How Long Will It Take To Lose A Stone With Diet And Exercise?

In this article, I’ll provide you with scientifically proven guidelines on how long it’s going to take you to lose a stone with diet and exercise.

But in short. If you do everything right, you can expect to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. So if your adherence is awesome, you can expect to lose a stone, in roughly 7-14 weeks.

Although maybe a bit faster, or slower depending on how dialled in your nutrition and training are.

But many nuances might skew these numbers for some individuals. And if you want to lose a stone the correct way. You need to get right the 20% that produces 80% of the results.

First What Actually Is A Stone?

A stone is equal to 14 pounds or 6.36 kilograms. So in order to lose a stone you need to lose 14 pounds.

How To Set Up Your Diet To Lose A Stone

If you follow these steps below, you’ll lose a stone, guaranteed.

• Make sure you’re in a sustainable calorie deficit of 500 calories.
• Eat at least 0.72 grams of protein per pound of your body weight every day. So many studies show that individuals who follow a high protein diet, experience less hunger, burn more total calories, and lose more fat.
• Make sure your diet is made up of 80-90% healthy, nutritious foods.
• Drink 3-4 litres of water every day.
• Avoid or at least limit drinking your calories e.g. sugary drinks, full-sugar soda, alcohol etc.

The first time that I experienced how incredibly simple fat loss was, I was following these tips and you can too.

If my clients want to lose weight. This is what I prescribe for them.

There are many benefits of setting your diet up like this.

• You’ll maintain/ build muscle because of the high protein diet.
• You won’t have extreme hunger all the time because the calorie deficit is sustainable and your high protein diet is satiating.
• You’ll stay full because most of your food choices will come from healthy low-calorie foods that are full of volume.

For A Free Fat Loss Guide With Examples On How To Set Up Your Fat Loss Calories Click This Link

How To Set Up Your Exercise Routine To Lose A Stone

“In the gym, don’t waste your time with lots of sets and reps of not much more than baton-twirling. Pack the plates on and go heavy!

Dan John Author Of Never Let Go

A helluva lot of people believe that to lose weight you need to:

• Get a sweat on.
• Do agonizing amounts of cardio.
• Give up your life.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, these common misconceptions do more harm than good.

If you want to lose fat and not muscle you need to be lifting weights. You see, lifting weights while you’re in a deficit ensures that you:

• Maintain your hard-earned muscle and strength (maybe even gain muscle/strength if you’re a newbie).
• Lose hardly any muscle but heaps of fat.
• Become more toned, powerful and aesthetic.

Here is a 3-day male and female workout routine that you can use. These workouts incorporate all the most effective compound exercises.

Free Workout Programs

I recommend that you have a day of rest between each workout. You could train on Monday (A), Wednesday (B) and Friday (C).

Or on Tuesday (A), Wednesday (B), and Saturday (C).

Cheat Sheets

FAQ

How Long Will It Take To Lose A Stone With Diet And Exercise?

1 pound of fat contains roughly 3500 calories. So to lose 1 pound of fat you need to be in a 3500 calorie deficit over the course of a week.

To do that you need to reduce your total daily energy expenditure by 500 calories every day.
For example:

• I burn roughly 2500 calories per day.
• If I eat 2000 calories I’ll be in a 500 calorie deficit.
• If I maintain this deficit over the course of a week I’ll be in a 3500 calorie weekly deficit.
• This results in 1 pound of fat loss.

You need to bear in mind:

• Some days you might be in a larger calorie deficit, due to increased activity levels.
• Some days you may be in a smaller calorie deficit due to human error and life getting in the way.
• No one’s perfect at tracking calories. I know I’m certainly not. Just try your best.

But if you get the fundamentals right, you can expect to lose 1-2 pounds of pure fat per week.

So it’ll take you between 7-14 weeks to lose a stone.

Should You Add Cardio?

If you have the time, you can add cardio to your routine. But make sure your main focus is on your workouts and nutrition plan. Because that’s the 20% that produces 80% of the results.

If you do, you’ll lose fat, whether you do cardio or not. Although cardio will help you burn even more calories. And this will increase your calorie deficit and help you burn fat a bit faster. But you don’t want to do too much cardio either.

The type of cardio you do is entirely up to you. Pick the one that you enjoy. If that’s walking, great. If that’s racing your pet greyhound in the garden. Be my guest.

What If I’m Skinny Fat Does This Advice Still work?

You’ll still lose weight/ fat. Everything in this article applies to you as well. Being skinny fat is caused by having too much fat and not enough muscle.

When you:

• Make sure you’re in a sustainable calorie deficit.
• Regularly strength train.
• Eat enough protein.

You essentially get rid of that excess fat you’re carrying. And build or at the least maintain muscle. Resulting in you becoming more lean and defined. Which solves the skinny fat problem.

What If My Metabolism Is Damaged?

When you lose weight, you’re essentially a smaller version of yourself. So naturally, you burn fewer calories. Because smaller individuals burn fewer calories than larger individuals.

But your metabolism never gets damaged, It just slows down a bit. Some studies show that your metabolism will slow down by probably 5-15% after long periods of dieting.

Because even in very extreme circumstances like the Minnesota starvation experiment,
Metabolic slow down didn’t thwart weight loss.

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment

Here’s how the experiment went, to give you some context:

In 1944, 36 individuals had the choice of either taking part in this experiment or fighting on the front lines.

This experiment was developed to replicate the conditions that a prisoner of war may experience. And Its main aim was to find out the healthiest way to help the millions of starving people in Europe return to a normal body weight.

This lasted for 6 long months and these individuals were eating roughly 50% of their normal caloric needs per day.

They were also marching 22 miles per week and doing several hours of manual labour per day (talk about gruelling cardio, yikes).

This resulted in an extremely aggressive calorie deficit.

What the researchers found, was that at most, their metabolisms slowed down by roughly 20%.

This means if one of these test subjects started the experiment with a metabolic rate of 1800 calories. By the end, it would’ve decreased to 1440 calories.

Bear in mind that each of these test subjects lost on average about 25% of their body weight.

And you need to lose roughly 10% or more of your body weight before your metabolism drops by more than 10%.

Again the most your metabolism will probably drop after extended periods of dieting is 5-15%. Unless you try to replicate the conditions in the Minnesota starvation experiment (20%). Which I highly doubt you’re going to do.

Your Metabolism Isn’t Broken

Here’s the deal, when you lose weight, your metabolism does slow down a bit, but not excessively. And rather than thinking of it as metabolic damage, it’s instead your body adapting to eating fewer calories. It’s actually called metabolic adaptation.

If you follow the tips outlined in this article you’ll lose weight. And the amount that your metabolism will drop will be meagre at most.

Stop Worrying About Time, And Start Focusing On Habits That Will Get You Results

In the book The One thing by Gary Keller, he says something that’s extremely important.

” Success is actually a short race – a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.”

Gary Keller Author Of The One Thing

On average it takes 66 days to build a habit, maybe a bit longer or a bit less.
But either way, you need to put in the work.

Set up your diet and training accordingly, after a couple of weeks this fitness stuff will become easier. And after a while, the habit would have kicked in.

And by this point, the stone that you plan to lose should be long gone. Get in the habit of doing the right things and success will follow you precisely because you forgot to think about it.

The Bottom Line On How Long Will It Take To Lose A Stone With Diet And Exercise?

• A stone is equal to 14 pounds or 6.36kg.
• If you get in the right habits, you can expect to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week (4-8 pounds per month).
• After putting this advice into practice you can expect to get to your goal in 7-14 weeks. Maybe a bit longer or a bit less.

I hope I’ve answered the question of “how long will it take to lose a stone with diet and exercise?” in a way in which you can take away what you’ve learnt and start seeing results.

Comment below with “yes” if you’re starting your journey to lose a stone today.