NEED to lose 20 pounds in a month

20 pounds in month is a lot. Maybe you keep falling off the wagon because you're trying to lose a significant amount of weight in a short period of time and are being too restrictive.

Focus on eating at a calorie deficit and let the weight come off in its own time.

Sorry honey. It's not going to happen.

I agree with others, unless you are morbidly obese, there's no way that's gonna happen. How much total are you looking to lose?

A healthy weight loss goal is 1 to 2 pounds per week...losing more than that is really just water weight. When people lose a lot of weight quickly it usually is not sustainable and they typically end up gaining it all back plus some.

With 60 lb to lose, you _might_ be able to manage 10 in the next month if you're really strict with eating & exercise a lot...
but why make yourself miserable?

Here's a calculator from the Baylor College of Medicine which will tell you how many calories to aim for,
and how many servings of the food groups you should eat, to maintain a particular weight. Put in your healthy
goal weight (or play with the weight number to get the BMI under 24.9) and use that as your calorie goal. Ignore
exercise calories, set the calculator to 'inactive'.

Alternatively, put in your current weight and subtract 500 cal/day in order to lose 1 lb per week.
Adjust as you hit plateaus, subtracting 50-100 cal at a time to restart weight loss.
When you get close to your healthy goal weight, the loss will slow, so change to maybe 250 cal/day deficit.

Here's a newbie help post I compiled which has links to useful information.
Go read sexypants now.
Then the one about setting realistic goals.

MKEgal wrote: »

With 60 lb to lose, you _might_ be able to manage 10 in the next month if you're really strict with eating & exercise a lot...
but why make yourself miserable?

Here's a calculator from the Baylor College of Medicine which will tell you how many calories to aim for,
and how many servings of the food groups you should eat, to maintain a particular weight. Put in your healthy
goal weight (or play with the weight number to get the BMI under 24.9) and use that as your calorie goal. Ignore
exercise calories, set the calculator to 'inactive'.

Alternatively, put in your current weight and subtract 500 cal/day in order to lose 1 lb per week.
Adjust as you hit plateaus, subtracting 50-100 cal at a time to restart weight loss.
When you get close to your healthy goal weight, the loss will slow, so change to maybe 250 cal/day deficit.

Here's a newbie help post I compiled which has links to useful information.
Go read sexypants now.
Then the one about setting realistic goals.

This calculator is for children ages 2-20, it doesn't apply for most people on this forum.

galgenstrick wrote: »

Mr_Knight wrote: »

z_elle wrote: »

I need to lose 20 pounds and I keep falling off the wagon and lose energy n motivation to continue

You waited to long. You would basically have eat nothing - literally, nothing - and depending on your body size you *still* might not get there.

Sorry. I know it sucks, but that's the biology of it.

Good point. Assuming her maintenance was at 2000 calories a day. If she ate absolutely nothing for a month, she would only lose about 17 pounds...

Considering you can only survive for about 3 weeks if you don't eat, then she would only lose 12 pounds before she died...

The length of time someone can survive without food is not an arbitrary number like 3 weeks, but varies from person to person.
The bottom line is to set SMART goals - 10lbs/month is unrealistic.

Dofflin wrote: »

galgenstrick wrote: »

Mr_Knight wrote: »

z_elle wrote: »

I need to lose 20 pounds and I keep falling off the wagon and lose energy n motivation to continue

You waited to long. You would basically have eat nothing - literally, nothing - and depending on your body size you *still* might not get there.

Sorry. I know it sucks, but that's the biology of it.

Good point. Assuming her maintenance was at 2000 calories a day. If she ate absolutely nothing for a month, she would only lose about 17 pounds...

Considering you can only survive for about 3 weeks if you don't eat, then she would only lose 12 pounds before she died...

The length of time someone can survive without food is not an arbitrary number like 3 weeks, but varies from person to person.
The bottom line is to set SMART goals - 10lbs/month is unrealistic.

That's why I said about 3 weeks. It was a hypothetical situation and meant to be an eye opener for OP. 20 pounds of fat (which I assume is what OP wanted to lose) is not possible.

I think you will be very disappointed with your results.