# Fastest way to lose fat **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 6, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fastest-way-to-lose-fat/630669 "2012-08-06T22:54:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ChickenLegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@ChickenLegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickenLegs)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fastest-way-to-lose-fat/630669/41 "2012-08-08T20:09:22Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > I bet that fucker was drinking a shitload of water before the initial weigh-in and maybe even secreting some additional (lead?) weights on his person. Then, before the final weigh-in, he could do some minor dieting/exercise, then dehydrate like crazy, and he’d pretty much be a lock to win it. I know he was doing the water-loss thing. Just like high school wrestling, he told me. I doubt he did the lead weights. That would have been blatant cheating, and he was a pretty straight shooter. ---
**Author:** ![ChickenLegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@ChickenLegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickenLegs)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fastest-way-to-lose-fat/630669/42 "2012-08-08T20:12:50Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Yeah, but I sincerely doubt that you could maintain this rate for four weeks/40 pounds of weight loss, unless you started out massively obese, which ChickenLegs says his (her) friend did not. (And actually, ChickenLegs said that his/her friend was “normal, not fat,” in which case 40 pounds of weight loss would leave him looking like a meth user.) > > Although speaking of meth, I will also vote for this as the quickest weight loss method. Yeah, like I said, he looked like hell after. He was about a 175-180 pound guy, if I recall, before the weight loss. I guessing he had about 10-15 pounds of water loss for the weigh-in. Not unusual at all for boxers or wrestlers. Me, I’m 5’9" and 155. I guarantee I could lose 20 pounds in two months, and another 10 pounds of water for the weigh-in, if the price was right. ---
**Author:** ![ChickenLegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@ChickenLegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickenLegs)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fastest-way-to-lose-fat/630669/43 "2012-08-08T20:21:11Z")
> [@ChickenLegs](#): > > Yeah, like I said, he looked like hell after. He was about a 175-180 pound guy, if I recall, before the weight loss. I guessing he had about 10-15 pounds of water loss for the weigh-in. Not unusual at all for boxers or wrestlers. > > Me, I’m 5’9" and 155. I guarantee I could lose 20 pounds in two months, and another 10 pounds of water for the weigh-in, if the price was right. Look at it this way: A pound of body fat is equal to about 3500 calories. An average lazy guy burns about 2000 calories a day with doing anything majorly physical or strenuous. So taken to the extreme, if you don’t eat at all, you’ll lose about 17 pounds of fat per month. More realistically, if you cut your calorie intake in half and increase your exercise, 10 pounds per months is easily doable. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fastest-way-to-lose-fat/630669/44 "2012-08-08T20:31:37Z")
Definitely coke or meth. You won’t even want to eat. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2012, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fastest-way-to-lose-fat/630669/45 "2012-08-09T04:00:29Z")
100 pounds of fat? Hard to pull off. Let’s look at the severe calorie restriction approach, or as the medical literature refers to it, very low calorie diets (VLCDs), defined as 400 to 800 calories/day with generally at least 50 grams of protein and adequate vitamins and minerals, etc. They [work](http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v9/n11s/full/oby2001134a.html) but not any better than diets with 800 to 1200 calories/day, at any time frame measured including 6 weeks to 4 months to 1 year to follow up 5 years out. Initial weight loss the first 6 weeks in either is dramatic, often over 5 pounds a week totaling up over 30 pounds (and some studies documented that coming from fat almost exclusively with enough protein) but then slowing down. By a few months into it both were averaging that classic 1 kg a week or less for the whole course. (Simplistic understandings of the first law of thermodynamics be damned.) So that can get you down 30 pretty fast but not any faster to 100 than conventional approaches, if ever. (Barring a concentration camp style diet or heavy meth-headdom, where the loss of weight from muscle, vital organs and brain, and possible death, are not worries to be avoided.) Nope, the only thing that can likely meet that goal without a death camp is indeed [bariatric surgery](http://annals.org/article.aspx?volume=142&issue=7&page=547) which can get there by a year and often maintain it. Of course as I’ve pointed out on (and cited) these boards often before the lion’s share of the health benefits can be gained with much less loss, maybe 5 to 10% of body weight, if accomplished and maintained by changes in diet and exercise habits. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fastest-way-to-lose-fat/630669.md?page=2)