How much fat can I realistically expect to lose in a month?

[hollertronix]

Basically, I'm going away on vacation May 1st. I want to look as good as possible by then. At the moment, I do no cardio at all (I hate it). I spent November - January bulking, but it was rather dirty and I gained a lot of fat. I ballooned from 170 to 192 and I'm now back down to 178. I managed to lose a lot of weight this past 6 weeks by changing my diet. I still have a couple of cheat meals a week, but my diet really only consists of chicken, spinach, oats, eggs (whole and whites) and milk. I wanted to see how much weight I could lose with a strict diet and no cardio, and to be quite honest, I'm really thrilled with the results. I'm in the best shape of my life, but I'm still soft. I can like basically pinch my entire lower back fat with my whole hand. It's kinda gross actually.

So now it's crunch time. I want abs. And I want them by May 1st. I realize I shouldn't have waited this long to start, but better late than never. What I want to know is how much cardio should I be doing and at what pace? HIIT 3x a week? Low intensity 4x a week?

If anyone has any insight, reps for sure!


ME @ 177 october (pre-bulk):


ME @ 184 last week:


ME @ 177 today (post-bulk):

[tmyracle11]

8 lbs of fat in a month is ideal, 2 lbs a week
possible to lose more but i dont suggest it to maximize fat loss and minimize loss of LBM

[hollertronix]

Right, but I'd like to know how much cardio I need to do to reach that? If I could lose 8lbs of JUST fat and get down to 170, I would be elated. It sucks that my end weight is the same as my start weight, but I kinda fudged up my bulk (it was my first time doing so)...

[IzzyT]

From your picture, I'd estimate you to be about 16% BF +/- 1%. You say you currently weigh 177lbs.

Weight: 177lbs
LBM: 148.7
Fat: 28.3

Most people see their abs at 10-12%, which means you need to hit 167lbs +/- 2lbs. So, you need to lose about 10lbs of pure fat or 35,000 cals worth of fat. There are 35 days till May 1st. If you were able to fat at a rate of exactly 2lbs per week until May 1st, you'd have a good chance to see your abs.

However, according to the 31 calories per pound of fat rule, this pace is too fast and, realistically, you're going to lose a lot of LBM in addition to the fat.

By my calculations, the earliest you could get to 12% BF without sacrificing a significant amount of LBM, is May 10th (using the 31 calories per pound of body fat rule). To get 11% about May 26th and 10% about June 15th.

To calculate your daily calorie expenditure, use Robby9999's calc:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=114630001

[hollertronix]

Appreciate it dude, repped.