Can it be possible to lose 20 lbs by Thanksgiving?

you're not going to get there with the standard "healthy lifestyle" nutrition plan as that plan is geared towards 1-2 pound loss per week. This is the healthiest way to lose weight and help ensure it stays off.

However, its possible to come closer to a 20 pound loss in 6 weeks if you spend 4 of those weeks doing a natural cleanse (something I did for 3+ weeks in April/May). The basics of the natural cleanse:

1. for weeks 1 and 2, eat only veggies. eat as many veggies as you want. eat them any way you want (well, obviously not fried)....raw, steamed, grilled, stir fry. You may/should use EVOO for salad dressing. For stir fry (which you will want to eat once or twice every day), use some EVOO as well as reduced sodium soy sauce and either reduced sodium stir fry sauce or hoisin sauce (or other sauce with similar calories/carbs/sodium).

2. some foods you might consider veggies aren't really veggies or otherwise shouldn't be eaten during the cleanse. that would include beans (legumes), corn (grain), and potatotes (starch). also, I would limit carrots and cucumbers during the cleanse as they contain a little more sugar than desireable.

3. you may, but are not required to, eat sugar free jello during this cleanse. when I asked my *mentor* how much jello I could consume, he told me "your body will be craving nutrients so you don't want to spend too much tummy time on jello". I decided to skip the jello completely.

4. you may drink only water...only plain, clear water. and you should drink at 100-132 ounces per day.

5. during weeks 3 and 4, you should add 8 ounces of grilled, skinless chicken breasts each day to the above.

That's pretty much it. No pills. no crazy drinks. no supplements. just natural food...

I am going to venture a no, not in a remotely safe way in any case. When you start out you may drop a handful of pounds in the first couple weeks from water weight and the initial shock to your system, though a lot of that depends on how much weight you have to lose in the first place, if you are only 20lbs over the ideal for your height/frame then you wont lose as much as someone who has say, 100 lbs to lose. Some of that initial loss will be water weight and it will come back one way or another within a short period of time. Healthy and often sustainable weight loss comes off at 1-2lbs a week (may vary a little if you have a lot of weight to lose). Its only about 5 weeks until thanksgiving, I would say you might be able to lose 10 if you went on a very restrictive diet (meaning no sugars, no empty carbs, low salt etc) with lots of intense excercise. But I just dont see 20 happening in 5 weeks.

As a suggestion right now though, your families weight loss competition is set up very unfairly, if one of you has say 50 lbs to lose and you only have 20 lbs, the person with 50lbs is likely to be the winner just because the more weight you have the bigger drop you can have at the beginning. You are better off changing the rules in that aspect to make it more like a mixture of fat% in your body and the pounds lost.

I am sure you could find some dangerous diets that would get you close to 20lbs, but they are not sustainable, as soon as you go to thanksgiving dinner and eat you will wake up a few days later with most of those 20lbs gained back, and then for a while after your metabolism will be so shot you will continue to gain even if you are eating healthy and trying to work off those pounds will take much more effort. Your immune system will also be shot and over all you will feel sick and miserable.

Right now you need to ask yourself, is this about the money or is this about losing weight (What I am sure this started as). The money should only be an incentive to do your best, it shouldnt be a reason to destroy your body.