Losing 1.5 stone, what should my target be?

MrStuffins

I am approx 6ft and 14.5 stone. I want to get down to 13 stone.

My diet is terrible, i eat junk all the time. No fruit, no veg. I drink Coke all day and never water. It's terrible.

Now, i am going to transform it totally. Give up Coke and just drink water, give up the junk snd eat mainly fruit and veg.

If i change my diet like this and work out 3-4 times a week (Cardio work for 90 minutes a session), what should my target be to getting down to 13 stone?

MagicMarker

The general concesus is a max 2lbs a week, although you may find you'll lose more than that at first, especially when you get rid of the coke.

TBH, try not to get hung up on weight, weigh yourself at the start, after you wake up and have been to the toilet, then don't go near the scales for at least two weeks!! When you do weigh yourself again be sure to do at the same time etc as before for consistency sake. Buy a measuring tape and keep track every two weeks.

90 minutes of cardio is a lot, and may get boring after a while. Why not cut it down to 45 minutes and introduce a weights program? Weights are just as effective for fat loss and it means when you cut down the fat there will be some lean mass there, not just ''less fat''.

Start a log in the Fitness Logs forum to track progress, I'd say in 2-3 months you'll be where you want to be.

Read the stickies and good luck.

Degsy

MagicMarker wrote: »

The general concesus is a max 2lbs a week, although you may find you'll lose more than that at first, especially when you get rid of the coke.

In my experience you wont actually lose anything for at least 6 weeks unless you actually starve yourself.
Thats why a lot of people wont stic with diets..they dont see the magic "2lb per week" drop off straight away.
You need to stick with it and realistically it could take 5 months to lose 1.5 stone.

jaggiebunnet

I dropped a 1.5 stone in about 3 months - from just running 30 / 35 minutes every day 5 days a week and changing what i ate to a better diet. Basically get rid of the crap you say you eat and the coke and start eating as per the stickies porridge/weetabix in the morning etc etc.

Stopped the running now as I don't want to lose anymore weight and have started the "Starting Strength" weights program and finding it very good and tough and thankfully not anything like as boring as the running was.

nearly 3 months on from dropping the weight and have kept it off apart from maybe a lb or two that i attribute to muscle gain as the wee belly left is definitely getting smaller still.

The running is tough going but I found it the easiest and quickest way - I didn't have to think just stuck on the headphones and ran. Boring as hell though - tried to make it interesting by watching episodes of family guy on the itouch - only meant I kept nearly flying off the treadmill coz I wasn't watching what I was doing

seamus

Give yourself a timeframe to lose the weight - don't be too optimistic but at the same time don't be too relaxed about it. You're not massively overweight which means that weight loss is less likely to be consistent and you'll probably lose it slower than the "ideal". For 1.5 stone, I'd give yourself 5-6 months.

ntlbell

why do you need to have a target?

just change your diet do more exercise and everything will adjust itself, don't put preasure on yourself or limit's

it will come off if your doing the right thing tis not a race.

MagicMarker

Degsy wrote: »

In my experience you wont actually lose anything for at least 6 weeks unless you actually starve yourself.
Thats why a lot of people wont stic with diets..they dont see the magic "2lb per week" drop off straight away.
You need to stick with it and realistically it could take 5 months to lose 1.5 stone.

A lot of people don't stick to diets because they're usually clueless about correct nutrition/exercise and have a goal in mind that is unattainable when coupled with their own ignorance.

If the OP, or anyone for that matter, reads up on what they should/shouldn't eat, stays strict and trains hard then I see no reason why it would take six weeks to start dropping lbs.

seamus

ntlbell wrote: »

why do you need to have a target?

It's more effective to have a goal to aim for than to simply keep going along without any measure of how well you're doing. You're more likely to push yourself and maintain any change in lifestyle in order to attain that goal. It is a bit like running a race - if people were told that running a marathon is, "Just keep running/walking for as long as you can until you feel like stopping, there's no finish line", do you think that any casual runners/joggers would bother finishing it?

ntlbell

seamus wrote: »

It's more effective to have a goal to aim for than to simply keep going along without any measure of how well you're doing. You're more likely to push yourself and maintain any change in lifestyle in order to attain that goal. It is a bit like running a race - if people were told that running a marathon is, "Just keep running/walking for as long as you can until you feel like stopping, there's no finish line", do you think that any casual runners/joggers would bother finishing it?

I think the biggest problem with people putting it back on is having target's and goals is that something "end's" when you get to the finish line you stop running marathon over. with being healthy and in order to maintain the right weight there is no finish line there is no end the end is when your put into a box.

sure having a target weight is fine but putting time limits on it is only assuming that what you do to get there will finish when you reach the line.

I think if you get into the mentality that it's not going to end the changes are lifestyle changes for the rest of your life and not for 3 months or whatever there's a more chance of staying on the right track after you reach that "ideal" weight.

floggg

Thats a silly reason for not setting targets. Why not set targets with loose time periods to achieve them, and then once you reach them set new ones. If you lose the weight, chase a 6 pack, pack on some muscle, run a marathon, take up a new sport, etc.

The problem for most people isn't setting goals health wise. Its seeing being healthy as a means to an end, rather than being somewhat worth striving for itself.

Degsy

MagicMarker wrote: »

If the OP, or anyone for that matter, reads up on what they should/shouldn't eat, stays strict and trains hard then I see no reason why it would take six weeks to start dropping lbs.

In my experience it takes that long to noticibly start losing weight.

This idea of 2lbs a week is the maximum you can safely lose without canabilising muscle tissue..its not the actual amount somebody starting a diet/training routine will actually lose.

celestial

Degsy wrote: »

In my experience it takes that long to noticibly start losing weight.

Nah. Depends on how overweight you are, but you can start noticing it within 10 days to a couple of weeks. Especially if you drink nothing but Coke all day and eat rubbish.

At the very start, when making a big lifestyle change, I wouldn't get caught up with setting targets as such. Just feeling and looking a lot better through making the changes is motivation enough to keep going. Then you can start to fine-tune and set goals.

ntlbell

floggg wrote: »

Thats a silly reason for not setting targets. Why not set targets with loose time periods to achieve them, and then once you reach them set new ones. If you lose the weight, chase a 6 pack, pack on some muscle, run a marathon, take up a new sport, etc.

The problem for most people isn't setting goals health wise. Its seeing being healthy as a means to an end, rather than being somewhat worth striving for itself.

because people loosing weight have usually one.

to be skinny.

they hit it.

they stop. they put it back on.

it's IMO a lot more beneficial to set yourself up from the start that this is not a diet it's not a short term goal your going to start today to be healthier than yesterday and build up on habbits that you can continue for the rest of your life rather than setting goals and getting upset and eating yourself into next week because this week you didn't hit the target.

seamus

ntlbell wrote: »

it's IMO a lot more beneficial to set yourself up from the start that this is not a diet it's not a short term goal your going to start today to be healthier than yesterday and build up on habbits that you can continue for the rest of your life rather than setting goals and getting upset and eating yourself into next week because this week you didn't hit the target.

In an ideal world. But for most people whom fitness/nutrition has never been a consideration, it's next to impossible to alter your lifestyle effectively unless you have something to measure your progress against, and harder again to maintain it if you have nothing more than a vague declaration of "I want to be healthy". After all, if you can't measure your progress, how do you know you're doing it right? "I want to lose weight" is a goal, of sorts, but if you've ever actually been overweight you'd understand that "I want to lose weight" is what every fat person says. It doesn't make them do it, because it's too vague to require any action on the part of the person. So even if you're not losing weight, you can justify it on the basis that it's OK because you may lose weight next week. And so on until it's five years later and you've lose 1kg. A goal with a time limit says, "I need to focus on actually doing this, or I won't reach my goal."

I do see your point about putting weight back on, but I would submit that it's not a failing of targets, it's a failure of people to understand the process behind it. I'm sure plenty of people can go, "Tomorrow I will be healthier than today", read what's required and apply it. But they'd be few and far between. It's through the process of actually attaining a goal that the person learns what it takes to maintain your level of fitness or push yourself harder after the goal.
This is why fads diets fail - because they say, "do this and you'll lose weight", but don't impart any knowledge about how to maintain that weight once it's gone.

ntlbell

seamus wrote: »

In an ideal world. But for most people whom fitness/nutrition has never been a consideration, it's next to impossible to alter your lifestyle effectively unless you have something to measure your progress against, and harder again to maintain it if you have nothing more than a vague declaration of "I want to be healthy". After all, if you can't measure your progress, how do you know you're doing it right? "I want to lose weight" is a goal, of sorts, but if you've ever actually been overweight you'd understand that "I want to lose weight" is what every fat person says. It doesn't make them do it, because it's too vague to require any action on the part of the person. So even if you're not losing weight, you can justify it on the basis that it's OK because you may lose weight next week. And so on until it's five years later and you've lose 1kg. A goal with a time limit says, "I need to focus on actually doing this, or I won't reach my goal."

I do see your point about putting weight back on, but I would submit that it's not a failing of targets, it's a failure of people to understand the process behind it. I'm sure plenty of people can go, "Tomorrow I will be healthier than today", read what's required and apply it. But they'd be few and far between. It's through the process of actually attaining a goal that the person learns what it takes to maintain your level of fitness or push yourself harder after the goal.
This is why fads diets fail - because they say, "do this and you'll lose weight", but don't impart any knowledge about how to maintain that weight once it's gone.

It's not about not focusing it's about focusing on something else rather than a weighing scales and worrying about time limits etc

if you're focus is to eat healthier and do more exercise then at the start if one concentrates on doing that most new habbits take about 3 months to become "natural" if someone for 3 months solid removes the worst part of their diet, e.g. take's the worst part of their diet out exercises more and just concentrates on changing the daily habbit of breakfast roll to porride, white bread sambo to salad or whatever getting the 4-6 hours exercise in the natural result will be their clothes will start to fit a lot better, they'll feel better about themselves, they'll look a hell of a lot better be sleeping better etc this tells you you're doing something right.

Once some good habbits are happening without thinking they can start to tweak what they eat further maybe exercise more or whatever as the "goal" is to take up things that you can do for life not for 3 months

so there's no preasure to loose 2/3 stone etc your "training" to do the right things the right things will bring the result and your making changes that you can keep doing till the day you die.

I think what you're suggesting is people are not educated enough on food so they fail.

MrStuffins

Thanks everybody. The replies are awesome.

I'd like to have a target because it will help motivate me.

I've alway been one of those people who will try very hard to mak a target if it's been set!