How Long Will It Take To Lose Weight?
How long will it take to lose weight?!
My, that’s an unexpected question from you!
You asking it leads me to believe that you’ve finally gotten a look at yourself in the mirror and decided you’ve been letting yourself go for far too long and enough is enough. Good for you!
Now, to answer your question, I bet you think that weight loss takes a long, looooooooooong time.
Well, it doesn’t take that long.
In fact, you can lose weight pretty quickly by
• starving yourself
• picking up a disordered eating habit like bulimia
• shitting your brains out from drinking that flat tummy tea that IG influencer is always pitching
• chopping off a limb
• buying pills with tapeworm eggs in them
• sweating balls in a latex bondage suit while rolling MDMA at an electronic music festival during the middle of August
You’ll definitely lose weight…
and questionably obtained cash…
and function of vital organs…
and appendages…
and brain cells…
and muscle…
and water!
But that’s not what you want!
NOPE!!!
Rather than losing overall body weight, which can be in the form of many things, what you want to do is to lose body fat.
How you do this is by entering into a calorie deficit so the body has to resort to using its fat stores for energy. As the fat is burned for fuel, gradual weight loss occurs because you’re carrying less matter in the form of adipose. To accomplish this, the general guideline is to create a deficit that allows for the loss of 1-2 lbs per week. A deficit that drops more weight than that improves the odds of losing muscle, something that’s a no-no because muscle is what will help you keep the weight off once the diet is over, as well as prevent you from looking doughier than you already do.
Also, a larger deficit involves the consumption of less food than necessary. This not only increases the risk of nutritional deficiencies and their associated health problems but it also sabotages your weight loss efforts in two ways. One is by slowing down your metabolic rate, resulting in the burning of fewer calories. The other involves your appetite hormones getting thrown out of whack, which brings about hunger and cravings.
As such, to play it safe, drop 1-2 lbs per week!1NOTE: Someone who’s severely overweight can take a more aggressive approach, at least in the beginning, to get the weight off for obvious health reasons.
How?
By not eating so much shit!
Contrary to prevailing opinion, body composition has less to do with moving around and more to do with what goes inside your mouth. As proof, a meta-analysis of 25 years of weight loss research found that subjects who relied on diet alone lost a total of 23.6 lbs, about 17 lbs more than those who tried to lose weight via only exercise. When diet was combined with exercise, the intervention yielded an additional loss of 0.7 lbs. I know, the difference between weight loss by way of diet and a combination of diet and exercise is WHOPPING!!! All sarcasm aside, what this clearly shows is that you can lose fat without ever walking into a gym by just controlling your calories.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t create a deficit by also doing cardio or lifting weights, though. While the difference in weight loss between the diet only and diet and exercise group isn’t significant, the combination group did a slightly better job of maintaining the weight loss after a year. One reason may be owed to them developing the habit of staying active, which they continued through the initial weight loss. Another explanation may have to do with their possession of a faster metabolism thanks to the replacement of lost fat with calorie-burning muscle, especially if they were weightlifting.
So yeah, cardio is cool and lifting weights is cooler but not putting so much shit into your mouth is the coolest, with a combination of all three being the coolerest.
Given the above, how long will it take you to lose weight then?
Well, let’s say that you have to lose 25 lbs.2I know, just by looking at you I can tell that you need to lose way, way, waaaaaayyyyyyy more than that! However, this is just an example — NOT an actual representation of you and the unbelievable amount of weight you need to get rid of. If losing weight at a rate of 1-2 pounds per week, it should take you anywhere from 12 to 24 weeks to reach your goal.3Psst…that’s 3 to 6 months.
But wait, you ask, how do you know how much weight you have to lose?!?!
That’s a good fucking question!
Look at you wanting to know that because, as with all goals, it helps to have a specific target in sight when trying to lose weight so you know exactly how much you need to lose. And then once you have that number, you can use it to figure out how many weeks, months, years, decades of your life it might take to get rid of alllllllllllllllllllll those pounds.
So how do you determine the amount of weight loss you should aim for?
Well, you’ll be happy to hear the answer is a few steps away, with one of them including math.
Yup, math.
The look on your face says it all…
You’re ecstatic!
Without further ado, first find out your current body fat percentage.4DEXA scans, hydrostatic weighing, and air-displacement plethysmography produce the most accurate measurements. If you don’t have access to these tools, then get a rough approximation of where you are with calipers or a bioelectric impedance monitor. A good old-fashioned tape measure also does the job, with you then using something like the U.S. Navy body fat formula to deduce a body fat percentage from several site measurements. Then refer to the following ideal body fat percentage chart and ideal weight formula.
|
|
MEN |
WOMEN |
|
Essential Fat |
2-5% | 10-13% |
|
Athletic |
6-13% | 14-20% |
|
Fitness |
14-17% | 21-24% |
|
Average |
18-24% | 25-31% |
|
Obese |
+25% | +32% |
IDEAL WEIGHT FORMULA
Target Body Weight = Lean Body Weight / (1 – Target Body Fat Percentage)
NOTE: Women have a higher body fat percentage than men because they’re not as efficient at burning calories thanks to having less lean muscle mass. Further compounding matters, women also carry around more fat for stupid reproductive needs.5You know, stupid shit like ovulation, fetal development, and the creation of ass and titties large enough for men to overlook their owner’s shitty personality long enough to possibly procreate with them.
EXAMPLE:
Michelle weighs 140 lbs and her very inaccurate bathroom scale gives a reading of 30 percent body fat, making her 42 lbs of fat and 98 lbs of lean tissue.6Body Weight × Body Fat Percentage = Total Fat Weight
140 lbs × 0.3 = 42 lbs
Body Weight – Total Fat Weight = Lean Body Mass
140 lbs – 42 lbs = 98 lbs Michelle wants to enter a women’s bodybuilding competition, possibly in the figure division. To do that, she needs to be at least 10-13 percent body fat.
Target Body Weight = Lean Body Weight / (1 – Target Body Fat Percentage)
Target Body Weight = 98 lbs / (1 – .10)
Target Body Weight = 109 lbs
Target Body Weight = Lean Body Weight / (1 – Target Body Fat Percentage)
Target Body Weight = 98 lbs / (1 – .13)
Target Body Weight = 113 lbs
To reach an essential fat level of 10-13 percent body fat, Michelle needs to lose 27-31 lbs. At 1-2 lbs per week, it should take her anywhere from 14 to 27 weeks to get show ready.7Psst…that’s 4 to 7 months.
Too poor to afford even a tape measure to find out your body fat percentage? Or maybe you just can’t be bothered to?
You’ll be happy to hear that there’s an alternative method to finding out your ideal weight that has nothing to do with body fat percentage.
Interested?
Yeah, it involves less work, so of course you’re interested!
TO CALCULATE IDEAL WEIGHT FOR MEN:
Start with 106 lbs for the first five feet of your height and add 6 lbs for each additional inch.
FORMULA:
Wt lbs = [106 lbs + (6 lbs × Ht in)]
TO CALCULATE IDEAL WEIGHT FOR WOMEN:
Start with 100 lbs for the first five feet of your height and add 5 lbs for each additional inch.
FORMULA:
Wt lbs = [100 lbs + (5 lbs × Ht in)]
NOTE: How much you should weigh should be within a 10 lbs range above or below the figure arrived at with either formula.
EXAMPLE: FEMALE
Returning to Michelle, let’s say she’s 5’5″ in addition to currently weighing 140 lbs.
Wt lbs = [100 lbs + (5 lbs × Ht in)]
Wt lbs = [100 lbs + (5 lbs × 5 in)]
Wt lbs = 125 lbs
Based on the formula, Michelle should aim for a target weight of 115 to 135 lbs.8Note that the low end of the range brings her in proximity of the 109-113 lbs target weight arrived at via body fat percentage, which suggests that the margin of error isn’t that wide, at least at the outer edges. Still, because your amount of muscle and fat aren’t taken into account, nor your body frame and how well you carry your weight, you should use this method in conjunction with a mirror. From this figure, she can then calculate the length of time it should take her to lose her 5 to 25 lbs at a healthy clip of 1-2 lbs per week.
If you’re looking for more advanced math, you’ll be disappointed to learn that there is none.
We’re done.
Well, at least I am.
My job is done, the same can’t be said for you though.
You?
Yeah, you!
You still have to lose alllllllllllllllll the weight you now know you have to lose over the length of time that you now know it’s going to take!!!
Glossary: adipose, caloric deficit, calories, cardio, diet, exercise, gym, metabolism, muscle