How to lose 5 pounds in 10 days!

Posted on March 28, 2015

Answers anyone???

HAHA! I bet you came here for answers to the title question, but I only have a theory. And it goes like this:

A pound is equal to 3500 calories.

To gain a pound add 3500 more calories than you need to exist. To lose a pound expend 3500 more calories than you need to exist. Sounds simple enough. BUT I need to do this times 5!

First question, HOW MANY CALORIES DO I NEED TO EXIST AND MAINTAIN MY CURRENT WEIGHT? Answer: http://www.caloriecontrol.org/calculator/weight-maintenance-calculator-womenI I filled out the form and this site says for moderate exercise, which I think I am currently doing, I need 2889.5 calories daily to maintain. In 10 days I need 28895.0 calories total to maintain. I need a deficit of 17500 calories over 10 days so if I do not do anything more than I am doing that means I have only 11395 calories for 10 days or 1135.5 a day.

BUT I LIKE TO EAT and my moderate activity level just to get to that number still says I have to workout with a sweat 1 hour a day! And it doesn't leave any room for error. I think I would like to have 500 extra calories a day - so I need to add an activity that will burn an extra 500 calories a day. Then I can split the difference in food, should I want to or get really hungry.

There are a couple of sites that are online to help out. http://www.healthstatus.com/perl/calculator.cgi says if I add a 50min spin class - moderate - I should burn 556 calories. The problem is that I am using that one spin class to bump up my seditary lifestyle to moderate already so... I have to add another spin class daily in order to do this.... omg... 2 classes a day for 10 days??? <sigh> well I have a home spin bike and a cathy friedich dvd, but let's face it, you will never push yourself as hard as someone else will push you.

Walking a slow 2 mph at my weight should burn 265 calories an hour. So 2 hours of walking, but that's not really in my lifestyle right now. NOW upping that to 4mph (or a 15 minute mile - and that aint happening right now) but that would burn 490 calories an hour. I wonder if my Leslie walking DVD where I jog 15 of those 60 minutes would count??? It's not on here. I might have to put on a heart rate monitor and do more math.

I really like the convience of this site: http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm There is a list of activities to choose from, so I can pick and choose. Like It's Saturday, maybe I can get the hubs to go bowling (270/hr) and a leisure walk of 2.5 mph for an hour (279 / hr). That might be a nice way to spend the day together and burn that extra 500 calories.

NOW how am I going to eat my 1139 - 1389 calories??? I switched to egg whites. This morning I made brunch for us and I figure I ate about 300 calories. From this moment forward I need to take better stock of my food intake and not approximations. Eating whole food and no processed foods will be the best. I might have to go back to the store for an apple a day (3.5 inch apple = 116 calories) + 1 cup plain lowfat yogurt (100 calories per cup). Tomatoes (3inch = 32) + cucumber (8 inch = 47 calories) + 1//4 cup chopped onion (16 calories) + light no fat zesty Italian dressing (2 Tablespoons = 25 calories)

The next 10 days are going to be interesting..... a lot of math and determination, but I think it's do able.

OH and I didn't mention water, but I read somewhere you should drink half your weight in ounces of water daily. I don't do this. I will however, give it a shot. Hey there are 33 ounces in a liter or 66 ounces in two liters adn I know in my horrible youth, I could easy drink a 2 liter bottle of soda a day, so the water should be doable! ;-)

There's the math. Now to apply it. Have a great day! Good luck one and all.

Comment Now!

BCbabe

03/30/2015 6:45AM

Louise, that was way more math than I would have liked to do this morning!! lol but the plan itself looks good. I have a calorie goal set at 1800 for the day, I try to work out every day and use a heart rate monitor to track the calories out. I average about 700 in an hour. That would leave me with 1100 for my body to burn as maintenance. It is slow but it seems to work. Weighing and measuring your food is a bit of a pain but it helps so much in knowing a correct serving size. Good luck, you can do this!!

Louise likes this comment.

FED UP

03/28/2015 11:12AM

Sorry Louise, it's not as simple as math, but it's simpler than you're making it. Water retention, stress, sleep, metabolism, and a myriad other factors all play into weight loss and gain. So many people follow their mathematical plan and then wonder why they aren't losing according to the formula. It isn't realistic or even healthy to lose 5 pounds in 10 days. Besides that, the majority of those 5 pounds would most likely be water. It takes much longer to lose fat. You have to have accurate data too. Weighing ALL your food on a food scale and measuring your physical activity with a hrm will help. Good luck.

George G.

03/28/2015 10:29AM

Great post! It's cool to see other people on here writing blog posts giving information to try to help us all lose weight. I've been doing a series on just that since this DietBet started. If you care to read, here's Day 1: https://www.dietbet.com/community/posts/general/8941-path-to-health-day-1-the-missi

Louise and M C. like this comment.

Louise

Thank you! Many of my blog posts have links to sites in them, but not all. I did find yours but your link didn't work. HOWEVER, anyone reading this that wants to read George's blog posts, click on his name. He has done 12 of them it looks like and they appear to all be very well written with lots of good inspiration! THANK YOU GEORGE!