Unless you’re a huge person to start or have massive water weight you don’t. A pound of fat is approximately 3,000 calories, so you would need an almost 3K deficit every day to drop that, and since most people eat around that much as their normal intake that’s an extreme amount that could be deemed starvation.
Now if you happen to be huge where the normal body functioning uses well past that then maybe, but if you’re anywhere below 300 lbs that would be a crazy amount for 2 months.
I’ve heard it said that a healthy target is around 1 lb per week. Maybe 2 if you’re very obese, but at that point you really should be doing it under medical guidance.
In any case, the best way I’ve heard (outside of drugs) is to get an app that helps count calories, set a realistic daily caloric target and exercise schedule, and stay on it.
Consistency is key. For many the problem is they think of it as something you need to do for a while and then go back to ‘normal’ when really you should be looking for a new normal.
Apps can help, the best one is the one you actually use honestly and routinely.
Are there any apps you would recommend?
I used energize on fdroid. It’s not perfect but it did the job and it’s foss
Macrofactor. Helped me lose over 10 pounds and keep my weight stable once I was at target.
I lost 40lbs in 7 weeks. Would not recommend. It was from chemo and radiation making so that I vomited any food, and needed a liquid food pump inserted. Your body will be wrecked at that calorie loss.
Well - I don’t think this is healthy or possible in 2 months.
Last year, I weighed in at 242 with high blood pressure and decided to get serious about weight loss. I started tracking my input and output to my system. I have a watch that measures approximately how much I work off. I use apps to track how much I’m taking in. The one factor that is missing is your BMR, your basal metabolic rate. This is how many calories you burn just by being alive. There are special scales or devices that can measure this for you. You will need this to figure out the math.
Food calories eaten - BMR - Exercise calories spent = Calorie deficit or excess
So, if you exercise more, or eat fewer calories, you’ll lose weight.
So, a pound of fat is 3500 calories, so if you have a deficit of about 500 calories a day, that’s about a pound of fat per week. If you have a deficit of 1000 calories a day - that’s a lot! - then you might lose 2 pounds a week.
Using this formula, I managed to lose about 45+ pounds in 6 months. I worked up to a walk+jog and managed to cover about 3+ miles per day. Unfortunately, with the cold weather of winter, I’ve not been able to exercise much, so my weight loss stopped in December.
But what you’re talking about is losing 5+ pounds per week. That would require a 2500 calorie deficit! That would be a super-heavy workout every day. And then eating very sensibly. Even so, there is danger that some of your weight loss would be muscle and bone loss in addition to fat.
tl;dr - Don’t do this. Also, talk to a doctor.
50 pounds in 8 weeks is 6 pounds per week which is well beyond a safe level of fat loss (without medical supervision and extenuating circumstances or surgery).
You’ll be left with a lot of flappy skin too.
“Not spending a lot” wouldn’t be worrying about that, you’re not going to be eating.
That sentence makes no sense. Figure out the amount you would need to eat and work out to MAINTAIN your desired weight and start doing that. Let it take however long it takes, then keep doing that to maintain, or tweak it to improve.
50lb in 2 months sounds dangerous as fuck. You could stop eating and probably lose that much, fuck up your metabolism, and immediately gain it back without even eating as much as you did before.
Severe illness or a gulag.
50 lb over 8 weeks is pretty insane. 1 lb/week is pretty good. 2 a week is pushing it.
50 isn’t going to happen without consequences.
I did a pretty extreme weight loss a few years back, and in two months, I lost 20 pounds.
Even that was a bit more than is recommended without strict medical supervision. Two pounds per week is kind of the upper bound of “normal” weight loss. Don’t attempt more without a very, very good reason, and an even better doctor.
Losing that much weight in that amount of time means you have a critical medical condition. However in two months you can easily learn better, healthy nutrition and become more active, even have a lightweight exercise program. This will serve you better in the long run. There is never an easy way to become more healthy in a short term, except death.
Death, the ultimate health program.
Ask for cremation for the fastest weight loss.
Chop an arm?
If you stop eating entirely for 2 months you might just barely make it.
EDIT: Or sing up for the next season of Alone, which is basically the same thing.
Turns out, there are people who practice that sort of extreme fasting. BTW going back to normal eating doesn’t happen in a day.
I’m aware of one case where a man lost a ton of weight by fasting for several months and maybe taking some supplements but that was done under medical supervision. It can definitely be done but it’s dangerous.
a ton
I think someone forgot to update the article
What is Alone? A tv show or somethiing?
Amputation
Outside of necessary amputations or liposuction, there’s no healthy way to do that. Especially in a way that’s sustainable.
Napkin math: There are roughly 3,500 calories in 1 lb of fat. To lose 50lbs of fat, that’s 175000 calories.
Let’s get an upper bound of 31 days per month, for 2 months, that’s 62 days. 175000 / 62 approximately 2822.5 calorie deficit per day required. The actual number would be higher.
The other aspect of this is that, generally speaking, the majority of “quick” weight loss is pretty much always in the form of water loss. Water weighs around 8lbs a gallon. So, you’d need to drop about 6 gallons of water to achieve that kind of weight loss.
Neither of these are safe, reasonable, or practical in that time frame, for the average person without medical supervision and/or other professionals supporting you.
Nothing, it’s just a bad idea
Also, just go see a doctor, because each situation is unique and it’s stupid to believe the “calories in calories out” shit
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Yes
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Calories in, calories out is basic thermodynamics.
In the context of human energy use it’s also extremely simplified. Energy in can be measured in terms of food, but that assumes all calories are absorbed. It also assumes exact efficiency. It assumes average energy use etc.
As weight loss drugs show, for many who struggled with weight loss before, it’s also important how the body uses, stores and distributes the energy.
Sure, no energy is created or destroyed, but dietary makeup, hormones, metabolism gut motility, gut biome, etc all have an effect in the process.
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Well scientifically it is exactly calories in to your metabolism vs calories burned out.
Whether your body is absorbing those, or too depressed of a system to burn at a normal rate would be the doctor’s investigation.
What is the “calories in calories out” shit?
Ignoring metabolism and focusing solely on food calories consumed and exercise calories burned.
While calories are basic physics/chemistry/biology, they say nothing about the health of the individual. Not eating anything for a month to burn through your fat reserves isn’t going to leave you thin and trim.
That is metabolism. CICO will make literally anyone gain or lose weight. Nothing in the universe violates thermodynamics. You maintain a healthy caloric deficit and lose weight. End of story.
Not eating anything for a month is an eating disorder.
The big difference is the effect of a calorie for each person differs. How the body chooses to burn a calorie differs. If person A reduces their diet by 3000 calories in a week they might lose a pound. Person B might not. CICO is literally thermodynamics, you’re very right. How our bodies react to thermodynamics varies quite a bit.
What you’re describing is basically your metabolic rate. Everyone has a different one. If yours is super efficient, you need to eat less than other people.
That’s the whole story. You can still reduce calories to lose weight. It’s literally the only way.
If it’s impossible to lose weight and still eat sufficient nutrients to survive, then you are one in a million and go see a doctor. Everyone else, start adding vegetables and fiber to your meals.
What I’m talking about but maybe didn’t do a very good job of explaining is metabolic adaptation. It can take months before your body adjusts, before you figure out what calorie deficit is needed and it varies wildly from person to person. Our brains can burn calories to be more creative or slow down to preserve ideal body weight. Which can negate a wide amount of calorie usage. https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2023/07/05/its-time-to-bust-the-calories-in-calories-out-weight-loss-myth.html
Yep, it takes a while to figure out where your calorie intake should be, and it changes over time.
But to be clear, in no way does that mean some people can’t lose weight with a calorie deficit. It means it’s complicated to find your deficit, and you won’t ever get nice linear progress. I think a lot of weight loss problems are because people get sold on diets and expect steady results. That’s not real.
This isn’t a diet. If someone wants to be fit, they need to learn to eat like a fit person because one day they’ll be a fit person and then they’ll have to maintain that. Forever. So no keto. No carnivore. No intermittent fasting (unless you really can do that forever. I’m going on 5 years). Just eat more fiber, less calorie dense things, and find things you like that are sustainable for you.
Sorry, just realized I’m ranting. This is one of those topics that gets me going because there’s an entire industry designed to make you lose weight, gain it all back, and suck the money out of your wallet in the process. It doesn’t need to be like that. It’s not that complicated. There’s no trick to it.
#mikeneedsaplan
