lose 20lbs in a month?

Well, it's certainly possible if you remove a limb...

That 8lbs you lost will have been primarily water weight, this happens to most people when they start eating in a calorie deficit. You won't keep up that rate of loss, and if you do it'll be horrifically unhealthy. Healthy recommended rate loss is a maximum of 2lbs/week. You might be able to get away with a bit more than that if your profile is correct and you have 100lbs to lose, but you shouldn't really aim for more than that without medical supervision.

not possible

I'm going to disagree with some of the people here and say it is possible and maybe not even that unhealthy depending on your weight to start with (a 400lb person losing a little over 1% body weight a week would manage 20lbs in a month). I still wouldn't advise it though unless you have a great deal of weight to lose (1% of your body weight per week is a decent rule of thumb, but you still should consult your doctor before trying anything that could be considered extreme.)

Doesn't matter what diet you are on, the only way to do it is to take in a significantly lower amount of calories a day than you expend. Since 1lb = 3500kcal that means you must be at a deficit of 70000kcal in a monthly period. Assuming 30 days in a month that means a deficit of 2333kcal per day which you can see is a large deficit when a lot of us would find that many calories would maintain our day to day weights so we would either have to workout for several hours a day if we wanted to eat and hit that goal (not advisable without replacing at least some of those calories from exercise), or starve ourselves which is also obviously bad. It is best to try to get in to a sustainable healthy routine rather than focusing on short term gains (losses?) that are usually put back on once the person doing them realises they can't maintain that level of loss. As others have said, your first week losses will be partially from losing water stored in your muscles so don't get disheartened when you don't see those numbers again from doing the same level of diet/exercise.

20 lbs in a month is an unrealistic expectation. What's the hurry?

How about you stop dieting and make a lifestyle change that you can keep up? One that means once you stop with the whole fad-dieting phase you won't just go back to 'regular' eating habits and gain all that weight, plus more, back?

The only 'diet' I will ever use is one called CICO; Calories in vs Calories out. It's free, effective, healthy and totally sustainable!

rabbitjb wrote: »

Dichotomy1976 wrote: »

I'm going to disagree with some of the people here and say it is possible and maybe not even that unhealthy depending on your weight to start with (a 400lb person losing a little over 1% body weight a week would manage 20lbs in a month). I still wouldn't advise it though unless you have a great deal of weight to lose (1% of your body weight per week is a decent rule of thumb, but you still should consult your doctor before trying anything that could be considered extreme.)

Doesn't matter what diet you are on, the only way to do it is to take in a significantly lower amount of calories a day than you expend. Since 1lb = 3500kcal that means you must be at a deficit of 70000kcal in a monthly period. Assuming 30 days in a month that means a deficit of 2333kcal per day which you can see is a large deficit when a lot of us would find that many calories would maintain our day to day weights so we would either have to workout for several hours a day if we wanted to eat and hit that goal (not advisable without replacing at least some of those calories from exercise), or starve ourselves which is also obviously bad. It is best to try to get in to a sustainable healthy routine rather than focusing on short term gains (losses?) that are usually put back on once the person doing them realises they can't maintain that level of loss. As others have said, your first week losses will be partially from losing water stored in your muscles so don't get disheartened when you don't see those numbers again from doing the same level of diet/exercise.

morbidly obese more prone to developing gallstones due to rapid weight loss (eg above 3.3lbs per week)

but medics would weigh that against other risk factors

I was pretty careful in my wording as I knew it is the type of thing people will jump on if I'm not. I never said it was healthy to lose that much weight, just that it might not be that unhealthy. I also said to check with a doctor before trying anything that could be considered extreme (which I'm assuming the op would consider 20lbs/month extreme based on the replies and their own post and my following paragraph). To make half of one of my sentences bold seems a little disingenuous to me.

I'd never heard of it until now but having just consulted Dr Google all I have to say is that it makes the Military diet look like a solid nutritional plan. *facepalm*

ndj1979 wrote: »

brianpperkins wrote: »

So you "successfully completed" a fad diet that lies about its association with General Motors and now want to find another crash diet plan? (I hope you realilze all you lost on that was water weight ... not really a successful completion of anything)

That is a completely unhealthy plan. Reconsider, set realistic goals, then come back to us.

what is the GM diet? Eat nothing but chryslers????

I have an advanced palate. I eat nothing less than Cadillacs.

rabbitjb wrote: »

Dichotomy1976 wrote: »

rabbitjb wrote: »

Dichotomy1976 wrote: »

I'm going to disagree with some of the people here and say it is possible and maybe not even that unhealthy depending on your weight to start with (a 400lb person losing a little over 1% body weight a week would manage 20lbs in a month). I still wouldn't advise it though unless you have a great deal of weight to lose (1% of your body weight per week is a decent rule of thumb, but you still should consult your doctor before trying anything that could be considered extreme.)

Doesn't matter what diet you are on, the only way to do it is to take in a significantly lower amount of calories a day than you expend. Since 1lb = 3500kcal that means you must be at a deficit of 70000kcal in a monthly period. Assuming 30 days in a month that means a deficit of 2333kcal per day which you can see is a large deficit when a lot of us would find that many calories would maintain our day to day weights so we would either have to workout for several hours a day if we wanted to eat and hit that goal (not advisable without replacing at least some of those calories from exercise), or starve ourselves which is also obviously bad. It is best to try to get in to a sustainable healthy routine rather than focusing on short term gains (losses?) that are usually put back on once the person doing them realises they can't maintain that level of loss. As others have said, your first week losses will be partially from losing water stored in your muscles so don't get disheartened when you don't see those numbers again from doing the same level of diet/exercise.

morbidly obese more prone to developing gallstones due to rapid weight loss (eg above 3.3lbs per week)

but medics would weigh that against other risk factors

I was pretty careful in my wording as I knew it is the type of thing people will jump on if I'm not. I never said it was healthy to lose that much weight, just that it might not be that unhealthy. I also said to check with a doctor before trying anything that could be considered extreme (which I'm assuming the op would consider 20lbs/month extreme based on the replies and their own post and my following paragraph). To make half of one of my sentences bold seems a little disingenuous to me.

not disingenuous (you do know what that word means right?)

I was referencing that part only, which is how it works, not picking up on your entire post and giving further information to that specific point not discounting what you said

I also was pretty careful in my wording

Of course I do, I felt you took a small part of a post you read and used that one part instead of the whole to lower the credibility of the overall post. Referencing only works if you take the overall meaning of the article you take the reference from (although I'd say tabloid referencing is akin to the way you referenced me).