how long does it take to lose 8-9% bf when the starting point is 18-20%?

[majorchamp]

I have not had my BF% checked professionally. I have the calipers, I just havent' done the process to get exact measurements, but based on comments off a picture of mine and my digital scale at home, I am in a range of 16-20%.

With that said, I am more or less in a cutting mode right now just trying to get in great shape and lose BF.

I had set a personal goal of August to be at a solid BF% number and curious if that is realistic.

I am eating pretty good right now..probably close to 2000 calories / day give or take, and I run 3x / week for 30-35 min which gets me 3.5 miles each.

Then in the evenings, I focus on basic stuff like pushups/situps/dips to exhaustion and repeat that several times. I am not weight lifting yet. I end the night with 1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese before bed.

So to my original question, what is a realistic deadline for someone like myself to lose that 8-9% BF. Is August a slam duck, or am I pushing it?

Thanks

[rickisthecoolest1]

Ive always heard that a safe productive loss is .5 percent weekly. So if your trying to lose 10 percent that will be 2 percent a month. So roughly 5 months to drop that.

I have not had my BF% checked professionally. I have the calipers, I just havent' done the process to get exact measurements, but based on comments off a picture of mine and my digital scale at home, I am in a range of 16-20%.

With that said, I am more or less in a cutting mode right now just trying to get in great shape and lose BF.

I had set a personal goal of August to be at a solid BF% number and curious if that is realistic.

I am eating pretty good right now..probably close to 2000 calories / day give or take, and I run 3x / week for 30-35 min which gets me 3.5 miles each.

Then in the evenings, I focus on basic stuff like pushups/situps/dips to exhaustion and repeat that several times. I am not weight lifting yet. I end the night with 1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese before bed.

So to my original question, what is a realistic deadline for someone like myself to lose that 8-9% BF. Is August a slam duck, or am I pushing it?

Thanks

[casticonstantinescu]

Plug in some numbers and add it up.

Let's consider:

age 25, 5'11 , 200 lbs, with lifting 3 days a week nice and heavy, with 20% body fat. this means his lean body mass is about 160 lbs, and has arguably about 20 lbs of fat to drop.

To drop 10% of the body fat, I am guessing you could do about a 70/30 or a 80/20 fat / muscle ratio, depending on how proper your protein intake and lifting is. This would mean he's dropping roughly about 24-26 lbs.

maintenance calories are estimated at about 2635 for this individual, so plug this in to various numbers:

to lose 1 lb a week, he/she makes a net deficit of 4200 calories a week, and does this in 24-26 weeks, without cheating. (adjusting of course maintenance calories etc. for this).

to lose 2 lb a week he / she creates a deficit of about 8400 calories a week.

I am adding about 500 calories variance per week because everyone measures off once in a while.

You still have to take into account stalling, etc. cheat days, etc. etc.

[majorchamp]

ok, so realistically August is gone, but in 2 months I will probably be looking much better fat % wise then I am now.

[rickisthecoolest1]

of course if you stay consistent with your diet and training you will look much better for sure.

Good luck with everything and let me know if I can help.

ok, so realistically August is gone, but in 2 months I will probably be looking much better fat % wise then I am now.

[majorchamp]

Will do.

Here is a current front pic of me

though that is a couple weeks old...not like a whole hell of a lot has changed

[euclid]

ok, so realistically August is gone, but in 2 months I will probably be looking much better fat % wise then I am now.

2 months of dedicated dieting will bring very noticeable changes, trust me.

[majorchamp]

2 months of dedicated dieting will bring very noticeable changes, trust me.

I have probably dropped 10lbs in 1 1/2 months JUST from beginning to eat better and cutting out sodas and sweet tea, no joke. I was ingesting probably 2-3 mountain dews and when I got home, I would drink like 3-4 full glasses of sweetened tea.

I no longer drink soda. I do drink tea, but its bland tea with 1 packet of spenda mixed in.

So i was 184, and now I am 174, but I have been eating healthy for a solid month now (chicken, lean meats, fruits, vegtables). I haven't had a chip for 1 month

Once a week, I will go out with some buddies for lunch to BW3's, Qdoba, or wherever and "cheat" a little, though my overall daily diet isn't STRICT and measured to the closest decimal.

Like yesterday, I got a Chicken Quesadilla. I had them hold off on most of hte cheese and add some more chicken, but it was 1 giant flour tortilla, cheese, and chicken. That was it The flour tortilla was very bad IMO.

[rickisthecoolest1]

looking at this 2 months will do wonders, I am odviously no expert at telling you exactly what your bodyfat is but I don't think your even close to 20.
I guess thats just my opinion. But you can do this for sure.

Will do.

Here is a current front pic of me

though that is a couple weeks old...not like a whole hell of a lot has changed

[majorchamp]

looking at this 2 months will do wonders, I am odviously no expert at telling you exactly what your bodyfat is but I don't think your even close to 20.
I guess thats just my opinion. But you can do this for sure.

Well, I took the caliper on my stomach last night, 1 inch above my right hip bone, and I got a measurement of 12mm. When I looked at a chart, it said for 28 yo male, it was like 22% or something.

Though I disagree with that and I only measured 1 point, when you are supposed to measure 4.

The area beneath my belly button is by far the "thickest" amount of fat I have on my body. Behind my tricep, thigh, etc... doesn't feel that bad.

my digital scale tells me 16-16.5%.

[sl4vik]

Lmao, its not going to take 5 months to drop 8% bf.

[rickisthecoolest1]

im just going by calculations that ive been taught to lose weight without sacrificing major muscle mass, im positive you could lose 10 percent in less than five months, if someone wanted to starve themselfs they could probably lose it a ton faster. But if he is not in a huge hurry and wants to maintain muscle why lose more than 1-2 pounds a week?

Lmao, its not going to take 5 months to drop 8% bf.

[Birddog6424]

It took me 93 days to drop from 18% to 9%. That was going fairly conservatively. I lost 0lbs of muscle.

You can drop to 12 or 13% pretty fast. Like three or four weeks. Getting to single digit from there is pretty tough, especially if you aren't experienced at cutting to that percentage.

Looking at your pic I don't think you are 20%. I would believe 17 to 18%, but it is always hard to be very exact as I have no idea what kind of muscle you have and what should be showing. But I do doubt you are over 18%.

The measurement you took is called the midaxilliary, it is but one measurement spot of many. The best thing to do is go online and look up the Jackson/Pollock 7. Measure those spots. You can find a body fat calculator online that if you enter your weight, age, and skinfold measurements, it will give you a bodyfat percentage, pounds of fat, and pounds of LBM figure. This is still not the gospel for accuracy as skinfold measurements have an incorrectable amount of error, but it is a good rule of thumb.

[genesismachine]

It took me roughly 3 months to drop from 18% down to 9% or so. I cheat quite often, and don't count calories (I'm at a point where I can roughly eyeball calories enough to know approximately if I'm over/under for the day). I'm just taking it easy, so I think I could have probably cut more in the last 3 months, but there's really no rush. I gained 3 pounds of muscle as well with some mild workouts (running, hiking, biking, calisthenics and light weights)

[majorchamp]

good info guys. Glad to hear there are some of you who lost it in 3 months.

Right now, I can knock out about 20 pushups before faiing. Then I take a break, do abs or something, and then I get to about 14, etc... until I can only do like 3.

I have noticed that in the past, I was eating more and I felt myself being able to increase my pushups much quicker then I am now, and I think that is because I was consuming more food/energy.

I am also using a 10lb weight when doing my ab workouts on my exercise ball.

[DuLac]

I lost 10 pounds in 4 months, and am now in month 5.

Interestingly, I lost about 4-5" off my waist, and my strength has basically doubled. I went from 3 sets of pullups: 5 / 3 / 3 to 10 / 10 / 7

As far as pounds of bodyfat, I am not sure (different trainers giving me bodyfat test results all over the board), but I am fairly confident I went from 19.5% to 13.5%.

The thing is, fat loss from 20+ down to ~13% isn't going to show a great deal of difference in the mirror. You will drop pant sizes, and your shirts will be looser, however you're losing a great deal of fat from around your organs.

Dropping below 13% down toward 9% is apparently a massive change according to these boards. 13%-9% is visually as impressive as 22%-13%.

Stick with it, and stay away from the scale. Measure your bodyfat every 5 wks to see your real progress, and try to keep it consistent so you can accurately track changes.

[majorchamp]

I lost 10 pounds in 4 months, and am now in month 5.

Interestingly, I lost about 4-5" off my waist, and my strength has basically doubled. I went from 3 sets of pullups: 5 / 3 / 3 to 10 / 10 / 7

As far as pounds of bodyfat, I am not sure (different trainers giving me bodyfat test results all over the board), but I am fairly confident I went from 19.5% to 13.5%.

The thing is, fat loss from 20+ down to ~13% isn't going to show a great deal of difference in the mirror. You will drop pant sizes, and your shirts will be looser, however you're losing a great deal of fat from around your organs.

Dropping below 13% down toward 9% is apparently a massive change according to these boards. 13%-9% is visually as impressive as 22%-13%.

Stick with it, and stay away from the scale. Measure your bodyfat every 5 wks to see your real progress, and try to keep it consistent so you can accurately track changes.

thanks.

Well, IMO if I get down to 13 or below...I will at least begin to see more definition across all my body, but also my abs which is covered pretty good right now.

I really want to see my abs by end of this summer. I think its realistic especially once I implement some weight training during my cut to further burn more fat.

[trev0000]

thanks.

Well, IMO if I get down to 13 or below...I will at least begin to see more definition across all my body, but also my abs which is covered pretty good right now.

I really want to see my abs by end of this summer. I think its realistic especially once I implement some weight training during my cut to further burn more fat.

When you get to the lower teens bf% things will slow down big time by the end of summer you will look leaner but seeing abs might take a lot longer.
T.

[padrote]

thanks.

Well, IMO if I get down to 13 or below...I will at least begin to see more definition across all my body, but also my abs which is covered pretty good right now.

I really want to see my abs by end of this summer. I think its realistic especially once I implement some weight training during my cut to further burn more fat.

If all you do is pushups and situps then you may not like the definition you'll see.

[jay24k]

All depends on how bad you want it really. You are going to look really thin tho. Be prepared. I don't see much mass on your muscle wise. If you are at 20% at 167, to drop 10% wouuld be 16 pounds. In reality, It will be more like 20 pounds because you will lose a small amoutn of muscle. If you lost 2lb a week, you "could" do it in 10 weeks.

[majorchamp]

If all you do is pushups and situps then you may not like the definition you'll see.

well, I will be doing weight training soon..just saying right now I haven't implemented it.

I just don't want to go the summer looking like a blob, even if i am lifting hard and building muscle just to use the winter as my cutting cycle.

[majorchamp]

just wanted to post a follow up.

The picture way above was from May 16, 2009, so I took one tonight for a 1 month comparison.

I think I have leaned down some more from the looks of it. My love handles seem to have less curves and the area beneath my stomach looks smaller/leaner.

thoughts?

[mike_az_21]

Looks like a decent start.

Back in the day(about 7 years ago). I weighed in at 229 pounds, I knew I was fat. So, I decided to lose weight. I only did cardio, I hit it pretty hard(about 1 to 2 hours a day, six days a week) with absolutely no weight lifting. I dropped to 162 Lbs, it looked weird.

I was tottaly skinny fat. So, I stopped working out. I gained about 20 pounds.

About a half of year later I started lifting hard with minimal cardio. I liked the results, so I stuck to it off and on.

About 3 months ago I got into lifting and nutrition hard. I will do my best to stick with my routine.



Good luck, keep at it!