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How can I lose 40 pounds in 2 months?
I'm 5'4" and weigh 140 lbs. I eat a 70% raw vegan diet, and eat no processed foods (beyond dried fruits), salt, oil, or sugar (well, only 1 teaspoon of black strap molasses in my tea each day). The lowest I've weighed is 135 lbs. Idk why I'm plateauing. I've been this weight for the past year, and lost 40 lbs in the year prior, when I first went vegan. I lost 40 lbs then with barely any exercise. Now, I'm actively exercising (~3-4 days a week) and am stuck. My exercise is to run 3-5 miles, which takes me between 30 mins and 1 hour. I like cardio because I want to just get a skinny figure. I don't care about building muscle. For the first time in my life, I can see a thigh gap developing, but I don't know why I'm losing weight so slowly now. What can I do to increases things? I don't think I'm eating too much, either. Here's an example of what I eat on a typical day. Green smoothie (21 oz of kale, bananas, other seasonal fruits, water, and 1/2 tsp flax seeds) for breakfast, a big salad for lunch (homemade, low fat salad dressing), and veggie soup, steamed brussel sprouts, and a steamed sweet potato for dinner. I'm not starving myself.. should I cut my portions further or focus on exercising harder? Idk what to do. I can't afford a gym and my bike is broken. I'm afraid of exercise tapes and weight lifting, like I said, because I want a thin, modelesque figure, like Alexa Chung. Not super defined or anything. I'm closer to my goal than I've ever been in my life, but now I'm stuck
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Maybe give some free advice about: Fitness?
Super impressed about how far you've come.
I know you said you only do cardio but I think that may be part of the problem. You can lose fat faster if you do some body weight exercises. You won't start building like a ton of muscles unless you focused on that. But you will lose fat and get skinny faster.
I don't necessarily think being 5'4 and 100 lbs is unhealthy like the other adviser said. As long as you're taking care of yourself and you're not just skin and bones haha.
So I don't know much about a vegan diet so I can't really help you with that but I would say throw some body weight exercises in there.
I learned after the first 20 min of working out, you'll start burning fat.
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Your BMI will be too low if you lose 40 pounds. A BMI of under 18.5 is underweight, and that is not healthy.
Healthy weight loss happens slowly. To lose 30 pounds (which would have your BMI on the low side of normal at 18.9) should take you 4 months if you consistently lose 2 pounds a week, which is doable with a lot of hard work and dedication. Losing weight slowly will prevent you from readily gaining it back.
Cut your carbs. Eat carbs only before exercising. Lower your fruit and starch intake and increase your leafy greens.
If you up your protein intake and start lifting weights you can obtain the figure you want without losing more weight-just an aside. I spent a lot of time thinking the number on the scale was key. Body composition matters. You can look 110 at 130 or 140 if you exercise smarter and up your protein.
And don't force your body to do the impossible in order to fit into unrealistic beauty standards, created by men to make women feel inferior. You eat healthy and exercise, your body will sustain you in wonderful health- love it always.
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