What is a realistic amount of body fat to lose in a month?

distinctlybeautiful

I went and had my body fat percentage checked and was at 32.9% (that puts me about 51 pounds of fat and about 105 pounds of fat free mass - oh and I'm 66.5 inches tall in case that's relevant). Anyway I go back on May 7th to check it again, and I'm working to try to get my number down (eating at a deficit while making sure to get enough protein and doing cardio and strength training). Just wondering what's realistic in a month. I'm sure there's not a precise number or anything like that.. I'm looking for some kind of idea. Thanks!

MyM0wM0w

3-5 lbs

distinctlybeautiful

MyM0wM0w wrote: »

3-5 lbs

Of body fat or just weight in general?

jenncornelsen

sorry had to convert. ur 5'5 and weigh 156 total. so your only actually 6lbs overweight. its impossible to know what u will lose as far as the composition of your loss. healthy weight loss at ur height would be about 3-5lbs as stated. if u want to insure its more fat than muscle be sure to strength train and not eat at too low of a deficit. the first few lbs and usually guaranteed to be water weight. how did u have ur bf% measured?

PAV8888

You can preserve fat free mass by eating 0.8g of protein per lb of lean body mass (many will say 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass), aiming for a caloric deficit that will create a weekly weight loss of no more than 1% of your body weight, and apparently by minimizing cardio and engaging in the lifting of heavy weights (someday I will try this last bit myself!)

You may want to play with some TDEE calculators such as this: http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator, though it sounds like you had a DEXA scan which means that you were probably given safe weight loss guidelines based on your fat free mass.

Fat to fat free mass loss can range from 1:1 (or worse even!) to as good as 10:1!

moto450

1% body fat reduction a month has been achievable for me for about 7 months consecutively. Of course there are a lot of factors that may vary it for each individual. The less you have to lose the more unlikely it will become. It's not something we can just give an answer to because everyone is so different.

distinctlybeautiful

jenncornelsen wrote: »

sorry had to convert. ur 5'5 and weigh 156 total. so your only actually 6lbs overweight. its impossible to know what u will lose as far as the composition of your loss. healthy weight loss at ur height would be about 3-5lbs as stated. if u want to insure its more fat than muscle be sure to strength train and not eat at too low of a deficit. the first few lbs and usually guaranteed to be water weight. how did u have ur bf% measured?

I'm actually 5'6.5" which puts me very close to a healthy weight, but the information I was given says that 30% body fat is the highest end of healthy for females. I was able to go through military program and had my body fat measured in a Bod Pod. I don't know how to explain what that is if you've never heard of it, but you can easily look it up.