on average, how long does it take to lose 15Kg (2 1/2 stone)?

Question

are we talking weeks, months or years?

Answer 1

With serious effort, about four months would be right. Here are some suggestions.

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

It would depend on if you wanted the weight to stay off, it`s no good starving yourself to lose the weight fast,as what you have lost, will go back on faster, when you start eating again. If you are serious you should aim at losing 2 - 3 pounds a week, that`s the only way you will be able to benefit from your weight loss. so I reckon you are looking at 3 - 4 months. But it will be worth the weight oh sorry wait.

Answer 3

For a lasting result, it should take 2 months and 1 week!

Answer 4

easiest way is to totally give up sugar, if you can do this you will loose at least 10-14lb in a month. i have done it with no exercising at all. sugar not only makes you store fat it also inhibits a chemical in the brain that tells you that you are full, when you give up sugar it is amazing how you hardly ever feel hungry as you just eat what your body needs. im not saying it is easy , because sugar can be as addictive as drugs, but i have been off sugar for 4 months now and can honestly say have never felt better also have steadily lost 20lb. remember diet products contain artificial sugar which is just as bad. eat fat as this is good for you and stay away from processed food and shop brought bread. check label's as even food such as cottage cheese has sugar in it.

Answer 5

I think a realistic target is 2 lbs a week..its a slow process but fad quick diets don't work long term when you stop it all goes back on and sometimes more. 2lbs a week 4-5 months up you exercise too to tighten your skin.

Answer 6

no one can tell how much time or effort it will require to lose that much weight but if u work out daily about 1 hour it may take some weeks approx.2 weeks

Answer 7

Walk to some co-worker's desk to chat as opposed to instant messaging.

Answer 8

In the mood for a new hot meal? Make a enormous pot of veggie bean soup, divide into two-cup containers, and store from the freezer. Before bed, place a container in the fridge, then grab it before heading out the door every day.

Answer 9

Don't know about anyone else, but i reckon i can lose it in 3 and a half weeks.

Answer 10

A good rate of losing weight is approx. 1kg a week, to be able to keeep it off - so 15 weeks?

Answer 11

Eat in front of a person rather than a screen. It cuts down on mindless eating and enables you to more accountable for each nip.