Aiming to lose 10-15lbs by July 1st

[TheWorstWeek]

This is mostly for accountability.

I've been working out since the beginning of the year doing a mixture of cardio, functional exercises and weight training (dumbells at home) and whilst I am getting fitter and my stamina has greatly increased I want to start seeing weight loss too.

I have a wedding at the end of June and then our first summer holiday abroad at the end of August. Ideally I'd like to see me lose somewhere in the region of 10-15lbs by the wedding and then another 5-10lbs by the holiday.

I am aware that my diet is largely holding me back now and whilst it isn't terrible I am bad for eating several snacks throughout the day. I don't want to properly count calories because I will become obsessive about it but I do plan to keep an eye on them and hopefully aim for a 300-500 calorie deficit. I am hoping to limit myself to one healthy snack (fruit, nuts etc) a day and one or two other snacks a week (chocolate is my weakness!), cutting out all fizzy juice, increasing my water intake while decreasing my tea consumption, watching portion sizes although I'm actually already quite good at this.

Coupled with my work outs 5x a week and daily 30 minute walks, is it achievable? Or am I setting my sights to high? Also, any suggestions on how to stop the urge to snack would be amazing. I know that once I get out of the habit of wanting snacks it'll be fine but breaking that habit is so hard.

Starting weight: 12st 7lb
Goal weight by June 1st: 12st 2lb
Goal weight by July 1st: 11st 10lb
Goal weight by August 1st: 11st 4lb

8 weeks to the 1st July? You can reasonably lose 1lb a week from now if you have a calorie deficit of 500 a day so I guess your interim goal would be achievable.

Sounds like you know what you need to do but if you snack a lot between meals, do you actually feel hungry when you snack or do you think it's more out of habit/boredom? If it's out of genuine hunger you'll need to up the quantity of foods you have for meals i.e. higher protein and fibre to help keep you fuller for longer so you don't feel the need to snack.

If it's the latter, keep a diary and make yourself stop to fill in the diary before you eat a snack to check whether you really are hungry or not and detail the reason why you feel the need to eat. Good luck and hope you achieve it.

It's definitely the latter. I find I'll snack when I'm bored or the children are having a snack just because it's tempting, not because I'm actually hungry. I've got quite a sweet tooth which doesn't help! I just need to be more mindful of my hunger cues and not just mindlessly let me love for snacks take over. Keeping a diary is a really good shout.