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8-Week Weight Loss Before and After – Inspiring Real-Life Success Stories

 Written by 

Julien Raby

 Last updated on 


We all know that obesity is a serious health problem. This is a chronic condition, which can track from childhood to adulthood and can result in a number of serious health issues. It can also affect a person’s well-being and quality of life. 

The sad truth is the vast majority of people who attempt to lose fat fail. In this article, we are going to show you 8-week weight loss before and after transformations.

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Also, we are going to provide you with our 8 week weight loss before and after transformation guide. Let’s get started.

How Quickly Can I Lose Weight?

There are a lot of factors affecting how quickly you can lose weight:

  • Already being overweight;
  • Certain life stages (pregnancy, menopause);
  • Stress and certain life events (starting work, leaving job, retirement, relocation);
  • Medical illness (chronic pain, diabetes, testosterone deficiency, osteoarthritis);
  • GI disorders (reflux disease);
  • Genetics;
  • Mental health (anxiety, depression);
  • Medications;
  • Sleep disorders (insomnia);
  • Sedentary lifestyle;
  • Poor eating choices.
A woman who did the 8-week weight loss before and after challenge
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How Much Weight Can I Lose in 2 Months?

1. Fast Pace

The first rate of weight loss that we’re going to talk about is an extreme pace. This is losing anywhere 1-1.5% of your body weight each week. Remember this is an average over several weeks. You might actually lose this amount in your first couple of days or first week. But if you continue losing weight at that pace, then you tend to run into problems. 

One of the biggest problems is that there’s a much higher likelihood that you’ll be losing muscle mass during the weight loss process. And losing muscle mass is just not what you want to do. It’s not going to be good for your health. It’s going to lower your resting metabolic rate (how many calories you burn just at rest). 

Generally speaking, you’re probably not going to be happy with how you look. You want to maintain that muscle mass so that you have something to show as the body fat decreases.

The other problem with such an extreme rate of weight loss is that your mood and energy tend to take a nosedive. You feel terrible, your mental acuity is out the window, you don’t have much energy for your workouts and they feel terrible. You don’t even have much energy for everyday activities with your friends and family.

There’s also a much higher rate of rebounding after everything is done. So, with all that together, this just really isn’t a pace that we recommend trying out.

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2. Safe and Slow Pace

The next rate of weight loss that we want to talk about is a bit of a slower pace or about 0.5% or less of your body weight per week. While at first, this might sound appealing because slow and steady wins the race. There are problems with this pace as well.

First off, it takes forever. As you’re losing weight and as you’re restricting calories, this is not something that you want to do forever. You want to do it for a short period of time and then switch to maintenance mode. Losing weight and dieting forever is not a lifestyle.

So, if you’re losing at such a slow pace, you’re going to be doing it forever. That’s incredibly mentally fatiguing and very demoralizing.

The second problem is that it’s really hard to track metrics. If you’re losing such a small amount of weight each week, it can be hard to tell if you’re going in the right direction. This can mean a lot of wasted time. While it might sound good to go in these very small steps, it’s actually detrimental in the long run. And this brings us to our third option.

3. Moderate Pace

A reasonable pace is losing 0.5-1% of your body weight each week. This allows you to minimize muscle loss as you lose weight and keep your mood and energy up. Also, it’s a lot more motivating to see the changes week to week. 

8 Week Weight Loss Before and After Transformations

“HappyHierarchy” Reddit User

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Vanessa Chalmer

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Simon Jager

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Sara Weith

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Sam Pridham

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Atara Lebransky

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Our 8-Week Weight Loss Before and After Transformation Guide

Basics of a Healthy Weight Loss

To lose weight, it’s really important to burn more calories than you’re consuming every day. That means:

  • you’re getting your body more active;
  • you’re scaling back on the amount of food;
  • and you’re increasing the quality of the food that you’re eating.

In other words, it’s a combination of a healthy diet and plenty of exercise for a healthy active life.

Here are the basics of an 8 week weight loss before and after transformation.

1. Use a Proper Nutritional Plan

Your nutritional plan needs to be evidence-based, quantitatively sound, qualitatively appropriate, and one the person prefers. And it’s also most likely to adhere to over a lifetime. And remember the quality of the calories matters more than quantity. Good carbs can help you boost your energy and ability to recover.

And the other thing that you can do is make sure that you eat enough lean protein to help you maintain or build up your lean body mass. Because lean mass burns more calories at rest than fat mass does.

What else can you do to influence your metabolic rate?

2. Exercise

Do enough strength training and resistance training to build up your lean body mass. Although exercise isn’t critical for weight loss, it’s really important for weight maintenance. Most people don’t move enough.

Best Diet Plan For an 8-Week Weight Loss Before and After Transformation

1. The Foods You Should Be Eating

Proteins: pasture-raised eggs, wild Alaskan salmon, almonds, beans, peas, whey or plant protein powders.

Healthy Carbs: sweet potatoes, quinoa, organic berries, brown rice, sprouted bread. 

Veggies: kale, zucchini, Swiss chard, salad mix, broccoli.

Healthy Fats: avocado, nuts, extra virgin olive oil, pasture-raised eggs, chia seeds.

2. The Portion Rules

The next step is proper portion control without rigorously counting calories:

  • ½ plate – veggies;
  • ¼ plate – protein;
  • ¼ plate – healthy carbs and fats.

3. When You Should Be Eating These Foods

The best option is the one that fits your daily life schedule. For example, you can use the 4×4 setup: breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner spaced 4 hours apart. 

If you’re a busy man/woman, here are some tips for you:

  1. Pick your ‘go-to-foods’ for each category;
  2. Learn how to make perfect plates;
  3. Pick the eating schedule that works best for you.

4. Hydration

Foods and timing are important, but you have to make sure that you’re getting the right fluids in your body that are keeping energized helping your metabolic processes. 

Define what your water intake is. Divide your weight in pounds by two and then add 32. That is the number of oz. of water you need to drink a day.

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Best Workouts For an 8 Week Weight Loss Before and After Transformation

There’s a study where they took two training groups: 

  • a low-intensity group that was doing the fat-burning zone 2;
  • and a high-intensity group. 

We burn more calories at a higher intensity for 30 minutes. So, this research study had to account for these groups’ exercise time to match the total calories burned.

At the end of the study, they found that both groups lost fat or weight at the same rate. There was not a significant difference between the two training groups. The study Illustrated that total caloric expenditure is the main thing to focus on rather than getting lost in the details of what type of exercise zone you should spend the time in.

High-Intensity Training

There are pros and cons of both the fat-burning zone 2 and the high-intensity zone. For example, some people just enjoy working at a high intensity. And from a time efficiency perspective, someone who’s strapped for time could go to the gym, work at a high intensity, burn as many calories as they could in a shorter amount of time, and then get back to life.

However, there are some potential drawbacks to this. If someone is just focusing only on high-intensity training all the time, they risk overtraining and they also could miss out on some of the benefits that can come from the Zone 2 training.

The Zone 2 Training

The zone 2 is a steady-state type of intensity or exercise that provides you with cardiovascular benefits. Obviously, the heart will get stronger. Granted, the heart will also get stronger in high-intensity training but there are some unique physiological adaptations that come with zone 2 training.

You’ll see an increased number of capillaries that will grow and develop within the muscle tissue so then the muscles can get more blood flow. You’ll also see that the muscle cells will increase the number of mitochondria. Mitochondria utilize fats and carbohydrates to create ATP which is the energy currency of our cells. So, they are great at utilizing body fat for energy.

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How Much Should I Exercise to Lose Weight Quickly?

The minimum amount for weight loss is zero. All you need to do to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit and eat healthy food. You do not have to be exercising to be in a calorie deficit.

However, if you want to be healthy and lose weight in a more efficient way, follow the government-recommended guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of intense activity per week. But government recommendations don’t really account for lifestyle factors.

We provide you with slightly different recommendations based on one study. Aim for 60 minutes of just movement every single day plus 2 sessions of resistance training per week. Resistance training sessions can be moderate intensity or more if you want to.

Keep in mind that there isn’t one magic formula that works for everyone. Our bodies, calorie intake, metabolism, and lives are so different. So, you can just get moving every single day or maintain a 2-day or 6-day training plan. Just find out what makes your body feel the most healthy and energetic.

How Can I Lose Weight Faster: Our Tips For Better Results

1. Change Your Thoughts

You should change your thoughts about healthy weight loss. Research shows the power of self-compassion instead of self-blame. Getting past your shame about weight makes it easier to set healthier habits.

Rethink this phrase: “Healthy people have plenty of self-control, but I don’t.” Everyone has slip-ups. Accepting them and moving on is key. 

Eat slowly and enjoy. It actually can make you more likely to eat the right amount.

2. No Eating in Front of Screens

Inattentive eating leads to forgetting how much you ate.

3. Drink Water

Drink 20-32 oz of water in the morning. In fact, we need more water than we think we need. Water helps us stay full. When we have water in our stomach, we are not as hungry.

4. Get Enough Sleep

Getting quality sleep optimizes your metabolism and hormone balance. Studies show when you’re in a sleep-deprived state when you’re trying to lose weight, your body loses muscles and not fat. And it’s actually more resistant to losing fat. 

5. Cardio

Choose an adequate cardio routine that you can stick to and adhere to that will help you create your new body weight and your new physique with ease. For example, a cycling session or 30-minute incline walk in the morning or whatever you’re going to sustain long-term.

Monitor your body weight carefully to know how you can make the proper adjustments to find a cardio training plan or even a hobby that you can be consistent with long term. It’s all about burning enough calories and finding what works for you to do so with the most consistency and enjoyment. Ideally, this should be combined with a solid nutrition plan.

Keep in mind that you need to combine your regular cardio routine with your weightlifting routine. These will help you speed up the process and ensure that you don’t just end up skinny fat by the end of your fat loss journey.

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How to Weigh Yourself

Weight naturally fluctuates. It might fluctuate for any number of reasons:

  • hydration levels and water retention;
  • carb intake;
  • sodium intake;
  • where you are on your menstrual cycle;
  • even gastrointestinal content.

So, many things affect your weight day to day and week to week.

Our Tip: Keep Similar Weigh-in Conditions

Make sure you keep similar weigh-in conditions. You want to account for as many variables as possible as you track your weight loss. So, what we’d recommend is taking your weight first thing in the morning after your first bathroom visit but before you eat or drink anything.

You also want to weigh 1-2 times a week. So, you can start to develop an average weigh-in that will allow you to make better decisions and better adjustments.

Rapid Weight Loss Risks

It’s important to be aware of the fact that choosing certain methods of extreme dieting can have a negative impact on your general health. Here are three side effects of extreme weight loss: 

1. Depression

Prevent it by eating healthy foods and sleeping enough.

2. Relationship problems

Lifestyle changes may hurt your relationship. Explain to your partner your motives.

3. Stomach pain

Fast weight loss causes consequent stomach pains and gallstone formation. Avoid this by eating more healthy fats and avoiding junk food. Doing this stimulates the bowel contraction. You can achieve your desired weight loss by following a healthy diet plan.

8-Week Weight Loss Before and After: FAQs

Can your body change in 8 weeks?

You definitely can lose weight and tone up your body in 8 weeks. However, if you want to build muscle mass or transform your body shape, this takes longer.

How many kg can I lose in 8 weeks?

This depends on your body constitution, training routine, metabolic rate, diet, and starting body weight. Generally, it’s possible to lose 0.5-1.5% of your body weight per week.

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