G'day mate,
1) I ate whatever i wanted (almost to the extent of stupid), but surprisingly still lost weight, which made little to no sense at all! but a nice surprise none the less!

2) I'm down almost 20lbs in 8 weeks, each case varies, however the more excess weight you have, the faster it is likely to burn, plus you probably wouldn't want to burn that quickly as you would then be very close to having your body in a catabolic state (muscle eating), now mine adds up to 10lbs per month, however I am doing a fair amount of cardio every day (3.1 miles per morning and just over a mile swim in the evening), however this is just my personal experience, everyone's different!
Good Luck