Wedding diet!

Question
Hello, I recently got engaged and set my wedding date for 10/20 of next year. Of course I'm very excited but suddenly realized how soon that really is! I will need to buy my dress in January/ February- which is right around the corner... I hate to say this but I'm about 200lbs and 5'4. I know that puts me in the obese category, I would like to know what a realistic goal is for me to lose by February and how I can fastest lose that weight and keep it off, or hopefully continue to lose. I don't know if this is unrealistic but I would love to lose 50lbs by next summer. I'm not trying to be a size 0 and I know 150 is still quite a lot for a girl my height but I have pretty good self esteem and I think I would look great at that size. What do you think? Thanks so much for your help!

Answer
Hi Ashley and congrats on the approaching wedding. A realistic goal for weight loss from know to the last week of February is 26-30 pounds not to say that if you are very good and do not cheat you can lose up to 40 pounds. This weight loss is sustainable at the 26 -30 pound level. It may even hold if you lose slightly more. but, you will at some point around 30 pounds or slightly more have to take a break from dieting and maintain your numbers for about 1 month to allow your body to adjust.

The second faze of your diet will then begin again and you should be able to achieve about half of the initial weight loss in the same amount of time which would bring you down by a total of 39 to 60 pounds depending on your personal factors. The time frame we are looking at is 30 weeks taking us to June 29th. June 29th would be around that summer weight loss you where talking about.

As for diet, get that word out of your vocabulary, look at it as eating modification. Eating modification is eating right and eating to live not living to eat and eating wrong. Motivation will come once you see those initial 15 -20 pounds come  off. The trick is to stay motivated and to never give up. When I  talk to people about losing weight I always suggest working with a Doctor to make sure you are healthy enough for exercise and weight loss and a Nutritionist because it makes it so much easier by taking the guess work out of it. I also recommend a ACE or ACSM certified personal trainer to help you at he gym with exercise.

Good Luck and feel free to write back with any other questions.

Lawrence

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