How to Lose 15 Pounds in a Month: Our Advice

Like many of us, you want to shed extra pounds. 

If you’re carrying a little extra, losing weight can bring you many benefits. It not only makes you look and feel incredible, but it mitigates your risk of medical conditions like heart disease, high cholesterol, and stroke. 

So, you’ve set your target, now what? 

Allocating a number to weight loss is the easy part. Next, you need to commit to that goal and figure out how you’re going to get there. Then, it’s time to take actionable steps to start shifting that weight. 

One of the biggest blockers that can get in your way is setting an unrealistic goal. 15 pounds in a month is considered rapid weight loss, and with rapidity comes numerous problems. 

This article covers how long it takes to lose 15 pounds, the dangers of losing weight too quickly, and the steps to attempt to lose 15 pounds in a month.  

How to Lose 15 Pounds in a Month: 6 Tips to Start Now

We don’t want to give you false hope for losing weight fast, but we will offer you 6 proven strategies for boosting fat loss. Follow these guidelines, and your waistline will soon shrink.

#1 Start counting calories

Calorie counting is an absolute method to track your calorie intake. You need to know precisely how many calories you consume to gather how many you need to burn. 

This is because weight loss happens when you create a calorie deficit (calories burned vs. calories consumed). 

The only way to recognize what’s going into your body is to make a note of it. Most food products have the calorie count on the label, but you can also use a calorie tracking app.

The Perfect Body app and website are personalized weight loss plans that include a daily calorie tracker, thousands of recipes, and flexible workout plans.

The trick is to eat fewer calories and burn more. So, choose low-calorie, highly nutritious foods, and eliminate high-calorie, non-nutritional ones.

Keep the following equation in mind:

1 pound of body fat = 3,500 calories

Therefore, 3,500 calories are the target to meet each week.

When starting, it’s best not to restrict yourself too much. Reducing your daily caloric intake by 500 calories a day is a good starting point.

#2 Try fasting if you’re not ready to exercise 

If you’re not quite prepared to exercise, intermittent fasting is a popular method many people use to melt away fat. 

Intermittent fasting focuses on scheduled eating patterns, with several variations and modifications available. It’s practiced for religious and therapeutic reasons, as well as weight loss. 

The key is to find the one that suits your lifestyle, whether that means skipping breakfast each day or skipping a full day’s meals once a week.

The theory behind it is that when you reduce your caloric intake, insulin levels drop, and your body starts burning fat for fuel.

#3 Eat foods that are rich in fiber 

Filling up on fiber is a top weight loss tip. Fiber-rich foods make you feel fuller for longer, meaning you can eat fewer calories and still feel satisfied. 

Hunger pangs are a threat to your weight loss journey. If you can avoid them by consuming dietary fiber, you prevent yourself from overeating and consuming extra calories. 

Fill your shopping cart with green leafy vegetables, broccoli, berries, beans, and whole grains like bulgur wheat, pearl barley, and quinoa. 

Some of the greatest dietary fiber sources are packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. As well as slimming you down, fiber facilitates comfier bowel movements, good heart health, and keeps blood sugar and cholesterol in check.

#4 Reduce your carbohydrate intake 

The premise of several low-carb diets, including the keto diet, is to move the body into a position where it burns stored fat instead of glucose for energy. That’s what makes the keto diet so popular today. 

Other health benefits of carb reduction may also reduce health risks such as diabetes and heart disease.

Another reason to reduce your carb consumption is to limit the number of simple carbohydrates you eat. Simple carbs, or refined carbs, are categorized as refined foods. 

Refined foods are processed to a point where there is no nutrition left. Simple carbohydrates include white pasta, white bread, white rice, candy, pastries, and sugar. 

When limiting what you eat, don’t waste your precious calories on junk food. Refined carbs cause blood sugar spikes, leaving you hungry a lot sooner.

You don’t want to cut out carbs entirely. But those you do eat should be complex carbohydrates from whole foods. Examples include whole-wheat bread, oatmeal, bananas, peas, beans, and sweet potatoes.

#5 Practice mindful eating 

Mindful eating is more of a spiritual concept, as the practice connects you to yourself and your well-being, providing you with greater self-awareness and self-acceptance.

It’s about being present when you eat and paying careful attention to your body’s signals. 

Adopting this practice takes time, as you slowly adjust your eating habits in line with how you feel. 

The idea is that when you create a better relationship with your food, and in turn, you can gain several advantages, all of which can contribute to weight loss.

Benefits include:

• Greater satisfaction as you take time to eat and enjoy your food
• Awareness of true hunger
• Greater awareness of fullness
• Reduced stress 
• A focus on a healthy diet, with more nutritious food options to benefit your body 
• Better portion control which aids in weight loss 
• Lifelong dietary changes 

Intuitive eating is a widespread philosophical method that uses many principles of eating mindfully. It promotes a healthy relationship with food and a positive body image. Ultimately, you become the master of your own body and hunger triggers.

#6 Sleep more

We’d all like to sleep more, but modern life tends to dictate our sleeping habits. 

If you’re serious about losing 15 pounds in one month, you must prioritize sleep.

You should aim to go to sleep at the same time every evening and wake up at the same time each morning. This promotes a healthy sleep routine that benefits your weight loss journey. 

Poor sleep contributes to increased appetite, bad food decisions, and can play havoc with your metabolism. 

Getting enough sleep improves your mood, mitigates stress, increases energy, and provides you with greater mental clarity. 

Most healthy adults need 7–8 hours of undisturbed sleep per night to feel well-rested.

How Long Does It Take to Lose 15 Pounds? 

To give you an idea of how much weight loss to expect from changing your ways, the CDC, among other health experts, recommends a healthy target of 1–2 pounds per week. 

We can use that as the foundation to do the math. If you can lose 1 pound of fat per week, you can lose 15 pounds in 15 weeks. Lose 2 pounds of fat per week, and you’re looking at a 15-pound reduction in 7.5 weeks. 

Losing 15 pounds in a month isn’t impossible, but it’s a challenge and something that is not recommended.  

An internet search will feed you countless articles on fast weight loss. Crazy diets, supplements, and eating patterns promise you the world, but weight loss doesn’t work like that. 

Losing weight takes time and patience. It’s about making positive lifestyle changes and sticking with them.

We can’t predict exactly how soon you will lose 15 pounds, but we can estimate based on a frequently used recommendation.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a long time at all.

Remember that the numbers are an estimate. Everybody loses weight at different rates, as variables like age, sex, height, body composition, and physical activity level impact your ability to drop body fat. 

If your mind and heart are set on losing 15 pounds faster, there are ways to speed up the process. 

Is Rapid Weight Loss Safe?

No, rapid weight loss is not safe. In some cases, medical professionals may encourage patients to lose weight fast with tailored diet and exercise programs if their current health is putting them at risk. Doctors must approve a suitable program for the specific individual and their needs.

Otherwise, anything more than the 1–2-pound rule is thought to be dangerous to overall health.

When you lose weight too quickly, you risk various medical problems. Nutrient deficiencies, gallstones, slower metabolic rate, and weight gain are just some potential consequences. 

You also risk muscle loss, which will not benefit your new physique.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve covered how to lose 15 pounds in a month by incorporating various lifestyle changes. However, we suggest you adhere to the safer, gradual objectives for weight loss. 

You could lose 15 pounds in as little as 2 months with that approach. Consider intermittent fasting or the ketogenic diet to speed things along, but consult your doctor prior.