Hey, I'm not sure if this is the correct place to put this...but here we go. Since March I've gained about 15 pounds (depression), but recently I've been feeling more energetic and like myself again, so I want to take control of my weight.

Before I gained the weight I used to run on the cross-trainer for 50 minutes a day, six days a week. When I became depressed I lost all interest in exercise. My plan is to do 50 minutes/7 days a week while trying to eat around 1200 calories a day while losing the weight, then once I'm at the weight I want to be again I'll push it back up to 1800/2000 calories a day.

I'm 15 years old, 5'4" and 121 pounds. I looked my best around 106/107 pounds.

Does this sound like a good exercise and dieting plan for me to lose the weight and feel good about myself again? I'm hoping that if I can get my diet and excersize under control again it'll make me stronger when dealing with other aspects of my life.

Could anyone give a time estimate as to how many months it will take for me to lose around 15 pounds?

It sounds pretty good except I thnk 1200 calories might be a bit too low. I'd start out at 1500 and then see what happens and if you need to go lower from there, you can. Better to start out a little too high and have to drop some, than start out too low and stall everything out from the beginning.

Thank you KaraCooks. When I decided to start losing weight, the calorie intake was really a concept I struggled with so it's nice to have your input!

Still looking for feedback and a time estimate (if that's possible!)

Thanks,

Megan

Oh, I missed the time estimate thing. In general you should aim for about 1% of your bodyweight per week - which means for you, somewhere between 1 and 1.5 lbs a week would be healthy.

It's really hard to say though - everyone loses differently and the closer you are to a healthy weight, the slower it goes for a lot of people. I'd say plan on 3-ish months, but don't take that for gospel. You may drop it right off, and it may take a bit longer.

Sorry that's not more precise!

Without knowing all the details, i'm going to go out on a limb here and say that at your target goal weight, you're going to not look very healthy at all. 106lbs @ 5'4" seems very skinny with basically no muscle mass to speak of. With all that cardio, and no resistance training, i'm concerned that to reach your goal weight, you'll have to starve yourself down to get to that "skinny-fat" look.

Again, this is just me going by the numbers. it's possible however you have a very slight frame that will look good at that weight, but that would be a very minority of girls who could pull it off.

Thanks for your responses, I adore the speed of this forum.

Three months sounds amazingly and wonderfully short, which has really boosted my motivation. But, I do know it could take longer so I'm not going to mark it on my calender or anything.

I know, 106/107 pounds does sound kind of small, but I know back in February when I was eating a healthy diet and exercising everday without the goal of weight loss, I was around 48/49kg - which, correct me if I'm wrong, is around 107lbs?

Of course, I generally go by how I look, not what I weigh so if I happen to look fabulous at 52kg I'll just try to maintain my weight. But for now without knowing what I'm going to look like, I'm going to aim for what I know I was happy with a couple of months ago.

EDIT: I do stomach muscle exercises that a guy from the gym showed me once every night, hopefully that'll avoid the "skinny-fat" look

Yeah, that's about 107lbs.

I'm 5'4" and my goal weight (as of right now) is 135, which is what I weighed in college. However, I know even in college I wanted to lose about 15-20 of those pounds. Then again, what girl in college *doesn't* want to lose weight, right?

I think at that height, 107lbs is at the very bottom of what's considered a "normal" BMI range. I do tend to agree with Jynus that it might be too low - because of the "skinny fat" thing.

I am thinking if you added in some resistance training or strength training, that you could get the fit look you want at a slightly higher weight - which will actually mean you have more muscle, not more fat. Stomach exercises are ... well .. .actually kinda useless. What you need is some full body stuff. I'd suggest adding in a couple of sets each of squats, lunges, stepups, pushups, chinups or pullups, dips, and planks at least 2x per week. Those are pretty basic full-body moves that will help you build stability and strength. Feel free to do crunches as well if you want, but keep in mind that they're not all that effective because they target one set of muscles only.

Thank you for the full body exercises you suggested. I will definitely try to incorporate those into my plan.

For now I've also decided to do 20 / 30 minutes of cardio in the morning, as well as my 50 in the evening, when it's possible, ha.

Thanks again,

Megan