Any particular reason why you're looking to lose a quick 5 pounds?

Medically speaking, you're currently well under your ideal body weight of 145 lb if female, and 155 lb if male, based on your height of 5'9". You must have an extremely thin body frame of 120 plus pounds.

If you are looking to make a lower weight class, the easiest thing to do is eat a larger portion in the mornings for breakfast, and as you progress through the day, cut your serving sizes down. Please do not forget to include protein; remember you have essentially been fasting for 8 hours (or whatever number of hours) during sleep. Consider cutting complex and simple carbohydrates 6 hours before you go to sleep at night. Vegetables and fruits are still appropriate as long as its in moderation during this 6 hour window.

Eat small meals, if possible fit in 3 regular meals and 3 snack periods in between (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, extremely small snack). Protein for breakfast and protein for dinner is important. Fruits would be your best friend for snacks. Consider hydrating yourself well with water given its lack of caloric yet filling effect.

Consider doing sit-ups, crunches at night on a empty stomach, either nightly or every two nights (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). Also do not forget to stretch your abdominal muscles. Consider back extensions. Simply contracting muscles makes them fuller. Stretching the muscle helps to elongate them. Your abdominals need that stretch factor too. Have a glass or couple glasses of water post abdominal workout. Sleep on an empty stomach.

And obviously, a quick unhealthy, rapid and highly effective method would be to skip meals entirely. Consider the breakfast and afternoon dense meal, followed by two snack attack, and skip your dinner meal. We want to keep your metabolism revved up, so snacking would be great to curve any hunger that might devastate your short term weight loss goal.

One key to remember is that VEGETABLES and FRUITS would be your best friend. They are low in calorie so you can load up on them to keep yourself fuller.


Ideal Body Weight

Body Surface Area, Body Mass Index

thank you. that is very helpful. how would eating one pack of ramen and like a banana for a snack, along with a bunch of water work for like 2 or 3 days?

I will assume that you want to lose 5 pounds in 3 days max. But more importantly, getting a map of your daily diet would be much more helpful. Please tell me you do not have an eating disorder and no cardiovascular problems, and this choice to slim your diet is only on a temporary basis for these 2 to 3 days.

Please clarify, do you intend to only eat a single ramen pack and one banana per day for 3 days, and water every day.

A single Ramen pack carries two servings, with approximately 400 calories (190 cal per serving). If you are considering a total daily calorie from a single ramen pack and one banana, you'd be extremely weak, not only physically but mentally as well. And it's just not safe. It's do-able, but absolutely not recommended health wise for more than a couple days. But yes, you'll lose the weight.

To make it a tad more healthy, a single ramen pack plus banana as a morning breakfast substitute would be acceptable so long as you maintain a small food source in your stomach every 3 to 4 hours. And if you're only counting on ramen and a banana, your window before bed with no food except fruit/vegetable would be 4 hours maximum. But you must keep your metabolism revved up with snacks, snacks, and more snacks. By snacks, I mean fruits and vegetables. To curve extreme hunger pains, consider wheat bread or oatmeal plus cinnamon for flavoring, or simply green leafy vegetables. For this 4 hour window, snack on fruits.

My guy buddy has done something similar in the past, but instead of "snacks" he did one large meal for lunch and called it quits. Yes, he lost weight, quickly.

Are you considering ramen as a meal or part of the snack process? Anytime an individual goes through caloric deficiency, even short term, vitamin and minerals deficit must be taken into account even if its nothing dramatic. A multi-vitamin supplement may not be necessary on a short term diet restriction, but you must substitute on a longer term basis (Absorption of vitamins are not universal across the board; some are better than others.)

DISCLAIMER: ANY TIME YOU FEEL WEAK, EAT SOMETHING. DO NOT TRY TO FIGHT IT.

i appreciate the concern. the motivation for losing this bit of weight so quickly is because i'm going on vacation on friday. going to vegas (buffets and what not) and disneyland and universal studios where i'll be doing a lot of snacking, and not the healthy stuff, so i'm trying to build a bit of buffer room. i already feel like i look best at around 120 pounds and the 3 extra pounds i have don't sound like much, but it looks so much different in a mirror. luckily everywhere we're going entails a lot of walking, so it won't be SO horrible.

i can assure you that i don't have any sort of eating disorder, in fact my mom is constantly commenting on the amount of food i eat for my size. my biggest problem on a regular basis (when i'm not trying to lose some weight) is that when i eat, i don't have any self restraint and i don't always eat the healthiest stuff. also i don't eat the typical 3 meals a day or 5-6 small meals. i have never been one for that, mainly because when i eat a meal, i don't get hungry for a really long time. i ususally eat in the late afternoon, but i get hungry again after midnight, and eat some cereal or ramen then. i know eating late is really bad for you, so that's the first thing i was trying to cut off.

i was thinking of the ramen/banana as my meal for the day and not merely a snack, but now i think i'll throw in some broccoli or oat meal as a snack when the hunger gets really bad.

once again, good advice and i will listen to it. especially the disclaimer, i've had that woozy feeling before from not having much to eat and it's not very pleasant.

also, can you tell me the recommended caloric intake for a 19 year old guy? i saw somewhere like 2900 calories, and that seems way excessive to me.

Doesn't ramen contain a ton of sodium? if so it'll cause you to retain water weight.

^Agree, also with tons of oils, along with salt in the noodles.

not to mention the noodles are deep fried before packaging ... not exactly the healthiest choice

Keep in mind, this so called "buffer" your trying to create will probably make it harder for you not to eat crap when your there

Everytime someone tries to do a quickie diet, your body begins to starve itself. Sure you loose weight ( and water) but the second you are surrounded by food ( usually fatty and carb laden food) you will get so hungry, and get carb cravings so brutal, you will over eat, and your body will retain the calories and water. Generally you will weigh more then you did before the diet.

Essentially , your body will get fat because it thinks you are going to starve itself again, and it holds onto all those carbs/calories thinking it wont be eating again for a while

And choosing to do this so close to your vacation time is almost pointless. The hard truth of it is, your current diet sucks. You need to eat smaller meals more frequently, stop with the pre-packaged noodles ect, they are garbage.

Also if you have had that " woozy feeling before" its not a healthy diet you are attempting. You need to cut out all the pre-processed crap that is spiking your insulin levels, and then causing you to retain fat and binge eat nightly

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but your looking for a quick fix that requires no effort, and they never work. You need to try a lot harder then that to maintain a proper diet and to loose weight permanantly

What you need is a basic lifestyle change, focusing on good foods ( and changing the types of carbs you eat), and a better eating routine.

And ther is no possible way you are going to gain weight when you work out, unless you are eating llike crap while you do it. Weight loss is %90 diet, and %10 excersise. Without proper diet, you will be going nowhere

And good info from Strawberryshortcake, a multi vitamin is indeed a nessesity for proper functioning of your body

okay. good advice from all of you guys.

right off the bat, it's not "binge eating" at night. it's maybe a bowl of cereal, i have actually been staying away from ramen late at night as of late. and the only time i do this late night eating is when i'm at home for summer. i will definitely work to cut that out though cuz that's my first goal.

it's hard not to have pre-processed foods at college cuz that's almost all my food options. when i eat at the dining hall i add a salad, cereal, fruit to get me full so i don't have to eat so much of the unhealthy options. because of this i actually do a great job of keeping my weight down at school.

it's just when i get home and all these good snacks are available by just walking downstairs, my aforementioned lack of self restraint kicks in and i gain a few pounds. it's actually easier to eat healthy here as well because we have a bunch of healthy food too.

i probably made my typical diet sound a lot worse than it really is (because ramen noodles are not part of the equation normally). i actully do eat a lot of fruit and good carbs like wheat. i rarely eat fast food and don't drink soda and all that jazz.

so i don't mind the harsh words. it's actually what i kinda expected from here.

You have a good attitude, thats nice to hear

And since you elaborated on your eating, your diet doesnt sound too bad. Keep in mind though snacking is a killer. Read the back of the packages before you eat, some of them have as much fat and calories as an entire meal.

And if you really want to kill the weight off, dont eat after 8:00, and make your daily meals smaller and nutritious. If you find yourself extremely hungry at night, you need to eat more beforehand to make that stop

When your body beigns to shut down ( at night) your metabolism slows, and sugars and starches ect arentprocessed for energy, as your not supposed to be needing any when you go to sleep. So anything you eat that is loaded with simple carbs ( like cereal) goes right to fat storage

Its really is difficult to get started on knowing when to eat and what to eat ( a bag of no name ramaan noodles has more then half of your daily sodium intake, and loads of carbs and fats) so knowing what is in the food you eat is a great start. I can make numerous reccamendations that will make you loose 5 pounds in a flash, but it would only be water weight you would get back within a few days.

It is not humanly possible to burn fat that quickly..

If you need any more advice ect, please make a post here, I would be happy to help/add on to the other great advice given by the above members

okay, i have another question. i've always heard that "don't eat after a certain time" thing, so i was wondering. if your sleep habits shift towards a later time (like going to bed at 4-ish and waking up around noon) doesn't your body also change its cycle, thus allowing you to eat a little bit later without too many negative effects?

and i definitely know about unhealthy snacks. last month i had a pre-packaged muffin and a bag of lays and that was over 800 calories alone. crazy!

what's like the BEST thing that'll keep me full for a long time, cuz i can't seem to find anything that does.

and i'm already heeding your guys' advice. like i said before i was panning on eating just ramen and a banana for the day. but i decided against it. i made myself a bowl of broccoli. and it was very filling for the miniscule amount of calories it has.

also would you mind telling me some of those recommendations for quick water weight loss? i just wanna hear what it is.

Changing sleep habits require quite a while to get used to, now imagine changing how your entire body reacts to what you eat, that takes even longer. It took me years to break my fast acting metabolism and put on mass, and thats only with difficulty, so I wouldnt bet on your body adapting to your new habits. Its funny, because the body adapts much more quickly to other things, but how you digest food ect ( metabolism) takes a long long time to change unless your on meds

As far as filling you up for a long time, look for slow acting carbs. Yams are great, as is %100 mutligrain products, oatmeal is fantastic for keeping you full. I would also eat plenty of vegtibles, as they are mostly water, but can be very filling

And my reccamendations for water loss, either involve the use of legal dieuretics ( ie dandilyon root) combined with small dosages of caffeine, you can also get water shedding compounds at GNC, but that is soley for short term water loss. It will not burn any fat whatsoever. And you should consult with a health care practitioner or a doctor before using any type of dieuretic, solely for water loss.

As using them can strip your body of nutrients, so be sure to use a multi-vitmain

yeah, i think i'll stay away from that stuff. and that's good to know that the body adapts slowly.

i'll definitely try out oatmeal, cuz i love it, but i don't eat it that often.