I probably ruined everything - please please please help!

I'm 15, 5'5m 140lbs.

During last summer I weight 140. Then over the winter, I relaxed, and I gained around 22 lbs, up to 162. After weighting myself at the end of  April, I panicked. I barely ate 400 calories a day, exercise 2 hours daily (or more) and by the beginning of June, I was back to 140.

I'm back to 'normal' eating now. Still less than 1000 calories daily, and I walk around for 1hr each day. I drink 70 ounce of water each day.

Can anyone help me lose 20 pounds by September 2 - in a more healthy way?

*I don't eat oily or sugary food - my appetite is gone at the sight of it. Lingering effects from May - but I don't really mind it.

As a teen, you should be eating way more than 1000 calories a day. Think 1500 minimum. Your metabolism is probably already screwed up, so I would work on fixing that, first, before even considering losing any more weight. You are still starving your body of its required nutrients by eating only 1000 calories a day. Keep up the exercise, but please increase your calories to at least 1500--and even then you probably need more calories than that, as you are still growing.

You probably already know that there is no healthy way to lose that much weight in the time you have. 2 lbs a week is the maximum rate for a healthy loss and that is usually hard to maintain as you get close to your ideal weight. You don't even have 10 weeks as of today. So, let go of that goal--it's very unrealistic. Be at peace with saying good bye.

First focus on getting your metabolism back to normal by increasing your cals. You may have to accept a temporary gain, but that is the price of recovering your health AND it will be temporary. You know you can lose weight by restricting cals, and now you are learning to do it in a healthy way. So start right now, eating more--better now to gain some back than once school starts, right? When your weight seems to stabilize and you are eating a healthy amount (well over 1500, perhaps even eat what you burn and give your metabolism every cal it needs for a few weeks), then you will know you can focus on losing in a healthy way.

I'm sure it will be hard to accept that there is no other way, but commit yourself. At 15, you could be learning a lesson that will keep you fit your whole life and you might not ever have to deal with this problem again. i wish I had been smart enough at 15 to make better choices! You have already recognized that you've made a mistake but you have caught it relatively early and you have lots of summer time left to fix it and start anew. Go for it. And good luck.

 

As said above, you need to eat more than what you've been doing. Use the tools on this site with your goal weight and see what it gives you as a goal date to reach that. It may not be by September 2, but it wouldn't be too far off. I lost an average of 10 pounds a month when I first started losing, but that doesn't happen with everyone.