
I then workout for an hour, floor exercises mainly like crunches, sit ups , mountain climbers, bur pees, etc. Its very hard for me to do push ups. I try my best though. Eating healthy. I eat to calories every day. You create this deficit in 3 ways. It seems that people have success when they put equal effort in all 3 areas. They are:. Eat less 2. Burn more calories by doing cardio 3. You can expect to reach your goals by February or March. Find a workout routine you love and makes you feel proud.
Learn about cooking healthy food that tastes amazing. Buy a nice kitchen knife… you get the idea. You mentioned you work out for 90 minutes per day. Based on these numbers you should be losing 2 pounds of body fat each week.
This is a survival mechanism that allows us to survive a pretty long time without food. You might be too cardio-heavy in your workouts. This is because the caloric requirements of cardio are very high, so endurance athletes tend to have a big appetite. But cardio does not do a good job of burning calories while at rest. This is key in my experience. To find the things about the journey you LOVE. Like a watched pot, a watched scale never changes.
What a discouraging article. I just recently lost 20 lbs through just diet alone. It took me 3 months. Just eating a little better and picking the times I eat worked just fine. LOL… Yes. As I mentioned, this can be done through burning calories in cardio. Increasing your metabolism through weight training. Eating less calories. You should be proud! Thank you for the article Matt. As someone whose weight has fluctuated her entire life due to crash diet, I appreciate your realistic and sustainable approach.
What most people lack is patience and consistency, which are both extremely hard to adopt. I hope people understand that although you can lose weight fast which I have too, several times , it comes with a cost of slower metabolism and mental health problems with food. Thanks so much for your perspective! Hello, I have lost 4 pounds in my first week and im worried about rebounding this weight, I cut to about calories each day and exercise cardio for half an hour.
I want to lose 20 pounds and im enjoying this process so far but I dont want to risk gaining it all back and more soon after I lose it, I started at Congratulations on starting your journey. A few things to think about as you continue through weeks 2 and beyond:. Manage expectations: Plan for 20 pounds to take you between months. Also plan on losing your motivation in about 5 weeks. What is your plan when you no longer feel motivated?
Finding a weight loss or workout buddy seems to be a way to double your likelihood of success. Cutting calories: How many calories were you consuming prior to your cut to 1,? If you were eating 1, or less on average, then a cut to 1, may be sustainable. Weight training: Try to add in some heavy weight training days per week and keep cardio the other days. This will increase your metabolism due to adding lean muscle mass. You will gain weight when your lean mass and bone density increases.
A cal deficit is pretty reasonable. Hi Matt: Not sure you can help me at all because your commenters all sound young. I am 79 this month and currently weigh pounds, 5 ft. I have good muscle mass in my legs and arms, have been active most of my life.
I have several physical issues that would prevent me from your cardio suggestions. After retirement I put on about 15 pounds, my doctor recommended I lose wt. I would appreciate any comments or suggestions you might share with me. And I want to congratulate you on taking such a proactive approach to your health and setting a great example for how we can get the most out of life in retirement. I firmly believe that quality of life should be consider just as much as quantity. As far as exercise goes, keep up your current routine!
That sounds great. Doing something you love that is pain free is the best medicine. This will help you navigate your home independently for as long as possible while reducing fall risks and consequences should they happen. As far as weight loss is concerned that will be primarily determined by nutrition. Get as many different colors as you can. Things like chicken breast, fish, and lean cuts of meat.
You should be consuming palm-sized pieces of protein each day. I am a very big basketball athlete. I workout everyday and play basketball everyday. I want to drop this weight by 20 pounds. I want to do it asap but in a healthy way. I do have a ton of muscles and am fit but I want to get skinnier.
Can you walk me through the fasted way possible to loose those 20 pounds. While it may sound strange, worrying about your weight will most certainly have the opposite of your desired effect.
No matter what diet or exercise routine you start, doing so out of worry almost guarantees failure. What will that weight loss allow you to accomplish? How will it make you feel? The psychological challenges of weight loss are more difficult to tackle than the biology. What else would make you feel confident? Try a new sport, travel, learn to do a cartwheel or climb a rope, buy some new shoes. Whatever you can think of will work.
There are some potential scenarios, however. Again, go get body composition testing and chat with a professional. This is a common occurrence for very active females who do multiple daily training sessions. As strange as it sounds, by eating MORE food on a daily basis these athletes end up dropping body fat. Lots of cardio gets your body used to burning glycogen sugar stores during training sessions but then your metabolism would slow WAY down in your non-training times. Focus on that, no matter how difficult it may be.
Who do you want to drop 20 pounds for? Is it yourself and your performance? Will it improve your game? Channel your gifts and develop some grit on the court. If losing 20 pounds is something you still want, that grit will be the key ingredient.
Keep it up and go easy on yourself. I want some advice for my weight loss journey. I am pounds,cm,22 yr old female. I am a bit muscly naturally and have broad bone structure. For this I am consuming high protein diet and about calories. Further, I do body weight training exercise from Google app 30 minutes per day 4 times a week. And 15 minutes cardio 3 times per day. How much should I expect to lose?
Can body weight training be substituted for weight lifting? First off, you should begin by getting a body composition scan. Now, you may mean this positively; as a source of pride in an athletic, capable build. Unfortunately, women rarely mean this in a positive light. Then, you can see how this compares over time and to other people who are your same height, weight, and age.
The other benefit you can get from a body composition scan is your Basal Metabolic Rate. This is based upon your lean muscle mass, weight, and age. Without knowing that number, I cannot comment on whether or not calories is an appropriate deficit. If you are, in fact, an athletic build then calories is likely too few calories to see fat loss without other adverse affects. By creating this calorie deficit, one could expect to lose pounds of body fat each week — the rate at which the fat will stay off.
The only downside to not using weights for your resistance training is that your body will adapt to the stimulus fairly quickly. The benefit to using weights is that you simply swap out the weight for something heavier after a few weeks of the exercise.
But, you can still achieve a new stimulus using body weight exercise. Here are a few ways I like to vary the same movements so that I still get good results:. Go hard and fast. Week 4: 3 sets of 30 squats, 2 min rest.
Week 5: 5 sets of 8 jumping squats, 90 sec. Hopefully that gives you a general idea of how you can change things up and still see results without needing weights. But — above all — aim to make the process enjoyable. Find something you love to do for exercise and learn to love your body for its capabilities above appearance. Keep it up! Hello, I have a question:!!
I really look forward to hearing back from you. You seem to be giving out great advice! I feel pretty disgusted with myself and really want to get down to I am a full time student as 2ell as working full time so I developed some pretty bad eating habits and want to get back to where I was before. I have heard alot of great things about keto, and want to give it a try.
I have downloaded an app called carb manager, which I feel is very supportive and helps me stay on track because I input everything. At this rate it says I will loose aprox 5. Now I personally altered my calorie deficit to that amount which was the lowest I was able to go while following a ketogenic diet. Is that bad that I am not following what the app recommended and decided to only consume a day.
The app also said it would adjust my calorie intake according to my updated weight, but I wanted to loose 5. My last question would then be, if I follow a calorie deficit from the beggining will that stall my weight loss sooner? And if I choose to excersise while following the calorie deficit, will that be bad as well? So essentially should I follow what the app is suggesting which is have cals a day or can I follow and still keep the weight off.
Once i am done keto for 10 months i plan on slowly incorporating carbs back into my diet, while still exercising and intermittent fasting. I look forward to hearing back from you! There are some instances where some negative experiences or feelings push us to make positive changes. Think of a bad breakup or the loss of a loved one. Sometimes these tragedies are just the push we need to get our shit together. But more often than not, negative motivation expires within weeks.
There will be slip-ups on this journey that will elicit a negative feeling… that feeling is OK. However, you must have a positive goal to re-direct your actions.
Otherwise, the shame of a slip up will result in you completely falling off the wagon. Is there an event in 6-months you could look forward to? A beach vacation to look forward to? A test you want to be your best for? Keep in mind that any other strategies will fail unless you can find more positive feelings about yourself.
Now, on to the tactics:. Keto is an elimination diet. As with all elimination diets, there are benefits and drawbacks. The main benefit of elimination diets is that there are very clear-cut rules to follow.
Elimination diets usually have an economy around them, too. There are products, apps, gurus, and influencers that create an ecosystem around selling aspects of the diets. This often results in an echo-chamber of people claiming the universal benefits of the diets. There are some potential drawbacks to a ketogenic diet, however.
The evidence seems to show that these ketones are produced in adequate levels in people with northern European and nordic ancestry. Keto supporters will say that your body adapts over the course of a month or so to deliver a glucose substitute to help your brain. It seems that this only happens for a small percentage of people who have a genetic adaptation to high-fat diets.
As a student, it will be important that you keep an eye on your mental sharpness. This is an indicator that your body is NOT producing adequate ketones to fuel your brain. But if you must do one… only do one. But I hope your main takeaway and I mean this will a ton of love is that you have the trifecta of failure brewing: Negative self-talk, fad diet, and extreme calorie cut. Sometimes folks can be successful with 1 of these. But never with all 3. Can you think of any ways to approach your goals with more compassion and sustainability?
Get a body composition test every 4 weeks 2. Eat plenty of protein and a ton veggies 5. Plan to do all of the above consistently for 6 months. You seem very intelligent and have a great understanding of fitness and nutrition! So my question to you is can I expect to lose 20 lbs of fat in just 10 weeks? To give some insight on my current situation: I just turned 26 years old this September.
I weigh myself every morning right after I use the bathroom and I record my weight in my phone. As far as my workout routine, I do know my way around the gym, but now I would consider myself somewhat of a detrained athlete since COVID. My recovery has been much better now since the re-acclimation. I enjoy lifting weights. So you might have guessed my problem now! I never really cared about losing fat or cardio because I was always naturally skinny. So for the first time I have started tracking calories and macronutrients.
Using online calorie calculators I believe at my current height, weight, and activity level I burn about calories per day. However, everyone that I explained this to in a different online forum basically screamed at me because apparently my deficit is too drastic, which is why I am seeking your opinion. I apologize for making that so long winded, but if you make it to the end and can address my main concerns about 1. While the 15 minutes of walking will certainly help with the DOMS it is doing very little for your cardiovascular system nor your fat loss.
For conditioned folks like yourself HIIT can have the same fat loss benefits as cardio. BUT the tradeoff is that — in order to achieve these benefits — you do need to PUSH it during the working periods of your intervals. Mix it up and keep it fun. As long as it fits in your macros and you have no genetic predisposition to hypertension you should be all good. The sodium could be a concern for hypertension so just keep that in mind.
Remember to track, however. Fat is the most calorically dense and tastiest of the macros. Dietary cholesterol and heart disease linkage seems to be up for debate in the literature as of the last few years with no direct causation. Remember, there are 3 ways you can create a caloric deficit:.
But you have placed a heavy importance on 3, which is a solid route to take. But remember: in order to increase your metabolism you need to add muscle. In order to add muscle, you need to consume just the right amount of calories to fuel growth without excess bodyfat. No bueno for anyone. So you may be actually creating a new, kcal deficit while only eating kcal less. Does that sort of make sense? Think of it like this: I want to chop down a tree over the course of the next month but I can only work on it for 30 minutes after work.
I can use a hatchet and complete the job in a full month. I can use a full-sized axe and get it done in 2 weeks. Or, I can use a chainsaw and get it done in 2 days.
I can also run my truck into it at 50 MPH and knock it over. Each method gets the job done but each has unintended consequences.
The 1,kcal cut would be like the truck method. Try to find a sweet spot combination between the chainsaw and the full-sized axe. Yes you will most certainly look skinnier when you lose pounds of water weight. Body builders, wrestlers, and brides-to-be do this all the time.
But they do it for an event. An event that takes place over the course of a single day. Since these three are all vital organs your body will begin to retain more water, crave salty foods, and find a balance point again. You will likely gain back MORE than before because your body will retain more and more water as a reaction to the dehydration.
Furthermore, women can experience up to a 10 pound fluctuation in fluid retention throughout normal menstrual cycles. So — by using water weight as a metric — women risk aiming at a moving target without accurate measurements i. This is due to several factors occurring simultaneously- a job change allowing remote work, a dramatic shift in financial capacity that has allowed for signing up to multiple fitness centers, hiring a personal trainer, and enlisting the help of a post-workout recovery center cryo, sauna,, hyperbaric, massage, etc to enable both positive reinforcement and increased socializing.
I was also obese and am still overweight, though no longer obese in terms of BMI due to poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and poor sleep. New regiment: — F45 circuit training daily — Personal Training Tuesdays and Thursdays — cryotherapy M, W, F — sauna T, Th Weekends- massage, hyperbaric chamber, stretch therapy. Supplements: multivitamin, avmecol, d3, k2, fish oil, coq10, probiotic Water intake target: 64 oz. It was a gradual approach that started with going to circuit training 1x per week, then 3x, and now daily scaled over about 3 months.
I think it takes much more than many realize money, freedom, time, lifestyle, genuine desire, and certain personality characteristics , as well as negative social reinforcement as many of your peers fight against change…including the positive type. Note that every step of my process is closely monitored by my docs and trainers, which imo is really important. I wish more people had a better gauge of how expensive poor health can become later in life. Or, more accurately, how shitty you felt in your day to day previously.
I would be interested to see what a slight ish increase in calories does to your progress. It tends to have an increased metabolic effect. I am not interested in gaining a lot of muscle but I know that lifting weights one of the most effective ways to lose weight because there is more muscle able to burn more calories. Two years ago I was at lbs and managed to lose 10 lbs with intermittent fasting. However, I gained even more weight than I lost and I no longer fit into the clothes I used to wear.
How will I be able to lose the weight? So it is a bit tough to dispense decent advice. Check out some local supplement shops and see if they have a bioelectric impedance scanner so you have a decent reference point on your lean muscle mass.
We should, first, identify how much muscle you currently carry. Your genetics are the primary factor and your diet is the secondary. So start here: — Get your body composition tested. Thank you for listening. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Our bodies are surprisingly well-adapted to stress. Ghrelin the hormone responsible for making us hungry gets all out of whack.
Sometimes this makes us very hungry and sometimes it makes us not able to eat at all. Cortisol is also released at very high levels. This hormone can give you energy and even shut down some functions that are considered non-essential in life-or-death situations. For tens of thousands of years, this stress response kept us alive in fight-or-flight situations. It would allow us to run far and fast from danger, burn excess energy, or even store excess fat for times of starvation.
Our stress response was designed for physical danger. Not emotional, financial, or relational danger. If you find yourself gaining or losing weight at a rate greater than 2 pounds per week — it is cause for concern. Thankfully, our bodies gain and lose weight pretty early on in the stress cycle. This should be a signal to seek professional medical attention. Especially considering that there are other indicators that will come later on that can be life threatening; cardiac issues being chief among them.
Good luck! I came across this blog completely by accident. I was researching if my fat loss goals were unrealistic.
I read your advice and it is exactly what I have been advised to do. Most of my life I have worked out and stayed pretty fit. Then I turned 46 and premenopause hit. I had been having some personal issues and frankly just stopped caring. I was eating bad and not moving my body. I literally went from my bed to the sofa with constant stops to the fridge. Whatever your motivation for wanting to lose 20 pounds in one month say, a looming wedding, family event or graduation , unless you're on a medically prescribed plan, this rate of weight loss is nearly impossible and unsafe to achieve in just 30 days.
However, a month does give you time to lose some weight. And, more importantly, during that time you can jump-start healthy habits that'll help you continue to slim down in the coming weeks. Here's how to get started. To lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit , which is when you burn more calories than you eat, according to the Mayo Clinic.
In order to establish a realistic goal for one month of weight loss, consider how many calories you eat to maintain your current weight your maintenance calories.
You can find your maintenance level by tracking your meals for about a week, monitoring how many calories you eat each day.
Then, assuming you don't gain any weight during this week, you can use this general value as your calorie baseline. Download the MyPlate app to do the job and help you track your intake , so you can stay focused and achieve your goals!
In order to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, which is generally considered a safe weight-loss goal, you need to cut between and 1, calories per day, according to the Mayo Clinic. Creating a calorie deficit to lose 20 pounds in one month, on the other hand, entails a drastic, unsustainable diet plan, which can be risky to your health and may cause nutritional deficiencies.
Also, once you return to eating as you were before your effort to lose 20 pounds in a month, you'll likely gain the weight back quickly. Instead, do what you can to set up long-term healthy habits that will help you lose weight and keep it off for life. When you first start a diet plan and make drastic changes in the way you eat and exercise, you may lose more weight initially in the form of water.
This rapid weight loss should level off after a couple of weeks, however.
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