The great news is, that if done properly, relatively it should not take very long!  We say relatively because it is important to remember that your current situation in life did not happen overnight.  It likely took several years of habits to land you in the position that you are in.

Wether you are overweight and want to lose weight or skinny and want to put on muscle, you have to remember the amount of time your body has been conditioned to be in that state.  With that frame of reference, to say you want to see results overnight or as fast as possible you can more realistically reason with yourself that it is much more reasonable it will probably take a little bit longer than you first hoped or imagined.

In life there is a principle that is commonly referenced, the 80/20 rule, and to briefly explain: 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.  To apply this principle to your working out and “seeing results” we venture to say that in fact you can see 80% of your desired results in 20% of the overall time it takes to see 100% of your results.

A specific time frame, however, will depend on your starting point and your desirable results.  While we all strive to achieve as high of goals as possible, it is always advised to set realistically achievable goals.  Setting unrealistic goals is a recipe that will ultimately result in giving up.

For gaining muscle: 

As a reference, the following information can help you see what is NATURALLY achievable.  In general, for the average untrained male, you can expect to put on roughly 40-50 lb of muscle in your lifetime.  While for females, that number is roughly half, 20-25 lb of muscle. 

For a specific time frame, depending on your genetics, in your first year you could potentially gain 10-15 lb/year.  Then every year after you can subtract roughly 2-5 lb/year thereafter until you have reached your natural genetic potential.

Besides the general rule listed above, a more accurate method involves measuring the circumference of you ankles and wrists.  The science of this is that your bone size is a good indicator of your body’s ability and capacity to withstand the stress needed to induce muscle building.      

*An important note, this does NOT mean that you can simply add X amount of lb from muscle to your current weight and that is your end result.  Current body fat % must be taken into account to accurately asses your potential.  That total muscle is included in body recomposition (if you are a higher % body fat, some of your current fat will be converted to muscle while remaining the same overall weight).

For losing fat:

Depending on your current body mass index (BMI) if you are above what is considered “Extremely Obese” maximally it is possible to lose as much as 1 lb/day for a short period of time, however this is NOT advised!  At a lower BMI, a safer and more realistically achievable result is 1-2 lb/week.