If I eat sensibly and exercise how much weight could I lose in a month?

Answer 1

Don't target more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. You can easily find a list of calories for various exercises by doing a Google search on something like "swimming calories." You can the lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you exercise them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

about 10 lbs.

My ideas? Try to do 200 minutes of cardio a week. Remember fat does not turn into muscle, so you need to lose your fat while putting on muscle. Work hard, but don't over 60 minutes at a time. Do planks and other abs exercises on alternate days.

On training days, do 5-10 minutes of cardio to warm up, then do your weight training. Do 30 to 60 minutes more of cardio, then go home.

The best time to eat is just after your workout within an hour when your metabolism is raging. For your muscles, incorporate some isolated soy protein or whey protein. Whey is more potent but the soy tastes better!

Don't look at your scale as the be all and end all, but get a measuring tape to check your progress, and that will show more tangible results.

Read magazines like Shape, Womens Fitness, Fitness, etc to get tips and to stay motivated.

Good luck and stick at it. This plan has lost me 20 lbs in 12 weeks so far, just go for it!

Answer 3

Most time many do not experience massive weight loss even on a sensible diet and regular exercise.
However, You can Feel and Notice the changes in you. You will be more active and energetic in everything you do. best of all.. you may be able to wear clothes that used to be "tight" coz more often that not.. you have converted your body fats into muscle.
So my dietician always remind us that Measurement only by the weighing scale may not paint a correct picture of oneself.
So glad you know and want to change for the better. Good Luck

Answer 4

First it depends on if you are male or female because men lose weight much faster than women.

If you are a man...I think it would be possible to lost 5 pounds a week, and it shouldn't be too hard to do if you really buckle down and stick to the diet and exercise plan.

If you are a woman I would say that 3 pounds a week is possible. :)

Answer 5

If you are excercising then don't watch the scale so much.....muscle weighs more than fat.....but you definately want to tone up, so you'll be able to tell by how your clothes fit, no more "rolls" or smaller ones in certain places, less giggling......;), and not so much by the scale #'s! And finish eating at least 3 hrs. before going to bed b/c you do no excercising at while you sleep to burn it off! Just some stuff to think about......good luck!

Answer 6

You should try to lose 2-3 lbs a week - any more than that it will just come back because you will be losing too fast and it won't be fat.

Answer 7

not only will you get in some exercise you re less likely to choose something unhealthy after a little movement

Answer 8

Sweet potatoes help you lose weight

Answer 9

every ones wait loss sped differs! but if you haven't exercised for long and you haven't eaten a healthy diet for long then the results will probably be quicker

Answer 10

resistance bands are a comfortable and affordable at home exercise option for strength straining