How long would it take to lose 40 lbs?

Question

I just need to know the most optimal way to lose as much weight as quickly as possible. I'm looking for ideal diet and exercise ideas... like how much should I exercise in a day or how many calories should I eat in a day? What kind of exercise and foods should i eat etc.

Answer 1

First, for all of the "quick and easy" weight loss diet pill suggestions, remember, if something sounds too good to be true... it probably is, particularly if you have to pay for it.


On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common questions amount 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

How Long To Lose 40 Lbs

Answer 3

nutritionists suggest losing only 2lbs a week. if you do not exercise right now, starting to exercise will make you loose weight and relatively quickly. they expect when you first change your eating habits and begin exercising you will loose between 5-7lbs a week (about the first 2 weeks).

as for the best diet - i lost 20 on weight watchers and kept it off for 3 years - that was when i started dating someone who found out i like truffles and would buy me 1-2lbs of truffles a week! (no will power). the meal system is based on calorie intake - i used the point system then (and am now again as i am trying to get back down to that weight which will be 50lbs) but they do other ways now, i'm comfortable with the points so that's what i'm sticking with. you actually don't need to join or even use the point system, as i said it is based on calorie intake, i just found it easier than counting calories (btw 2,000 is all you should be taking in daily, see if you are at that and if you are then drop it to 1800). you can find counters online (here's one with the formula for points : http://www.healthyweightforum.org/eng/articles/weight_watchers_points/ )
here's the points per weight range:
less than 150: 18-23 Points
150-174: 20-25 Points
175-199: 22-27 Points
200-224: 24-29 Points
225-249: 26-31 Points
250-274: 28-33 Points
275-299: 29-34 Points
300-324: 30-35 Points
325-349: 31-36 Points
more than 350: 32-37 Points

and i did tae-bo (the new fad at the time, i'm also doing that again - why mess with something that works?) - it was a 55 minute tape that i did about 5 times a week, the other two days i walked.
in about a month i lost the 20lbs and it tapered off from there. in total i lost 23lbs and then my body would loose no more (which was fine by me, i looked good)

the key things to remember are that everyone's metabolism is different & that your health is more important than your weight. you should never loose more than 10lbs in a week. if you do, call your doctor.

Answer 4

The diet is too much to handle becaue you're making yourself uncomfortable. If you make yourself uncomfortable with dramatic lifestyle changes, you wont stick with it. I think what will work best for you is one or two small changes at a time. That is how a lot of people do it. My mom used to be big as the side of the house and she started with small changes. First she gave up candy bars and after a week or so she gave up cheese burgers then after another week or so she started walking a little bit.... and just gradually keep adding those small changes. Shes fit now.

I think you could benefit a lot with some nutrition or fitness coaching. Most people need that because they want to change and have all the drive to do it and stick with it, but just don't know what to do or how to start.

Small changes make all the difference. I don't know what you do all day but one small change could be to just start taking stairs instead of an elevator... or if you have whole milk with your cearal, switch to skim or 2% just things like that. Or, if you eat breakfast as school, instead of having the biscuits and gravy, have fruit and oatmeal or whatever else is available that's a better choice. Or stop having ketchup with your French fries (its all sugar). It really does work.

I've spent lots of money on diet clinics and stuff that use drugs or put you on a really strict diet and the results never lasted because it was just too dramatic and I went back to the same bad habits. The only things that ever let to lasting resuts was the small changes that I stuck with... like parking far away from buildings and walking through the parking lot rather than parking as close to the door as I could... I've even joined extreme fitness classes like crossifr and never stayed with them because it was just too much all at once.

One thing you can do that you wont really notice is don't eat everything on your plate... leave like 20% of it. At the end of the month, all that food really adds up.

Answer 5

Traditional diets like Weight Watchers & Jenny Craig will give you 1-2 lb weight loss per week.

The Kimkins Diet will give you 5-7 lb weight loss per week or more if you're morbidly obese.

The diet is similar to what they use on Biggest Loser and they lose 10-20 lb per week! Check it out, sign up for the free newsletter.

Answer 6

If you burn 500 more calories than you eat every day for a week, you should lose about 1-2 pounds.

If you want to lose weight faster, you'll need to eat less and exercise more.

For instance, if you take in 1,050 to 1,200 calories a day, and exercise for one hour per day, you could lose 3-5 pounds in the first week, or more if you weigh more than 250 pounds. It's very important not to cut calories any further -- that's dangerous.

Limiting salt and starches may also mean losing more weight at first -- but that's mostly fluids, not fat.

"When you reduce sodium and cut starches, you reduce fluids and fluid retention, which can result in up to 5 pounds of fluid loss when you get started," says Michael Dansinger, MD, of NBC's The Biggest Loser show.

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Answer 7

Well I thought that was what I needed to do as well until I recently discovered a natural & healthy way to gain energy and lose weight that's even safe for people with diabetes. I implemented an anti-oxidant juice, a healthy energy drink (that only cost $1.oo per serving), and a simple and great “No Diet Weight Loss Plan” into my life. I feel 100% better and have a ton of more energy than I have ever had and I have lost 2 1/2" in my waist and I have lost 22 pounds (29 more to go) in only the last 30 days. What’s incredible (honestly) is that I did not diet (that’s boring), eat special foods (that cost extra money), skip meals (that makes your stomach growl), or even exercise (as I can not because of disc damage in my lower back). I have been told that I can not send a web link through this service but if you would like e-mail me or IM me from my profile and I will point you to the web site and to the products that have changed my life and vastly improved my health

Answer 8

There are three main ways to lose weight quickly.

1) Use only water as liquid and eliminate all other liquid drinks from your diet. You must drink as much water as possible every day. You must drink about half of your weight. If you have weight of 200 pounds then you must drink about 100 oz of water.

2) The interval between the eating is very important. If you eat once, then you must eat next after 4 hours. You must take breakfast regularly. In the night eat your food three hours before going to bed.

3) Walking is very good. You must walk as much as you can. Walk everywhere you can. Use of elevators and escalators must be reduced and instead of these you must climb stairs more often.

These are some of the fastest ways to lose weight. By just following the simple steps, you can lose your weight very quickly. You must consult your doctor if want to change your diet or exercise routine.

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Answer 9

I will try to keep it simple. Your metabolism is basically the rate at which your body burns calories to create energy. So the faster your metabolism, the faster you burn calories and the easier it is to lose unwanted weight. To boost your metabolism naturally you just need to eat the right foods.

You can sit down and literally eat a 1,000-calorie dinner and yet be absolutely starving just a few hours later and the reason is simple: Because your body didnt get what it needed in those 1,000 calories so it sends signals to your brain telling you to ingest more calories and thus, the late-night cravings. That means that the surest way to end those late-night cravings and keep your weight loss goals on track is to eat a more balanced, nutritious diet that actually gives your body what it needs.

It's VERY EASY to lose weight if you eat the right foods. Check out Dr. Charles Livingston's video here: http://www.sexyjese.com - it will blow your mind.

Answer 10

I have this leather belt that has five notches on it. It was almost tight on me. It was on the last notch. I could barely breathe. When I would do it up, I could barely do it up. And I remember that belt, because I had it for years, and I used to be able to easily put it on. And that's when I could really see that I was getting a little wider than I wanted to be.
So when I started the program, I was on the last notch. And now that belt with the five notches is way too big for me. I can pull it out to here, and I've saved the belt to remember just how much weight I've lost.

Answer 11

www.nutrisystem.com has a calorie counter and diet information that helps. It took me about 6 months...it has been 3 years and it stayed off...I was taking a nutrition class at the time I was loosing the weight and the best thing I learned was that your body will balance itself to the same level as it was before if you loose too fast..(I believe it's for survival if you were starving)...and if you lose it slowly like 2 pounds per week than your body will maintain a balance and will stay off for good.