Can I lose 10% body fat in 3 months?

GettinYolked_

I am currently 30-31% body fat and am looking to get down to 20% or below ideally before the summer. I'm doing Jillian Michaels Body Revolution which will finish in mid-April but I don't expect to see huge changes by the time I have finished, although I expect to lose at least a few more pounds and maybe a little body fat.

The program I'm doing now combines cardio (HIIT) training twice per week with weight training four times per week. On top of that I've been doing a little extra cardio some days such as walking or using the treadmill/eliptical machine.

What will be the best way for me to lose fat quickly after that? I would ideally like a 6-8 week program which will give me results at home and I have a fully equipped home gym so I can use barbells, dumbells, resistence bands, kettle bells and my multigym machine as well as body weight exercises. I like th idea of cardio based DVD programmes like Insanity, Turbo Fire or Les Mills Combat but would only do one of those if I could also do weights alongside it.


The total workout time per day can't really exceed 1 hour 30 minutes split into 2 sessions, what would you all recommend and what can I expect in terms of results?

Easily! Just work your *kitten* of in the treadmill and hit the weights. 1 hr 30 is enough. .

lacurandera1

I am currently 30-31% body fat and am looking to get down to 20% or below ideally before the summer. I'm doing Jillian Michaels Body Revolution which will finish in mid-April but I don't expect to see huge changes by the time I have finished, although I expect to lose at least a few more pounds and maybe a little body fat.

The program I'm doing now combines cardio (HIIT) training twice per week with weight training four times per week. On top of that I've been doing a little extra cardio some days such as walking or using the treadmill/eliptical machine.

What will be the best way for me to lose fat quickly after that? I would ideally like a 6-8 week program which will give me results at home and I have a fully equipped home gym so I can use barbells, dumbells, resistence bands, kettle bells and my multigym machine as well as body weight exercises. I like th idea of cardio based DVD programmes like Insanity, Turbo Fire or Les Mills Combat but would only do one of those if I could also do weights alongside it.


The total workout time per day can't really exceed 1 hour 30 minutes split into 2 sessions, what would you all recommend and what can I expect in terms of results?

Easily! Just work your *kitten* of in the treadmill and hit the weights. 1 hr 30 is enough. .

Dude, if that's all it took, id be in the low 20s by now. I think everyone here has overlooked how much faster it is for men to lose body fat, too.

BurtHuttz

Dude, if that's all it took, id be in the low 20s by now. I think everyone here has overlooked how much faster it is for men to lose body fat, too.

For 18 year old men. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Sarauk2sf

I'm going to rain on your parade, it's not healthy for a woman to be under 20% BF. Women naturally carry more fat because of our ability to have children. If you go below 21% you are considered Under Fat and that's not healthy:
http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/library/blbodyfatcharts.htm

Aim for 25%. Lift heavy & eat clean. And set a more reasonable time frame.

Not true. I am below 20% and I am perfectly healthy. Below 20% is not underfat.

Sarauk2sf

It really is not a good idea to 'force' a weight loss or BF% goal too quickly. Eat at a reasonable caloric deficit (no more than lb a week cut) , hit your macros, strength train and if you want, do cardio. You will lose BF, your body composition will improve and you will continue to feel and look better. Don't force it into an arbitrary date as you will not be doing yourself any favors in the long run.

ETA: the leaner you get, the harder it is to lose BF as your metabolism gets slower and you get a greater hormonal sensitivity. You need to be patient.


Edited for typo.

graciepecie

How long is the Insanity program and how long are each of the workouts? I've also heard it does your knees in and I have a slight weakness in my right knee although it's been better since I started training again. Is this a good idea with bad knees?!

Luckily I live in the sun at the moment and the beach is 10 minutes drive so I have a real incentive to get there as until now I have always avoided the beach and spent most of the summer covered up. I also have a pool where I live (communal) so I can swim daily in summer but again I always avoided doing that too much because I didn't want to be seen in my swimwear.

I will do whatever it takes but I'm on a budget so it's hard to get enough lean protein in and find I'm eating a little too much fat a lot of the time although I can easily stick to 25% carbs.

I'm 28 and I never ever ever had problems with my knees, untill I did Insanity. It has cost me 3 weeks to get over the hurt and now still (after 1,5 months), I feel them sometimes. I quit Insanity and do a lot of other programs with less jumping (that intensive). So if you already have bad knees, I won't do it if I were you.

graciepecie

Money is one of my main problems because I can't really afford to buy more protein in my weekly shop as food here is very expensive and I can't afford to have more than 1 protein shake per day either as I just haven't got the cash for it.

I am also a little worried about having too much protein as I have a history of kidney disease in my family although I haven't had any symptoms of it so far and I'm 38. I am therefore conscious of not eating too much protein and a friend of mine who is training for body building told me that she is currently eating 300g protein per day right now and was recently eating 200g per day for several months and now she has high blood pressure so it does worry me a little. I need to be a little careful about my own blood pressure so don't want to go too high.

Don't beat yourself up about this. I think it's a waste of my money to buy protein shakes because they're very expensive. Eat eggs, lean meat, white meat (chicken and Turkey), greek yoghurt and that kind of stuff. They contain proteins. I often don't reach my protein goal, but I think those goals are ridiculous. Or if you want to be a body builder, go ahead LOL

No really, don't beat yourself up about this. It's important to get your proteins, don't get me wrong, but I don't think you need to worry about it that much.

Good luck!

MicheleWE

your protein doesnt have to come from meats. eggs or egg whites, cottage cheese, greek yogurt are all great and affordable sources of protein.

i'm not a nutritionist but i'm married to a personal trainer, and not to rain on your parade, but it's very hard to drop that amount of BF in 3 months unless you're doing some hardcore strength and heavier weight lifting. 1-2% BF drop per month is normal unless you're very overweight and have a very high body fat already. that much in that short time frame and you might be losing muscle. plus, your diet has to be spot on and clean.

you should look into Jamie Eason's live fit trainer program. its free!

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jamie-eason-livefit-trainer.html

I was going to recommend exactly the same thing! I am currently doing this program and love it! There are a ton of good articles on the bodybuilding website. I recently read that you should have approximately one gram of protein per body weight. I struggle with getting enough protein but have recently been able to get in 100g per day. Focus on whole foods, not processed, processed foods mess with your hormones and hinder weight loss.

shorty35565

I'm going to rain on your parade, it's not healthy for a woman to be under 20% BF. Women naturally carry more fat because of our ability to have children. If you go below 21% you are considered Under Fat and that's not healthy:
http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/library/blbodyfatcharts.htm

Aim for 25%. Lift heavy & eat clean. And set a more reasonable time frame.

Umm, I'm 25%BF & I hate it lol Maybe it's just way I carry my weight, but I feel way too fatty. I definitely wanna be under 20%. 17% is my goal & I know it's a healthy goal.
I agree with Sara, you don't want to force a body fat drop. It takes time. I'm trying to get to 20% right now & it's been a LONG road. The beginning of July 2012, I was 134.6lbs & 30.8%BF roughly. Right now I am 119lbs and roughly 25%. If I did the math right, which I suck at, in 15.6lbs only 4lbs was LBM, the rest was fat. And it's fat that you want to lose. But the lower you are, the harder it is to drop it.

phildawson75

I dropped 8% BF (from 37% to 29%) in five months. My goal is to get to 20% by the end of the summer. My starting weight was 127 and I am currently 111 pounds. I don't want to go lower body weight if I can help it but I do not like how heavy my legs still are, so on we go.

37% to 29% is much easier then 30% to 20%, and you did 8% in 5 months from a much easier range.

We are simply saying that the 30%-20% cut is much more difficult and would take longer then the 40%-30% cut.

QFT

For me personally it took 3mths to lose 10% going from 26% to 16%, this took no effort tbh. It's then taken another 6mths to get into 13% which has taken dedication. It'll probably take me a year to then get to 10% BF

JAT74

I know it won't be easy but I want to aim for around 20% and will just have to accept that it will take as long as it takes to get there, having said that it would be nice to feel good in a bikini this summer!

Regarding protein, I do find it's pricey compared to carbs but I'll just have to eat what I can afford to. My point was meat like pork and is cheaper than other lower fat options like fish or protein powder and other proteins like cheese are very cheap but higher in fat. I prefer to try and buy natural when I can as I am trying to eat less processed foods.

My post about the cost of eggs etc. was in response to the poster who said that 10 eggs whites in an omlettes makes a great breakfast - I could not afford to use 10 eggs per day for my breakfast which was my point! 2 eggs is find though and I often eat 2 eggs as part of a meal.

I am going to pay a visit to a health food shop in the next couple of weeks and try and stock up on some healthier alternatives to some of the foods I currently eat which are higher in bad fat and will keep looking online for cheaper protein powder so that I can increase my shakes to 2 per day.

HelloDan

Don't beat yourself up about this. I think it's a waste of my money to buy protein shakes because they're very expensive. Eat eggs, lean meat, white meat (chicken and Turkey), greek yoghurt and that kind of stuff. They contain proteins. I often don't reach my protein goal, but I think those goals are ridiculous. Or if you want to be a body builder, go ahead LOL

Not sure where to start.
One of the benefits of protein shakes, is that they tend to be cheaper than most other sources of protein!
If you buy 4kg from a bulk supplier, you will be paying about £0.30 for 20g of protein, you might get close to this if you buy the cheapest eggs possible, but not much will, certainly not decent meat.

Protein is also for more than bodybuilders.

The OP is looking to lose about 5lb of fat a month or just over 1lb a week, for someone with a lot of fat to lose this will be pretty easy, but the leaner you get, the harder this will become, especially if you want to retain muscle mass too.

JAT74

I know that protein is important and try to eat at least 120g most days which is why I keep talking about it! I know that protein shakes get cheaper the more you buy but I don't have a lot of money to buy in bulk as I can only afford to buy month to month unfortunately. Next time I'll try and save a little per week towards my shakes and maybe go halves with my boyfriend so we can get a larger quantity. I would eat more low fat protein like cottage cheese if it wasn't for the fact that it's hard to find here and greek yogurts here are never low fat, only the full fat variety.

HelloDan

I know that protein is important and try to eat at least 120g most days which is why I keep talking about it! I know that protein shakes get cheaper the more you buy but I don't have a lot of money to buy in bulk as I can only afford to buy month to month unfortunately. Next time I'll try and save a little per week towards my shakes and maybe go halves with my boyfriend so we can get a larger quantity. I would eat more low fat protein like cottage cheese if it wasn't for the fact that it's hard to find here and greek yogurts here are never low fat, only the full fat variety.

Are you currently in the UK or Spain?

Where do you get your protein shakes from?

JAT74

I'm currently in Spain. The shops here which sell protein are really expensive but there is a shop not far away (Decathlon) which sells 1.9 kilos for 43€ but the protein shakes require 2 scoops of powder to get 39g protein so half of that would only give me under 20g.

The shake I'm using now is Dymatize Berry Blast which is 24g protein for 1 scoop and I got that online for around 28€ I seem to remember including delivery but it's only 950g I think. I got it off an Ebay shop in Spain.

I will be in the UK in a couple of weeks so if I can get it cheaper from a shop there (in a sachet instead of a tub so I can fit it in my luggage) then I'll do that but wouldn't know where to buy it from in Brighton where I'll be.

HelloDan

Try Prozis (www.prozis.com), they're based in Portugal, but they should deliver to Spain pretty cheaply.

I don't know going rates for protein in Euros, but I hear they do good deals, so might help.

JAT74

Hey Dan

Thanks so much for the recommendation, I had a look on Prozis and found the low carb protein I'm using now but they do a 4.5 kilo pack and it worked out to about 20€ including delivery per kilo (which is around £17 per kilo so really cheap). I paid 28€ for 900g and thought that was cheap before.

Anyway I've managed to pursuade my boyfriend to buy it so we're going to use that and now I'll try and have 2 shakes per day on the days when I don't manage to eat enough protein from food as 2 shakes made witha little skimmed milk is 55g protein in total.

snowbike

bump for later

MNTom

I think the best way to lose that much is to stay on a healthy diet of 1200-1300 and start a running program, if your joints are okay. For me, running outside was the most efficient weight management exercise. It uses a lot of calories, it can be done without serious equipment in almost any location, it is time-effective, and it will build your cardiovascular endurance.

HelloDan

Hey Dan

Thanks so much for the recommendation, I had a look on Prozis and found the low carb protein I'm using now but they do a 4.5 kilo pack and it worked out to about 20€ including delivery per kilo (which is around £17 per kilo so really cheap). I paid 28€ for 900g and thought that was cheap before.

Anyway I've managed to pursuade my boyfriend to buy it so we're going to use that and now I'll try and have 2 shakes per day on the days when I don't manage to eat enough protein from food as 2 shakes made witha little skimmed milk is 55g protein in total.

Glad to have helped!