How To Lose 30 Pounds In A Month? | 30 Days Diet Plan

how to lose 30 pounds in a month

How to lose 30 pounds in a month? It is a common question often raised by many who are looking for fast weight loss results.

As per the standard weight loss practices, losing 1 or 2 pounds of weight per week is considered to be healthy, which adds up to a maximum of 10 pounds in a month.


Losing 1 pound per day is highly taxing on the body as it requires you to follow an extremely low-calorie diet with an intense workout schedule daily. To keep yourself healthy your body requires a minimum amount of calories per day depending on your gender, weight, age, height, and the kind of activities you perform daily (1).

Is It Possible To Lose 30 Pounds In 30 Days?

Literally, you have to follow a very low-calorie diet to achieve an average of 1 lb weight loss per day.

If you are serious about losing 30lbs weight loss per month, it is possible. But it is recommended only if you are an over obese person.

In 1958, a scientist named Max Wishnofsky after an extensive study reached the conclusion that one pound of body fat gained or lost is equal to approximately 3,500 calories.

However, pure fat in the body has a great amount of energy, or about 9 calories per gram. One pound of pure body fat equals 4,100 calories (2).


“The more fat a person has, the quicker she will lose weight and weight from fat,” states Dr. Pamela Peeke.

The fat-burning ratio of a person depends on the amount of fat, muscles, and water in the body of the individual. In short, an obese person could lose more weight than a lean person despite both of them following the same low-calorie diet (3,4).

A few health scientists believe that the faster you try to lose weight with a low-calorie diet, the more weight you lose from muscles than fat (5).

According to Dr.Pamela, ‘when you get closer to your body weight, your body holds on to fat stores for dear life and sacrifices muscle over fat.’ Because of the pre-programmed survival mechanism in living beings, the body is perpetually afraid of starving and thus likes to store more fats and prefer to lose muscles instead.

For obese people, it is possible to shed 1 pound per day by following an extremely low-calorie diet combined with regular workouts and diet supplements, but for moderately overweight people it is difficult and unhealthy to lose weight at this rate.

Tips On How To Lose 30 Pounds In A Month

Weight loss is possible when you consume fewer calories than what your body burns (6). By eating fewer calories, you are compelling your body to break down fats stored in the fat cells of the body to meet its energy needs.

One pound of body fat is equal to 3,500 calories. If you want to lose 1 pound of weight per day, you have to create a net calorie deficit of 3,500 calories (7).

Here are the four basic steps required for achieving 1 pound of weight loss per day:

  • Set your weight loss goal to be achieved as 1 pound per day
  • Set your calorie intake according to the weight to be lost per day (1,200 calorie deficit)
  • Have a diet that adds the lowest amount of calories (blow 800 calories)
  • Engage in heavy workouts and activities to burn maximum calories (at least extra 2,200 calories per day)

For example, Lucy wants to lose 1 pound of weight per day (30 lbs. in a month). To achieve this goal she must be creating a 3,500 calories deficit per day. The typical calorie expenditure for her is approximately 2000 calories daily.

Now to burn 3,500 calories daily, Lucy should follow a daily diet that creates a deficit of 1000 calories and engage in heavy workouts that will burn about 2,500 calories daily. This is a tough weight loss regimen that is not easy for everyone to follow.

To lose one pound of weight per day, you just have to be like an endurance athlete who burns 4,000 calories per day; they’d only be eating around 1,000 calories per day.

Best Weight-Loss-Friendly Foods

  • Leafy Greens
  • Cruciferous Vegetables
  • Whole Grains
  • Beans and Legumes
  • Lean Beef and Chicken Breast
  • Egg
  • Boiled Potatoes
  • Soups
  • Salmon
  • Avocados
  • Apple Cider Vinegar
  • Chili Pepper
  • Grapefruit
  • Chia Seeds
  • Oatmeal
  • Fruits (low-GI & low-calorie fruits)
  • Nuts (low-calorie nuts)

Is It Healthy To Lose 30 Lbs Within A Month?

Losing 1 pound per day is an extreme weight loss schedule. It involves a massive cut back on calorie intake and rigorous physical training to burn extra 2,200+ calories per day.

To be honest, the safest way to massive weight loss in the shortest time is to undergo surgery.

As per healthy weight loss conventions and standards, eating a diet that creates more than 1,200 calories deficit per day is not healthy. The calorie deficit in the daily diet should not exceed 20% of the calories daily required by your body (8,9).

In addition, the amount of calorie intake to be reduced depends on the weight of your body. People with higher body mass (over obese individuals) can reduce calorie intake by up to 30% of the daily requirement.

To lose 10 pounds a month, you need to create a daily deficit of 1,200 calories or do workouts to burn 1,200 calories more a day. It is healthy and achievable for most people. However, losing 30 pounds a month is not easy, and if this is done, serious health issues might crop up.

If you do a regular cut back on calorie intake, it may lead you to malnutrition. It weakens the heart, creates digestive problems, creates nutrition deficiency, and unhealthy weight loss.

Frances Sizer and Eli Whitney write in “Nutrition and Concepts and Controversies,” malnourished people develop irregular heartbeats, and the heart muscles become weak; this might even lead to a heart attack (10).

According to a few of the recent studies with an extreme calorie deficit diet, more muscles from the body are lost than fat if the protein intake is not increased simultaneously (11,12).

Vanish 30 Pounds

Grapefruit Diet Plan To Lose 1 Pound Per Day

In the past, studies have shown reasonable benefits to include grapefruit in a weight reduction diet (13).

If you have the grapefruit diet regularly for 30 days, you can approximately lose 30 pounds within a month.

I would recommend you to follow the grapefruits diet in a cycle of every three alternative days. This would produce 8 -10 pounds weight loss per month which is healthy without making you malnourished.

Here is the grapefruit diet plan that you can give a try if you want a natural and fast weight loss in 30 days. It is not recommended for people under medication or individuals with high cholesterol and blood pressure.

The traditional version of the diet involves:

  • Drastically reduced intake of sugar and carbs (including rice, potatoes, and pasta) – Daily calorie intake should not exceed 800 calories
  • Most of what you eat should be high protein and fat foods
  • Avoid certain foods like white onion and celery
  • Have half a grapefruit/a glass of grapefruit juice before every meal
  • Drink 12 glasses of water daily

Note: After every three days of grapefruit diet, eat normal food with the right amount of calories for the next three days and then back to the grapefruit diet. This diet plan will help you to lose up to 10 pounds a month without making you malnourished.

It is important to combine your grapefruit diet with daily high-intensity workouts to achieve optimum weight loss results.

10 Effective Weight Loss Exercises

  • Running
  • Swimming
  • Jumping Rope
  • Weight Training
  • Tabata
  • Yoga
  • Basketball or Flag Football
  • Aerobics/Cardio workout
  • Crunches
  • Squats & Pushups

Ways To Achieve Fast Weight Loss In 30 Days

Do not contemplate too much on how to lose 30 pounds in 1 month, but think of how to achieve healthy and fast weight loss in a month.

Here are a few must-do tips for healthily losing weight and fat:

1. Drastically Reduce Calorie Intake

It is enough for you to consume 1,200 – 1,500 calories per day. Every meal should be planned accordingly with a minimal amount of calories in your diet. Cutting 1,000 calories a day will help you lose 2 lbs per week (14).

2. Eat More Protein And Fiber

Having more protein and fiber in your diet helps to reduce the urge to have high-calorie foods. Protein helps to maintain muscle mass and prompts the body to burn the stored body fat for energy. Fiber improves digestion and the rate of metabolism. Green and leafy vegetables are the healthiest fiber-rich foods that you should eat a lot (15,16).

3. Do More Exercises

Regularly engaging in high-intensity workouts with weight training help your body to burn a massive amount of calories. This is necessary for healthy weight loss and strengthening your body. Burning 1,000 extra calories a day through physical exercises helps you to lose an additional 2 lbs per week. Running or jogging for an hour at 10m/h speed can burn 1,000 calories (17,18).

4. Avoid Soda, Sweetened Beverages, And Processed Foods

Totally give up soda and all types of sweetened drinks and beverages. It is healthier to have whole fruits than fructose-filled fruit juices. Do not eat processed foods as most of them contain a lot of unhealthy calories (19,20).


Lifestyle habits for weight loss

  • Sleep for 7-8 hours at night
  • Drink 8-12 glasses of water a day
  • Quit smoking
  • Do not drink more than 2 pegs of alcohol a day
  • Eat breakfast every day with higher protein content
  • Stop eating 4 hours before night’s sleep
  • Eat more low-calorie produce
  • Avoid liquid calories
  • Go for whole-grain foods instead of processed foods
  • Do not buy or stock calorie-rich cookies and snacks
  • Trim portions of your meal
  • Include more protein and reduce calories in your diet
  • Walk more and do regular fat burning exercises

The Bottom Line

You should NOT be searching for answers to the question ‘how to lose 30 pounds fast in less than a month’. There are several extreme diets combined with high-intensity exercises that can make you lose 1 pound per day on average.s But it is, certainly, unhealthy and you often end up losing more muscles than the body fats.

It is more practical and healthy to lose 7-10 pounds a month instead of trying to lose 30 pounds within a short period of 30 days. We gain weight gradually; similarly, the weight loss must also be gradual. Eat low-calorie diets with lots of protein and nutrients and exercise daily to maintain or lose weight in a healthy way.