I am 220 Lbs. Trying to Lose 50 Lbs By Christmas any tips and suggestions?

Question

Im 20 yrs Old and weighing 220 LBS. Im trying to go back to my regular weight of 170. Im hoping to reach this weight by Xmas this year. But im not looking to over do it. Lately since about thursday October 4, I have been running 2 miles a day and eating right. I want to see fast results. Any one have some suggestions or tips?

Answer 1

Your goal is a little ambitious. 25-30 lbs in that time is very possible. Would hate to see you make good progress and still be frustrated that it wasn't "fast enough." Here are some aggressive but realistic ideas.


On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common question amounts to "How do I lose weight," or more specifically, "How do I lose abdominal fat?" I have gotten very positive responses from my answers when I paused to reply (and now beginning to get "It works!" emails that are very gratifying. I like helping people)... so have recently decided to put a good solid answer on my Yahoo!360 Blog (September 10) that I can point people to. These are my thoughts as a physician and athlete.

Don't target losing 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. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such 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 work 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

Hey there. About a year and a half I was at 248 and decided that I needed to lost weight. What I did..was ate a small breakfast (usually yogurt and an apple), a sandwich for lunch, a few carrots or other nutritional snack, and then a healthy dinner. But...I watched how big of portions I ate. I never ate past 8 o'clock...and I only drank WATER. No caffeine, sugar, or alot of salt. It really worked. I went from a size 22 pants to an 11. I lost about 35 lbs QUICKLY from the month of september to december. Now...I have lost a total of 58 lbs. I am not longer losing, but I eat normal and eat snacks again. I am actually starting to try to lose about another 25 lbs. So good luck with the weight loss! I wouldn't try to lose more than 10 a month though.

The biggest thing about losing weight I would have to say was cutting the soda pop out of my diet.

ALso i was too self conscious to go to a gym, so i got 5 lb weights and lifted them, and did sit ups and danced at home. It helped alot!!!

Answer 3

You sound very busy, please don't starve yourself that doesn't do any good just makes your body hold on to fat and eats muscle. 50 pounds is a lot so don't be disappointed if you don't get there by Xmas but know that you'll get there if you keep at it. The depression could be causing you to gain weight so maybe look into getting some medication. I also suffer from depression and exercising actually helps. I also have fibromyalgia so I'm sore and tired all the time which I imagine is how you feel. The best thing I have found is an exercise bike. I got a good one at Academy Sports and I do that for 30 minutes every other day sometimes more. You should try that.

Answer 4

First of all eliminate some of the sugar and salt from your diet. Add more fruits and vegetables and drink plenty water. take frequent walks as a means of excercise and trying using the symmetry natural weight loss product. the simply slim controls your appetite and gives you energy. the thermo balance burns fat. the carb lesssupports a low carb diet by reducing the breakdown and thus the absorption of carbohydrates by inhibiting digestive enzymes involved in carbohydrate digestion. The night lite burns fat while u are sleeping. lipo sorb reduce the absorption of fat. the premium plus is a meal replacement shake. try it they will work. 90 days max. u may choose to eliminate the simply slim and use the other 4. up to you. you can order online at www.symmetrydirect.com/vvstewart and u can also get more information there.

Answer 5

You are not going to lose that much weight in that time. But you could lose some by following the sugar busters diet. Do a search for it. Basically you cut out sugars, white bread, white rice, potatoes and white pasta. It's not that hard to do, and is a pretty healthy lifestyle. If you keep doing that and also continue to exercise, you should do well.

Answer 6

Fast results will make you sick and not lead you to healthy lifestyle change. Go to www.sparkpeople.com it is an excellent diet and exercise website which wil instruct you what to eat, what exercises to do to safely lose 50 lbs by Christmas. Good luck.

Answer 7

Go to: www.ediets.com

They do a free online diet profile for you that shows you how many calories to eat each day to lose up to ten pounds a month.

Answer 8

I would go on this site:http://www.mypyramid.gov/

to triple check that you are not loseing weight too fast.

Answer 9

YES I GOT A TIP FOR YOU. DO NOT TRY TO LOOSE 25LBS A MONTH ITS NOT HEALTHY TO DO THAT AND SECOND THE ONLY WAY TO LOOSE THAT MUCH TWO MONTHS IN A ROW IS HAVE BYPASS SURGERY OR HAVE THE STOMACH STAPLED. NOW DO YOU WANNA GO THROUGH THAT??

Answer 10

Nutrisystem and exercise.