On October 3, I have my white coat ceremony and about 25 of the 34 girls in my class are 4 inches shorter than me and probably 40 lbs thinner (many are Asian or middle eastern)

After the white coat ceremony, my husband and I are off to Charleston SC to celebrate. I am 160 and the pounds are dropping SO slow... so I am going to take a few more carbs out of my diet. Anyway, if I am really careful, how much do you think I can realistically drop in 9-10 weeks?

Eventually, I want to be 135, but that is 25 lbs!!!!

Realistically, you can expect to average 1% of your body weight per week. So for you, that would be 1.6# per week, or about 12 lbs. (Which would be 1/2way to your goal!!!)

However, that assumes that you're 100% on plan, and that you don't retain water, have any TOM issues, never take a splurge day, etc. So don't be too depressed if you don't make the whole 12 lbs.

OTOH, you could be one of the lucky ones who drops weight quickly (or quickly at the beginning of your diet) and you could lose more!

Which is all a nice way of saying - who the heck knows!

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Ten weeks? I'd shoot for ten pounds of fat leaving your body. Water weight is a different story. But if you want to see it gone forever, shoot for ten pounds in ten weeks.

The joy is in the journey. Not in the destination. In other words, at 150, you'd see a marked improvement over 160.

Make sense?

Personally, I wouldn't set a goal weight-wise at all. I'd decide what I can reasonably accomplish diet and exercise wise without being miserable or going crazy (whether limiting carbs or calories).

Then do the best you can and see what happens. If you set a goal weight, and aren't meeting it, you could be tempted to do crazy stuff to get the weight off - the kind of stuff that lowers your metabolism and just makes you feel angry, upset, depressed and helpless.

Since you do have a goal in mind, there's nothing wrong with pushing yourself a little harder for a short-term goal, but trying to lose super crazy fast, usually just leaves you super crazy. Doing it the "right" way, there's really no telling what you will or won't lose, because every body is different. Just do your best.

I agree to shoot for 10 pounds. A pound a week is VERY reasonable, not to mention that you COULD lose water weight and you could easily lose more, but I think 10 is a great amount of weight to lose...think about it, that's 40 sticks of butter!!! And if you lose more, GREAT, and if not, you can take pride in the fact you made your goal and are almost half way there!!!!

You can DEFINATELY do this!

When I got married a few years ago, I was about 176 pounds. I wanted to be a bit less, though I don't recall what I had in mind at the time. As I only had a couple of months, I realized that my goal was too far. So, I didn't do much of anything. Maybe I lost a couple of pounds; I don't recall. Then, I picked up another 20 pounds over the years, topping out at 195. So, I say go for it - and keep going for it after October 3. My excess weight really affected my quality of life for those years. I wish I'd have "fixed" my eating then.

Hi Malibu,

I would not set my expectations too high, I agree with the rest of the ladies that 10 lbs would be the maximum. Of course, you could always embark on some crazy diet and lose 5 pounds in a week, but I hope you are not into that.
I also agree with kaplods that it is best not to go by numbers so what I said above about the 10 lbs would be a very generic guideline.

How about if you also concentrate on some toning exercises - if you go to the Exercise forum, somebody posted about callanetics (not to be confused with callistenics) - I never heard about it so I googled it up and ended up with a ton of links, some of which took me to different forums where this was discussed. There is a DVD, I can't remember what exactly it is called, 10 years younger in 10 days? something like that. From what I gleaned on the other forums, you can really get toned up quickly. Here is a clicky to the thread in Exercise:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146148
but you should also google up and perhaps get the DVD and stick with it faithfully for the 10 weeks - IT CAN'T HURT! I have to confirm that if you tone up you will look much slimmer. COuple of years ago, I took a 10 week course (1 hr per week) of Yogalates and we had the most fastastic instructor ever. She worked us very hard - my abs really hurt for at least 2 days afterwards, and I mean they REALLY hurt - at that time, I did not weigh myself but visually, I lost 10 pounds. So if you try callanetics and perhaps pilates together with a healthy nutrition, I am sure you will look great at the ceremony (and by the way, congrats!).

P.S.
I always call you MalibuBeachHOUND because I am into greyhounds and somebody I know had a spectacular greyhound called Malibu. So to me, you will always be MalibuBeachHound, I hope you don't mind!

No, I don't mind at all.

Thank you for your thoughts everyone!

Really you shouldn't be comparing yourself to the other girls in your class anyway.
And, besides, a white lab coat (I'm assuming you'll wear one at a white coat ceremony-lol) is not very figure flattering anyway.
Don't worry about it--go and be happy

LOL... oh no... Im not that concerned about it. Im 5'7" and 160. There are a lot of girls in my class that are Asian and Middle Eastern... they are all just tiny.. 5'2"- 5'4" and 120 lbs max. I'll look like a giant next to them no matter what... even if I am 140. I want to do this for me