1 and a half stone weight loss

I need to lose 1 and a half stone, real real real quick, as in by this time in June please. This is so I can get into the Army BMI bracket and enter Basic by september.

I want to do it by high amounts of exercise, I can do cardio daily and I can fit in Bodyweight if I really try, but my question is is it actually possible to do..?

 

21 lbs in 4 weeks? Good luck! As Saz said, watch your calories, although at over 5 lbs a week, you're looking at a daily calorie deficit of 2,500 calories! This is going to mean eating very little, and exercising a lot, for a month.

 

Eat small, eat regularly, 3 meals by noon starting at 7.30 - 8, and 2 after noon by 6 - 7.

Focus on weight training 3 times a week doing nothing but big ass compound exercises.

Jog before breakfast. Apparentley intense morning workouts dont burn as much fat

and swim everyday if you can. swim swim swim!

 

I know of several diets that will give you this amount of weightloss in time, and all of them have very nasty side effects, some of them into the long term. That's the trouble with crash diets; in the long run, they do you more harm than good. If you really want the details of them, send me a private message. I have no desire to endorse them here.

My fiance tells me that in his first week in the military he lost around 18lbs. He literally ran the weight off. I'm wary of suggesting that this is any kind of a healthier way to go dropping pounds, as there's plenty of potential for physical damage.

You say you have time for daily cardio; how long do you have? If you're looking to get into the army you could do worse than to run a lot, as you'll be doing that a lot in basic, anyway. I seem to recall you recently began a running program, right? If that's going well, and you can easily run for half an hour, I'd work on building up your mileage a little. Like anything else, however, this should be done gradually. In fact, you really don't want to be increasing your weekly mileage by more than 10% each week. To get the results you want, you will be putting your body at risk of significant injury.

My best advice to you is to wait a little while longer, losing weight and building up your fitness gradually; more importantly, doing so safely.

How long will you have to wait if you don't make your June deadline?

 

Thanks for the advice!

Basically if I am not within the BMI bracket by the Selection weekend (probably in august) I have 0 chance of getting into the September intake for the Training Regiment. Now, this wouldnt be THAT MUCH of a biggy, but the next intake is January, so I'll be sitting on my **** doing not alot as I'll of left college and not have enough time to get work... plus that leaves me with christmas to contend with (evil food.... evil!)

 

They use BMI as a selection criteria? That's wrong on so many levels. According to my BMI I'm overweight, which is a heap of crap.

 

Yeah, its one of the basic criteria you need before attending ASDC (or whatever letters theyre calling selection now)... I *think* they might have exceptions for when there isnt an ounce of fat on your body, but I don't think so... one of my mates was told he either had to lose a stone or grow an inch.... aint selection fun

 

left it a bit late!

good luck trying to lose the weight but you have left it too short to lose that much weight in a few weeks IMO

 

Thats what I thoughtk unless they have a some machine to measure it. But using weight and height is often very stupid....

 

Run fatty!! Run!!!!


I did, i have lost 12lb in 6 weeks, not the timescale you are looking for but i would have lost a lot more if i didnt have a social life at weekends!!

 

I agree, using BMI as a sole measurement for selection is stupid.

It's not an accurate measurement of whether someone is over/underweight or not when used alone.

To be honest, I would not recommend losing that much weight in that short a time. It's going to do you more harm than good, by the time you manage to get on basic, your body will probably be too weak / exhausted / undernourished etc etc to enable you to put the effort in and you'll probably fail anyway.

Lose the weight gradually and apply to join further down the line.

Just me 0.2

 

he wants to lose weight not build muscle.

serious calorie restriction and cardio should be your focus, but its not exactly healthy.

 

Well building muscle will burn a crap lot of fat.

Although I see the problem with actually gaining weight in the process.

But If you stick to just HIIT and aerobic workouts then you may lose a lot of fat, but your muscles will be diminished in mass too and you'll be a twig.

 

ummm. kid thid might be the first time I have EVER old somebody that being fat is in their best interest. you might want to explore another career. One that won't get you shipped of and shot at in the middle-eastern theater (once we add iran it is going to be rough). You can lose 21 pound in the time you have, but the discipline required will be trying.
if you are an average male you need about 1600 (if your about 170-210 lbs) calories just to stay the same weight if you lie around on ___. please look up an online basal caloric calculator and get your number. for safe weight loss you want to eat that number or "maybe" up to 200 less a day. You also want to increase your excercise to burn more calories. you can look up excercise calories from a chart or another online tool. www.calorieking.com has several good free tools last I checked. lets say you get your activity up to 3500 calories a day and eat 1500. If you actually succeed in burning 2000 extra calories (of fat and some muscle) a day that is 14000 or roughly 4-5 lbs a weeks. However, this looks easy on paper... in reality it is hard to move that much aand eat so little. you should be able to lose 2-3 pounds a week though (use the calculator and keep track of everything you eat) if you are really serious about it. if you average 2.5 lbs for the 6 weeks until june first... there are your 21 lbs... you have time if you want to go shoot and people and be shot at....
?good luck?

 

Weight training 3 times a week, like neb suggested is a good idea. His diet will be the biggest factor in how much weight he loses. If he is in a caloric deficit he will not gain weight from lifting. Plus, performing heavy compound exercises burns a ton of calories, and will help perserve as much LBM as possible.

 

M Lambert; how much overweight are you? Unless you have a large amount of fat that you can shift, ie a fair bit more than 1 1/2 stone then you'll find the task near imppossible. And with bad side effects of losing muscle if not careful. I find it hard to believe that the army would use such a poor measure of fitness. Surely they don't want to desciminate against people with considerable muscle mass?!

A method that could work is the Velocity diet on T Nation, good for rapid fat loss while maintaining muscle! Looks fun though

 

if i remember rightly MAP member Siphus tried the velocity diet a few months back. it may be worth dropping him a PM.

pgm> thats a really good point. i too cant believe that the armed forces in the 21st century would use weight as a measure of fitness. it seems crazy and counterproductive.

 

Have you already finished school and you're just kicking your heels at the moment? If that's the case, you could certainly engage in a lot of low intensity exercise, which would be bit less stressful on your body, I'd think.

You could strap some gear on your back and go hiking and camping for a few weeks. Well, you could even skip the camping part. Or you could cycle, if you have a reliable bike and can cope with getting saddle sore. Anyway, the point is, if you're doing an entire day of actiity, even if it's just walking, you should be burning around 4000 calories.

On top of that, if you restrict your calorie intake severely, you'll be lacking in energy, obviously, but you'll definitely lose weight.

Try to make sure you're not eating less than 1500 calories.

 

As an ex-soldier I know plenty about the selection process. Whatever we might think of different methods of measuring of body composition, the British military will still allocate a maximum weight for an individuals height (actually they factor in "frame size" - but this doesn't change things by much)

The key here is "weight" loss, don't worry too much whether this is from fat or muscle - once you're in, your body composition will never be measured again and you can put on as much muscle as you want. IMHO the best approach is a combination of running and calorie watching. The running will also give you the type of fitness that will be beneficial through assessment & basic training.

Actually, you're rather lucky. The maximum weight scale has recently been increased for the first time in 60 years or so