I want to lose 15 pounds in 3 months.  Well, 17, but that doesn’t sound good.

By Thanksgiving, I want to hop on the scale at 205 pounds.  That’s going to be my goal weight for the time being.  I’m not going to commit to it being my maintenance weight for the future as I want to see how I look when I get there.  Right now though, I think that’s my “ideal” weight considering the amount of muscle (much!) and fat (not so much!) I want to carry.

Oddly enough, at 205, being physically fit, and having a clean bill of health I would still be considered slightly overweight on the government’s BMI scale.

Say it with me, class:  BMI is a rough guide, not a precision tool.

Anyway, back to the whole having a new goal thing and wanting to lose 15 pounds in 3 months.  I want to lose it by Thanksgiving, meaning I have 3 months and some change to get the job done.  It’s a fairly realistic goal and I should be able to achieve it without much difficulty.  I’m committed to it, but I’m just not sure how muscle building is going to impact the process.

Regardless, it’s clear that this 205 will be not the same as the old 205 pounds.

How to lose 15 pounds in 3 months (long version):

It all comes down to math.  I take it for granted these days that I can quickly calculate how many calories I need on a daily basis,how many calories a certain food has, estimate how many calories were burned in an exercise or gym session, etc.  It’s fairly easy information for me to figure out today, but thinking back to when I started and reading all the e-mail I’ve received on the topic I realize that it all can be overwhelming to figure out.

When something is confusing, I break it down.

To lose 15 pounds in 3 months I need to lose 5 pounds a month.  15 divided by 3 equals 5. Simple, right?  Then, divide by 4, as there are 4 weeks in a month.  That means I need to lose a pound a week, plus a little change.

So, let’s say you’re like Patricia from California who e-mailed me and wanted to lose 50 pounds in 6 months for a wedding coming up in 2011.  50 divided by 6 equals uh, something.  So let’s say Patricia wants to lose 60 pounds in 6 months.  Yeah, that’s better.  So, 60 divided by 6 equals 10.

Patricia (can I call you Patty?) needs to lose 10 pounds a month, or 2.5 pounds a week, to reach her goal of losing 50 60 pounds by February.

Well, how do you lose 1, 5, 10 pounds a week?

To lose 1 pound a week, you need to have a deficit of 500 calories a day (because 7 x 500 equals 3,500) as 3,500 calories represents a pound.  If you wanted to lose 3 pounds a week, you’d need a deficit of 1,500 calories a day and so forth.  A deficit means you eat less than you burn.

Caution, though, starving yourself or eating too few calories will have the reverse effect.  You will lose weight at first, but you’ll quickly stop progressing and your general health will start deteriorating.  You won’t find any expert recommending you lose more than a couple of pounds a week.

Personally, it took a while before I started losing less than 3-4 pounds a week, but that’s because I was so big to start with.

So, how did my friend lose X (5, 10, 15) pounds last week?

I get this question a lot in my inbox.  Someone has a friend who started some fad diet or ridiculous craze and they lose a lot of weight the first week, proving that the diet is the best thing since sliced bread.   The reason it was possible to lose 5/10/15 pounds or whatever is because of initial water weight being loss and the drastic shift in calorie consumption.  Usually, while generally healthy and unsustainable, a lot of these fad and craze diets are still low in calories.  People go from eating 4,000-8,000 calories a day to like 1,500.

So, they lose weight.  Math, remember?

Lastly, how do you calculate how many calories you need?

That’s the million dollar question.

You figure this out by using an online calculator to calculate your BMR — don’t worry about what acronym means, it’s not important.  It’s the number that this magical BMR calculator gives you that is important.  Unfortunately though, the number calculators give you should be looked upon as an estimate and is probably over-estimated by 10-20%.

As I sit here today, I still second-guess how many calories I should be consuming every day to lose weight.  1,800?  2,200?  2,500?  A good rule of thumb is to subtract 10% from a BMR estimate, then subtract 500 calories (to lose 1 pound a week, remember?) or 1,000 (2 calories a week), whichever you’d like to lose.  Today, I personally aim to eat 2,200 calories a day.

How to lose 15 pounds in 3 months (short version):

Count calories.

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I’ve heard a lot of reasons as to why it’s hard to lose weight.

My inbox is filled with folks that tell me they have started working out — started losing weight — yet they just can’t seem to keep going.   Or, they know what they should be doing to lose weight, but they can’t even get started.

They can’t because INSERT EXCUSE HERE.

Apparently, there’s something more important than living.

My wife and I know it’s a lot of work to lose weight.  I was on the brink of killing myself and was living a miserable, uncomfortable life at 344 pounds.  I spend about 45 minutes at the gym 4 nights a week making sure I never go back to that terrible place.  My wife and I look at it as an investment.

It costs a little bit of money.  It takes time.  But it’s worth it.

I’ve heard all the excuses.  I’ve given all of them myself.   I’ll share the most popular excuses I’ve given and heard below, as well as my feelings on each.

1.  “I don’t have any time to workout.”

Do you take a shower and brush your teeth every day?  Instead of taking a shower and brushing every day, go to the gym instead.  I’d rather you smell and have no teeth but be alive and have a clean bill of health.

It doesn’t need to go to those extremes, but you get the idea.  You always have some time in the day to replace.  Always, unless you’re on an Alaskan fishing boat.  Maybe you need to stop watching so much television, going out with friends, etc.  Or, if you’re a family man like myself, maybe you need to (and I say this with dread) give up some family time every evening.

An hour at the gym now is worth another 10-30+ with your kids.

2.  “I don’t have any time to eat healthy.”

Oatmeal takes a couple of minutes.  A killer combo from Wendy’s is a chili and baked potato.  While a little high in sodium, chili and a baked potato tastes good together, is low in calories, and has a good profile of protein/carbs/fats.

If you don’t have any time in the morning to prepare a healthy lunch for work the workday, make it the night before.  You should always have a plan in the morning what you’re going to eat for the rest of the day.  If you don’t, you’re more likely to eat junk.  There’s fast healthy food out there.

Find it.

3.  “I don’t have the money for a gym membership.”

Not to be blunt, but jog 45 minutes a day in your living room or outside.  Don’t use money as an excuse not to lose weight. You absolutely don’t need a gym to lose weight, even though I’d recommend it if you have the option.

4.  “I don’t have the money to eat healthy.”

Eggs are cheap.  Oatmeal is cheap.  Lettuce is cheap.  Bread is cheap.  A heaping pack of like 3 pounds of sliced turkey is $4 at Wal-Mart.  Again, don’t use money as an excuse not to lose weight.  You don’t need to go to Trader Joe’s or Chipotle all the time, hippies.

It’s about priorities.

5.  “I’ll start tomorrow.”

Let me guess — you have some exams in a couple of weeks and it’s too stressful to start now?  The big holiday at the lake is this weekend and you no you’re going to splurge when you get there, so why start now?

It’s always fine to start tomorrow, until tomorrow never comes.

Start today.  I’ll say it again — today.  If you want to splurge at the BBQ this weekend, great, do it.  But you have 21 meals until you get to eat the big hog with some potato salad, so eat 21 healthy meals until then and eat junk on the 22nd, if you’d like.

6.  “Nobody around me will give me any support.”

You don’t need them to.  It’s your life, you live it how you want.  Structure it how you like.  Eat what you like.  Nobody force feeds you (and if they do, you need to get out of the relationship).  I don’t care how much junk food you have in the house, you have willpower.

Eat junk, gain weight.  Eat healthy, be healthy.  Your choice.

7.  “I don’t need to lose weight.”

Nobody has ever sent me this excuse through an e-mail — that’d be strange, as they’re obviously contacting me to get help with losing weight.  I put this excuse up here.  It’s one I told my wife for several years.  “I don’t need to lose weight,” I told her, as I devoured another 4,000 calorie meal at dinner.

I was married, had a job, a nice house, and friends and family that loved me.  What did and does any of that have to do with my weight?

And then, I had my daughter, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.  She deserved better.  She deserved to have me around.  It’s unfortunate I didn’t think my wife was worthy of the change at the time, but it doesn’t matter now.  My daughter made me change.

I can’t wait until she gets old enough to know what she did for me.

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