As the title asks, is it possible??? I am at approx. 16% now and would like to be at 10%.

I am 6'2", 196 lbs, I plan on eating about 2100 calories a day :eat: , and I plan on doing cardio every morning for the next 12 days and keep with that meal plan and lift weights :db: 3 or 4 times a week. I am trying to get as much fat off as possible before I go on a cruise on the 13th. :claphigh:

I have attatched my meal plan for today as an example for you to see and make any suggestions that might make this possible. I think that my calories are good, but not sure if I should tweak it just a little to take in different nutrients at different times or something to that effect. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

As the title asks, is it possible??? I am at approx. 16% now and would like to be at 10%.

I am 6'2", 196 lbs, I plan on eating about 2100 calories a day :eat: , and I plan on doing cardio every morning for the next 12 days and keep with that meal plan and lift weights :db: 3 or 4 times a week. I am trying to get as much fat off as possible before I go on a cruise on the 13th. :claphigh:

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to say that's biting off more than you can chew. Short of a death march or liposuction, losing 6% bodyfat between 16% and 10% is too ambitious for just 12 days.

But think of it this way. 16% BF on 196 pounds means you have about 165 pounds lean mass and 31 pounds body fat.

If you were at 10% body fat, and assuming you didn't lose any lean mass (unlikely but we'll go with it) you'd have 165 pounds lean mass and 19 pounds body fat and be at 184 pounds.

So that's losing 12 pounds of pure fat in 12 days, or one pound a day.

A pound of fat is about 3500 calories, so assuming 100% efficiency (never happens, efficiency at huge caloric deficits varies widely but is not even close to 100%) you'd have to undereat by 3,500 calories a day.

Concentrate on maybe losing 5-6 pounds of fat if you're super ambitious. 13% body fat can still look pretty darn great with a nice tan :tucool:

Thank you, I pretty much figured that it was pretty unrealistic to do, but I will just work on getting as much off as I can before I go. Hopefully I can get down to 13% I would be more than happy with that.

Do you see any changes that could be made in my diet to improve my results?

Yes, it is possible, but it wouldn't be wise. I did something similar when I had no understanding of muscle losses when cutting. I ate 2000 cal./day (my maintenance level is 3000), and did 2.5 hours of strenuous mountain biking per day. I lost on average a pound a day for 15 days, but I can't remember the loss in bf%. I think it was around 5% or so.

My deficit of 1000 calories plus all that hard cardio certainly resulted in losing muscle mass. Unless you have more than enough muscle mass and don't mind losing a little in the process, don't diet that hard. Like someone else mentioned, 13% with a tan looks fairly lean and cut, especially if you have some muscle and tan.

For the diet, everything looks good, except I'd move that last protein shake to earlier in the day. You don't need the fast-digesting whey protein right before bed. The skim milk also has some sugars you might consider pushing to earlier in the day, too. The cottage cheese you have is good, though.