How much weight can I lose if I consume 1500 calories a day for two months?

Question

I'm 5'8", 197 lbs and I intened on running for 20 to 30 min four days a week.

Answer 1

Let's start by clarifying a couple of things:
1. weight is not the best indicator of your health (because muscle weighs more than fat, two people of the same height can weigh the same and be drastically different in terms of health).
2. Body fat percentage is a true indicator.
3. Fat is burned by reducing overall caloric value.
4. If you burn more than you consume, you will lose fat (lower body fat percentage)
5. If you exercise and strength train, you can burn more calories and replace fat with muscle which will allow you to burn calories even when you rest.
6. You cannot "spot reduce", that is losing fat on particular parts of the body. This is because is fat is gained and lost across the body as a whole. It's up to your metabolism to determine where it comes of fastest. Cardiovascular exercise is key to losing fat across the body.

If you are trying to lower your body fat percentage there are literally hundreds of ideas out there. In my opinion, the best way, which has been proven time and time again, is a two part method: Eat right and exercise. First, exercise is a no-brainer. You have to burn more calories than you take in for exercise to be considered exercise. How you do it is worth another answer all to itself. So, that brings us to the Eating Right part. If you understand how your body works, you've got a head start on the world. Food is fuel for the body. Once you've accepted that concept as more important than the idea that food is entertainment, then the rest will be relatively easy. If you are American, and I assume you are, the Nutrition Facts label that you find on all foods bought in the U.S. are the next thing you need to understand. Go grab something from your kitchen (i.e. jar of peanut butter or a bag of chips...anything with a nutrition label). OK, yeah you need vitamins and minerals and all that. But focus on these three items: FAT, PROTEIN, and CARBOHYDRATES.
Let's take these one at a time:

FAT is basically divided into good fats and bad fats. The body needs good fats (mono- and poly-unsaturateds). You'll find these in stuff like olives and avocados where the bad fat is minimal if not nonexistent. The bad fats are your saturated and trans fats that you'll find in meats and oils. If you are trying to lose weight, keep these to an absolute minimum. My suggestion (based on a 1500-2000 calorie diet) is to limit yourself to no more than 15g of saturated fat per day. This is hard to do if you're used to eating fast food. It's also hard to do if you drink whole milk, eat cheese (even the 2% variety), and eat fried foods. All of these are high in bad fats. The good news is that you can substitute your diet to eat the very things you like to eat but with better ingredients. If you eat cheese, buy fat free. If you drink milk, buy skim. Slowly take yourself down from whole milk or 2% to 1% before going skim/fat free if the transition is too radical to do all at once. If you eat a lot of ground beef, use the extra lean variety (96% fat free/4% fat), or substitute lean ground turkey instead. Do whatever you have to do to get the bad fat grams down to less than 15 per day.

PROTEIN: The building block of nutrition (aside from your vitamins and minerals) is protein. You need it strengthen your muscles and it will be essential with your exercise routine. Without protein, you can't build muscle tone or lean body mass. And guess what? Just having lean body mass (muscles) allows your body to burn more calories even when you are sleeping. Therefore, you are able to lose weight (bad weight, that is) just by sleeping. But, you have to exercise!! Don't forget that. You can find foods that are high in protein but also high in saturated fat, so be careful. Stick to poultry (chicken, turkey), fish (tuna is a great source), and beans. Don't fry your meats because if you do, you just added a bunch of bad fat to your otherwise healthy protein filled meal. Instead, grill, broil, or bake. You can do this! Don't forget to exercise to exponentially reap the rewards of consuming protein.

CARBS. In my opinion, the no-carb diet is crap, because you need carbs for energy, especially because you are exercising! That's right, you can't forget you are supposed to be exercising. The trick is choosing the good carbs. You'll see on your nutrition label Total Carbohydrates and Sugars. Sugars should be kept to a minimum and should be avoided within hours of going to sleep. The calories associated with them get stored (for energy) but are not easily burned when it comes time to burn them. Therefore, it's harder to lose the weight associated with them. That's why it's not good to eat lots of candy, cookies, and ice cream that have a lot of sugar. The other kinds of carbs (complex carbohydrates) are essential. You can get these from grains and potatoes. Good stuff!!

Now that you have a brief understanding of these three nutrition components, time to get to it. Not as easy as it sounds? That's because, you're human. If you treat your body right (and I mean very right, by limiting your saturated and trans fats, limiting your sugar carbs, and eating plenty of protein), then you deserve a day when you can eat whatever you want. The body has cravings and you should be able to fulfill these cravings IF you can stand to wait until the end of the week. I call this one day of decadence your cheat day. After 12 weeks of exercising and eating right in this manner, you'll get to the point where you don't even crave the bad stuff anymore.

For more on this method, I encourage you to check out www.bodyforlife.com. The principals I wrote about are spelled out in greater detail there. Consult your doctor before drastically changing any diet or exercise routine. Good luck!

Answer 2

I agree with the last poster 100%. Also you should limit all of the bad carbs like bread. Brown rice is a great source. I don't eat a lot of meat either, but you do need a good source of protein. Eggs, soy, and just having a good ole protein shake after your work out is great. Don't only eat 1200 calories if you are breastfeeding. You will loose weight but toxins in your body store themselves in fat tissue. If you loose the weight too fast then all the toxins are floating around the body making you feel lathargic. You body won't know how to deal with it all at once. Not to mention that some of those toxins will end up in your breast milk. Just eat a diet that is very high in fiber and you should see the fat melt away without you having to try too hard :) It is a lifestyle. Don't diet. ***Edit...3500 calories is equal to 1 pound of fat.

Answer 3

I depends on how many calories you are consuming now. To lose one lb of weight, you need to reduce your caloric intake by 3600 calories. If you're currently consuming 2000 calories a day, and you reduce your taking intake to 1500 calories a day, you will lose 1 lb per week. If you're exercising, then you'll lose more than that.

Answer 4

at your height and current weight, 1500 cal a day should lose you 3 to 4 pounds a week. However, that is rather rapid weight loss and may not stay off once you acheive your goal. You may want to consider 1800 calories for a 2 pound a week loss which will be much more likely to stay off once you achieve your goal.

Answer 5

With your size and workout plan your daily calorie requirement to maintain your current weight is over 2500 and probably closer to 3000. It means that you will be on a 1000 to 1500 daily "calorie deficit". One pound of body fat is approx 3500 calories that your body will burn in about three days. In 60 days (two months), then, you can lose approx 20 lbs.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Another thing to consider is if you drop your calorie intake initially, you'll get good results because of the change, but if you stick with the same caloric intake for a period of time, your body will lower its set point to the new reduced level and adjust your metabolism accordingly.

You might want to try having a "high" calorie day every few days and eat say, 1800 (+20%) calories. That way the body can't get adjusted to one set calorie level. Helps keep the metabolism up.

Answer 8

On an average women lose 1-2 lbs per week normally, with running it might be a bit more, so you might lose anywhere from 8-20 lbs in two months on a 1500 caloric intake diet.

Men tend to lose three - five lbs per week.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

Well keep in mind that there are 3,500 calories in one pound.

So if you consume 1,500 a day.... and you work to burn off the 1,500 you consume a day..you're at a good start.

1,500 + 1,500 = 3,000 ....so in 2 days your consuming almost one pound...but your burning it off....now all you have to do is burn more than what your consuming in a day (if you consume 1,500 maybe aim to burn 2,000 calories a day) .... I'd say doing this you'd lose about 2-3lbs a week. Which is very healthy.

Answer 11

You should be able to shed the pounds if you can actually stick to that routine..........if it is fat weight that you wanna lose and not muscle mass drink a protein shake about 20-30 minutes before your run