Can I lose four stone in six months?

[SexAndCakes]

Typical post-Christmas realisation that working from home and general life stresses over the last few years have led to a very sedentary lifestyle, overeating and getting fat (BMI 28). I need to lose four stone to get to my ideal weight (BMI 21). This feels like a very long road and is combined with feeling generally low about some other life areas. I have also been overweight for a number of years now so feel like I have lost the sense of myself as a slim person IYSWIM.

I'd love to hear from others who have achieved this type of weight loss. Also, whether six months is a realistic timeframe to lose four stone without things like weight loss drugs (not eligible or I would welcome them!). I feel like I need the shortest possible timeframe to be motivated for this. The good news is that I currently have the time and resources to make it my focus.

YABU - six months to lose four stone is not realistic
YANBU - it can be done (ideally share advice on how please!)

This. Also, it’s an arbitrary figure based on yourself many years ago.
What you really want health wise in your 40s is a good level of muscle mass, strong bones (weight baring exercise and good diet help with these two), good cardiovascular health (cardio exercise helps) and enough fat reserves that you can get through the odd illness or period of stress without too much damage but not so much that carrying that extra weight stresses your cardiovascular systems. It doesn’t really matter if that balance happens for you at a BMI of 20 or a BMI of 24. The whole 18.5-25 BMI guide is just the range that most people will find that balance in. And that point of balance may be different for you now compared to in your 20s. So fixing yourself a BMI target of 21 with a very very tight timeframe is setting yourself up for likely failure. Even if you do make it, will the severe calorie restriction required put your muscle and bone health at risk? Or just make you miss a good balance point for your body (now, at 44) that you could have reached at BMI 23 for example.

Watch The Magic Pill documentary (was on YouTube the last.time I looked) and listen to Dr Jason Fung's The Obesity Code podcast on Spotify.

Understand the role of insulin in weight loss/gain.

Stay away from UPF.

Bodies are not a simple machine so eat less/move more doesn't necessarily work. If you are consuming more than your body needs, you will put on weight but you can't just keep decreasing the amount your body needs without your body having to compensate in other ways.

Have you thought about trying Slimming World?
It encourages healthy eating without going hungry.
The poster who wrote about having a fry up and not feeling hungry, reminds me of Slimming World.
Focus is on whole foods with very limited processed food as this is restricted to a daily allowance.
Lots of cooking from scratch, lots of veggies and able to eat carbs.

You definitely can if you’re very, very strict.

Maintaining the loss is the hardest part.

@suki1964 you're an inspiration. Congratulations on your achievement and celebration yesterday!

It depends on how you cope with hunger, because there will be some at the start. Read Michael Moseley's stuff. You don't need to drop to 800 calories, if you exercise you can eat upto 1200. That doesn't have to be a daily amount, it can be 3600 over three days (that allows for family celebrations and socialising). I used Phentermine, prescribed by a private doctor to cut my appetite, in the early days. That's what weight loss jabs do, they cut appetite. Unless you make lifestyle changes, it just piles back on when you stop taking any type of weight loss drugs. If you do the traditional working out your TDEE and exercising, you'll look like your within a healthy BMI range and drop the body fat, in that timescale. Don't get caught up on weight, use a scale, in Boots etc that gives you body composition and take measurements, or use now-tight clothing. As I get to 60 and my peer group do, I can see the bone damage done by us being told to do the fad/too low calorie diets and not exercise. We age better by keeping activity levels high.
tdeecalculator.net/

BMI is bollocks. I wish they'd either review it or stop using it.
Don't make drastic changes. They're hard to maintain and you'll be more likely to put weight back on.
Do something you can stick to. Slightly smaller meals. More fruit and veg.
Try a fitness app and log your calories each day. A pound a week is great, so might take longer but the end result is the same. Incorporate exercise if there's something you enjoy. Or just a few more steps each day.

Ultimately you've made the decision to lose weight and are motivated to do it which is brilliant.
My BMI is likely a lot higher than yours. I've lost 1.5 stones in about three months. I've gained at times but main thing is it is steadily reducing and I have noticed little differences in terms of more energy, less breathless and less joint pain. I hope to be at my target weight in about six months, if I'm not I'm not bothered as long as I've continued to lose weight.

Not impossible but hard because iyour target is quite low and your natural comfortable weight may be higher. Sounds like a struggle ahead. Will you maintain it if you get there?

I think you could if you were very strict.

I started the 1:1 diet and I lost nearly a stone before Christmas. I went from being 12 at to 11st 2. Had a few Xmas lunches and that’s the only reason I never made it to the stone

cut out the tea/ coffee with milk and drink tons of water. Buy yourself a big water bottle.

youll do it if you focus yourself.

🙄 It’s a goal for 6 months’ time. 0.1 of a point into ‘overweight’. Would a goal of 24.9 better please you?

I got myself to a healthy weight using Slimpod. Combination of hypnosis and diet/healthy living advice. Costs £90. You need to spend some time watching videos and listening to the hypnosis but I found its focus on healthy eating rather than calorie restriction more sustainable than a diet.

Totally valid points, thanks @Proteinpud. My goal is of course for fat loss. I believe my current body fat is around 35% so the goal is not unreasonable based on guidelines, but of course means that I have to have an approach that results in fat loss and not muscle loss or reduced bone density. I assumed that was implicit.

FWIW I would never try to live on 800 cals a day, but am reading that as a proxy for very reduced calories relative to my height / body mass. The equivalent for me is probably more like 1200-1400 but I would have to do some calculations to work it out.

Yes, I absolutely want to increase exercise, not only for weight loss but for all its benefits.

I was at my most confident and comfortable at the goal weight I'm citing, which was BMI 21. That's why I have it in mind. I should add that I was also at my healthiest in terms of diet and exercise levels, so you are right that it was about the whole picture.

You can easily do it, as almost anyone can loose weight if they are really determined (I’ve lost 10 stone using diet changes alone and kept it off for nearly a decade). But the issue is whether you should do it that quickly- imo one of the reasons I’ve succeeded in terms of keeping the weight off when unfortunately so many others seem to have failed, is that I lost it so slowly over a period of many years.

I wished I hadn’t needed to be in my thirties before I realised that weight loss has to be slow to be sustainable and that you have to find a dietary way of doing it thats sustainable for the rest of your life - fad diets, groups, pills etc all the got the weight off for me in my twenties, but a year or two later I would just end up even heavier than when I started as it wasn’t sustainable for the rest of my life (so what started off as only a few stone to lose eventually became more than 10).

I’m also still about a stone overweight btw (so I’m hardly claiming to be perfect weight loss wise) - as I also think it’s important to know your limits; I have chronic health issues that can make weight loss trickier and I’ve never had a thin build in the first place.

Imo it was also as important to try to find the psychological reasons for overeating - either with counselling or some very deep self introspection 🤣

Good luck OP!

I have lost 3 stone in just over a year !
Take time is better in the long run it doesn’t stop when u have lost the weight it’s a new lifestyle .
I did it on slimming world and I have changed me mindset with food and exercise!
im 49 !
if u lose 4 stone in 6 months by 12 months u will have slipped back into bad habits x

One word of warning that people rarely give. Rapid weight loss can trigger gallstones and that is awful.
I lost a lot of weight quickly a few years ago through low carb and intermittent fasting and ended up with gallstones that can’t be treated because of another health condition I have.

I’ve now put the weight back on and more (as people who do rapid diets always do) and can’t get it off again by any of the normal means because of the risk I’ll trigger my gallbladder into getting worse and end up having emergency surgery which could be life threatening for me.

I've done it many times. Some of these might not exist anymore

Cabbage Soup diet
Fast 800
Cambridge Diet
Newcastle Diet
Amphetamines
Rybelsus
Mounjaro

Fast 800 is probably the healthiest but BMI 21 for a woman is quite low, my oh is 23 and he is very muscular but scrawny. Good luck whatever you choose

Although you could lose 4 stone in 6 months…. I think it’s not as necessary as you think and having such a high target sets you up for failure.

I’d aim to get to 24.9 BMI and then assess how you look from there.

I’ve found slimming world to be good but it really depends on your lifestyle and habits.

@SexAndCakes It was implicit really, the reason I mentioned it though is when the focus becomes on what the scale says or what the BMI says then the idea of retaining muscle, and being healthy, starts to get lost. It is possible for example to lose inches but stay the same weight or even weigh more, and if the only goal is scale weights a lot of people would see that as a failure.
I'm 5ft 2. If I ate 1200-1400 calories a day I wouldn't manage exercise. Let alone 800. Fwiw the 800 calorie a day diet was invented by medics as a means to get bed bound severely obese patients ready for surgery. Which probably tells you how sensible it is to extrapolate for slightly overweight people trying to maintain an ordinary level of exercise.

I lost 3 stone in 4 or 5 months before which took me to a bmi of 21.5-ish and while it was doable, it was difficult, my calorie limit was very low and I did eventually put it all back on (after pregnancy but still). I've tried to do this again since but I always fall off the wagon after 5 or 6 weeks as the hunger gets to me eventually, I've had to accept that this level of calorie restriction is not sustainable for me anymore.

I am back losing weight now but this time I am doing a smaller calorie deficit. I am aiming for 1lb loss a week which I only need a little over 300 calorie deficit a day for. I am 10lbs down and have 35lbs left to go to get to bmi of 22. I'm confident that I will actually get there this time. I don't feel deprived and can easily see myself doing this long term, I eat all the foods I normally do, just smaller portions and logging everything in my calorie counting app! I would highly recommend the slow approach. You could be halfway to your goal by summer and have almost 4 stone lost by next Christmas if you aim for 1lb a week, imagine how amazing that would feel.

Pay for weight loss injections.

I have saved money having them by not eating out, shopping bill reduced to £7 a week for me - no takeaways or wine. It’s been a total game changer.

@Petrasings the OP has already said she wouldn't qualify for them, they shouldn't be used by people who are only a little bit overweight to start with.

I think as well unless you intend to become very active, you need to be realistic about what it takes to maintain a healthy weight with a very sedentary life.

I'm size 12, very sedentary, and I eat one large, protein packed salad a day and a few bits of chocolate. I don't mind because it's not forever, but i'm being honest with you in a way that garbage magazines and websites about health and lifestyle won't be, because its not aspirational and doesn't sell. People want to hear that they can be slim and eat loads of healthy food throughout the day and unfortunately my experience is that that's not possible with a sedentary lifestyle (this isn't specifically aimed at you, OP, but something others may find useful as a perspective)

A private doctor may prescribe jabs if you are menopausal (?) as ‘borderline’. Plenty on them at this BMI in maintenance phase.