How do I parse this-basically, how fast is “too fast” to lose weight? Is the ideal a pound a week? Two? Help me out here.
*After *the first two weeks, you should average no more than 2 pounds per week, according to Weight Watchers. If you’re losing more quickly, then you’re likely losing muscle and becoming malnourished.
The first two weeks, you might lose as little as 5 pounds, 8 pounds is average, and some people lose as much as 15 pounds. A lot of that’s water.
May I say from my experience, that it depends.
You want to be sure that you are taking in enough useful protein to keep the loss of muscle mass to a minimum.
Having said that, when I was on a protein-rich modified fast (which means I was taking in 500-600 calories a day of very protein-rich manufactured “food”), doctor supervised, I lost an average of 5 pounds a week for 30 weeks. You might say I had a lot to lose. If you want details about whether there are such programs in your area, let me know and I will ask my source.
Without such extreme measures, you probably shouldn’t expect to lose more than a pound per week average. Remember that to lose a pound you have to have a deficit of 3500 calories, or about 500 calories per day. This can be done by a combination of changing your diet and changing your exercise regimen. But two pounds a week would mean a deficit of 1000 calories per day. And this only gets more challenging as you lose weight and the calories you burn at rest keeps going down.
Good luck, and there’s a monthly weight-loss thread in MPSIMS you might want to check out.
Roddy
Another oft cited rule of thumb is 1% of your body weight per week. For a lot of people, these numbers are pretty close. FWIW, after a high school wrestler certifies their weight, they’re not allowed to lose more than 2 pounds per week, and must have wrestled at least 65% of their matches in the weight class they plan to compete in at the state tourny (in New Mexico, as of 2000)
Most diets will give you a very high initial weight loss in the first week or two. Then whatever it is they’re restricting will make you go crazy for food and it won’t work.
Real (take it off/keep it off) weight loss is slow. A pound or two a week.
(I did Optifast before Oprah. Most of those are not good long term. I got down to a ten. And I probably took a few years off my life. In six months from a 26 to a ten.) Make sure you get enough protein, drink a lot of water, use portion control. It’s a slow process for lasting weight loss.
My eleven cents.
Lot of good info in your post, thanks.
I’m interested in programs like that. Not for myself - I do need to lose 10 or 15 pounds, but my diet and exercise has been changing that just fine (I had needed to lose 50 pounds two years ago). If you could send it through the private message notification feature, that would be great please. I’m right on the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties - 91311 / 93065.