How much can you really lose by summer?

with intense diet and exercise how much you realistically expect to lose by June?

id say it depends on your weight. If you weigh 300+ lbs, the pounds are going to come off quicker than if you weigh 150.

according to cc, you should aim for a 500-1000 calorie deficiet per day to lose 1-2  lbs per week healthily (depending on how much you have to lose/ how much you weigh). so if you have a 500 calorie deficiet every single day untill june, i guess that would be about 20 pounds or so.

but thats only a mathematic calculation ofcourse. everyones body is different, you might lose faster in the begining, or hit a plataeu sometime, or weight loss might speed up, etc.

I expect to lose at least 20 more pounds.

Using the tools here with an open date leaves me at hitting my 41# goal by July 28th, with a 1.5lb loss weekly.  This is with a moderate exercise program and trying to get to the target of 1550 calories a day, which I'm usually under.  Intense isn't something I can afford to risk another injury with.  realistically I expect about 20# leaving room for gain with muscle building or a week (or more) with a 0.5 loss or 1# loss.

i think the 1-2 pounds per week is only if you're actually overweight.  once you get into a healthy range it's 1% per week.

and that doesn't mean that you can lose 20% in 20 weeks, because as you lose weight, the amount represented by 1% drops.

you can lose faster than that, but the odds that you'll keep it off goes down dramatically.

last march i started my diet, i was 265 lbs 5'11 and i am a male. I ate no sweets at all, 1500 calories, and ran 2 miles per day. By the beginning of june i was down to 205.  the easy part is losing, the hardest part is maintaining.

It really isn't about where you start out, pound-wise. Has anyone ever watched the TV show Biggest Loser?

These people have at least 100 pounds to lose--they're working out at least 5 hours per day, eating strictly with no cheating at all and some weeks they don't lose even one pound (some even gain!), where others on the same team,  with a similar amount of weight to lose, will drop 20 pounds, in that very same week.

So there are a lot of variables in the human body. Perhaps it's thyroid or hormonal issues.

But starting out at a heavier weight is definitely not a guarantee that you will drop weight faster (as evidenced on the Biggest Loser).

No, but it is possible for a 400 pound person to healthily lose 4 pounds a week whereas it is not possible for a 150 pound person to healthily lose 4 pounds a week.  1% of your weight is the maximum amount you can safely lose in a week (not counting water losses the first week or two on a new eating plan).  You're right that not everyone will be able to lose as much as that, depending on their body chemistry and whether or not they've found the best diet for them.

The Biggest Loser isn't the best example simply because of the games they play with water.  A contestant with immunity will always lose less than the rest because they up their salt intake so that they hold onto water weight to "save" their weightloss for a week that counts.  The person losing 10-20 pounds is often doing so based on a couple of weeks of "saved" weightloss.  And the crazy numbers they post week 1 are because the producers encourage the contestants to pig out as much as possible before the first weigh-in so that they'll have dramatic results week 1.  (I also have a sneaking suspicion that Biggest Loser weeks are longer than seven days, but that's just a theory.  The rest are for sure.)

I think it really depends on how close you are to your ideal body weight. its going to be harder to lose after you are near where your body is comfortable. so, for me, i would think 10 lbs although "normal weight loss" is 2 lb/ a week.

If my understanding of fat loss is correct (a lot of what I've learned has come from these very message boards then reinforced elsewhere) how much you CAN lose is completely and totally based on how much you HAVE to lose. The blanket statement of "1 to 2 pounds a week" can't be placed on EVERYONE. My g/f is 17 percent body fat and I'm some where around 30. I will/can/am losing more weight than she can/will/is.

After calculating my fat deficit before I catabolize, I, in theory, can use 4.4 pounds a week with out touching muscle mass and I'm not 400 pounds nor anywhere near.  Its about fat. Understand your fat and you'll undestand whats possible.

That's right, Jay.  Our bodies can burn 31 calories of fat per pound of fat per day.  So, a 200 pound person with 30% body fat would have 60 pounds of fat and could therefore have a maximum deficit of 1860 calories per day (but that would be really pushing it; they probably wouldn't want to go over 1500-1600 calorie deficit per day just to be on the safe side).  If that person maintained a 1500 calorie deficit per day, they'd lose 3 pounds of fat per week.   

Now compare that person to a 125 pound person with 17% body fat.  That person has only 21.25 pounds of fat.  So their maximum deficit would be just under 660 calories/day - and they'd probably want to go no higher than 500 calories/day as a safety margin.  So, that person could lose a maximum of 1 pound of fat per week.

The 1% of total weight recommendation works fairly decently with those sorts of numbers - and really only breaks down when the body fat percentage gets high.  Even at 30% bodyfat, you were still looking at potentially losing 1.5% of your weight per week - which isn't that far off (and many people will find a 1000 calorie deficit far more manageable than a 1500 calorie deficit unless they're superactive).

I'm hoping on losing 25lbs by June. Their are 15 saturdays until june and 2 lbs per week is 30 pounds but I know life doesn't work that perfectly so my goal is really 25 lbs