How to lose the most weight in 2 months for a contest?

1) http://www.aboutatkinsdiet.com/atkins_diet_induction_phase.htm. Follow it to the letter, for the entire competition. It really works. 2) http://www.intervaltraining.net/tabata.html. For some reason it works better for fat burning than steady-state cardio (and will increase your fitness level also). Do intervals of bodyweight exercises like burpees, squats or jumping jacks. 3) Go off the birth control pill, if you're on it. 4) http://www.fitnessspotlight.com/2010/01/13/benefits-intermittent-fasting/. 5) While, as b33j pointed out, artificially inflating your start-weight by drinking water is deceptive, the converse is common practice. The contestants on The Biggest Loser go through intense dehydration before they are weighed (for the "after" numbers, of course). http://www.kaifitness.com/

I'm interested in the other answers, as I hope to do something similar soon. Things that have worked for me in the past: - Make weight loss your new second job. Any time you're bored/anxious/angry, channel that energy into thinking about what more you could be doing to lose weight. - Walk any time you can. Fifteen minute break? Go for a walk around the block. Hour after dinner? Go for a walk. I like to do them outside when I can, but with the treadmill you can use that as an option. Music/ipods can help keep up the pace. - Drink tea or water or something non-caloric All. The. Time. It helps keep full and occupy the mouth. - Snack every hour to hour and a half to keep up the metabolism, but make most snacks veggies or low-fat protein. Unsalted unroasted almonds in Small servings have helped, too. - Have a splurge day each week. Try to only have alcohol and other treats on that day. - Don't beat yourself up with you also sneak in a holiday treat here and there, but keep your eyes on the (monetary! health! etc!) prize. - Remind yourself often of why this is what you Want. This is not something that someone else is making you do. The you that wants that treat and the you that wants to lose weight are on the same team. - I have sometimes had luck with only having holiday goodies if they're home made. Good luck! May you be an inspiration to me, who needs to do that same again, too.

Fact is, you've got to starve yourself a little bit if you want to lose any weight, and you need to really starve yourself if you want to lose a lot of weight fast. There's just no way around it unless you're crazy lucky. It's going to SUCK. Getting over that hurdle and embracing the awfulness is huge. From a weight loss perspective, all that matters is the calorie count and exercise. The other stuff (when you eat, how fast you eat, how much water you drink, what you eat, etc) only matters insofar as it can make the diet more or less unpleasant. If you track exactly what you eat, you'll soon find that twinkies don't fill you up like the caloric equivalent number of carrots. You'll find that some eating patterns work for you better than others (ie, many small meals vs. two larger ones). You'll need to actively adjust what you're doing mid-diet in order to make it as easy on yourself as possible. It's an experiment, but the laws of thermodynamics are immutable. Energy in, energy out. Personally, I lost about 30lbs (and have kept it off for about a year) by strictly limiting my calorie intake to about half my normal amount and eating only one meal a day, just before bed. Otherwise, my diet was unchanged. I still drank beer and wine, ate insanely rich food, etc. That wouldn't be fun for most people, I'm sure, but it worked for me. Start tracking your calories and weight well before the diet starts so you get a baseline for how much you need to eat to maintain your weight. Use excel or google docs to graph daily calorie deficit (factoring in exercise) vs. body weight for a while. The math ain't hard (3500 kcal = 1lb). That way you'll be able to hit the ground running. Bear in mind that as you lose weight you need fewer calories to maintain your weight. ie, a 200lb person might need 3000 cal/day to maintain weight, but a 150lb person might only need 2500. It's hard on your body, but if you're in good health, I'd start with a BRUTAL few days to kick things off. Once you start to lose weight and see that graph trending downward, the whole experience can become very empowering. You realize you're in charge and that you can lose weight as fast (or as slow) as you want. It makes the misery a little more tolerable knowing that you're in control and winning. As far as exercise goes, I'm a fan of walking to work and to somewhere for a cup of black coffee a couple times a day. YMMV. Oh, and keep tracking weight and food once you're done losing. Only way to keep it off, I think.

You really truly don't need to starve yourself. Follow over_educated alligator's advice above. Low carb really is the way to go because once you get your insulin under control you won't feel the need to eat all that much -- appetite suppression for the win. Give it a shot! You'll be surprised.

I've been losing weight recently, mostly through diet with only my baseline level of exercise (walking about 3 miles a day, to and from work). For me it's all about quantity of food - not starving myself, but also not fearing hunger. My baseline now is "a bit hungry" and I will periodically eat just enough to no longer be hungry, but no more. Over time I've adjusted to eating less, and I feel fine. I have always had a fairly good diet and avoided processed food, but I used to just eat too much of the good stuff. I should add a medical caveat, that I'm generally healthy, moderately fit and not diabetic or insulin-resistant so while the above works for me, it might be intolerable for someone else. The key thing for me was not to beat myself up if I don't find time to go to the gym - what helped with this was the observation I read somewhere that it's a hell of a lot easier to avoid consuming the calories in the first place than to burn them off. Obvious but still helpful.

Lose the salt, and keep it off until the weigh-in. My weight differs from ~2 pounds depending on salt intake.

This is sneaky and underhanded and probably unethical, but waterload (eg drink heaps of water) before the initial weigh-in to set your starting weight.

Definitely unethical.

Track every single thing you eat, and all exercise you do. I use http://www.livestrong.com/myplate/ (free) and associated iPhone/iPad apps. Using this I've lost 10 lbs in two months; it's not easy but for me, it has definitely worked. You tell it how much you want to lose (max is 2 lbs/week) and it shows you how many calories are allowed each day, and uses a pretty complete food database to let you enter all your food. It's been amazing to me how the calories add up. There are lists online of low-cal foods that will fill you up, which you can easily find; for me, when I want to snack I now reach for an apple or a hard-boiled egg instead of a cookie, because I know how much that cookie will take out of my chunk of remaining calories for the day. If you can't go to the gym do try to walk as much as possible. An hour of walking can burn around 300 calories (and for me, that's about 1/3 my daily total). That's it - I can tell you that it works but it can be awfully hard to discipline yourself to track every single thing that you eat. You can do it! Good luck! MeMail me if you want a buddy to trade encouragement.