Is It Ever Okay to Aim for 2lbs a Week?
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lucypstacy wrote: »I see posts saying that's too aggressive, but I thought that it was okay if you still have a lot to weight to lose. I have 100lbs to go, so I have mine set for 2lbs a week until I lose more - with the idea I'll set it back to 1lb a day in the near future.
I need too lose around 120 lbs so I set up MFP to lose 2 pounds a week as well. I'm pretty sure that's OK for 100 or more weight loss.1 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »You're the one who introduced the 37.5% figure. TDEE-25% is as high as you go by that measure (and only for the obese; otherwise TDEE-20% or less). So, 20% of a 3,000 calorie/day TDEE would correspond to a 600 cal/day deficit - which is quite reasonable.
Still something that bugs me. I'm at ~ 3000 cals for TDEE, but am eating 2000 Cals. I weigh 250 and am 6'. I don't think a 1000 cal deficit is too aggressive at this point, but every TDEE out there would have me eating more. MFP gives me ~1550 based on sedentary and about an added 500 for my activity, and I'm doing well at that level and losing 2 per week (on average).
Why does this become too aggressive if I used a TDEE?0 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »I really wish people would express some of these limits as a % of total calories expended in a day, aka TDEE.
If 1% or 2lbs is a 75% deficit off a low tdee I would not view it the same as i would view an acceptable 25% cut for someone who is obese.
In general 15-20% cuts (i.e. caloric deficits)when people are normal weight or low overweight, increasing to 25% when obese seem to work fine for results over time with minimal side effects.
As to the OP, assuming your deficit is not wildly above ~25%, 2lbs a week is fine.
My only other comment is, that depending on the type of hernia and dangers it presents, and depending on ease of access to surgery and availability of surgical dates in your world, I would be tempted to keep on losing weight as opposed to putting the loss in the backburner for semi elective surgery.
I am not suggesting that you should keep to a large deficit while healing. To the contrary, doing so will slow down your healing, so reducing or eliminating weight loss while healing makes a lot of sense.
But there are a few weeks of healing to do and having recently gone through minor hernia surgery I can guarantee you that my thoughts were along the lines of "holly crap this would have been so much harder at my original weight" (and our starting points were extremely similar, if you consider the couple of inches I have on you)
Of course there are a whole whack of considerations that may make a delay a bad idea... just throwing out to you that weight loss is just as much of a health necessity for you moving forward and that you have no reason to only aim for limited short term results... think of achieving and maintaining long term a large loss.
That's an interesting concept that may be worth exploring but my initial thought is that it may difficult to deal with the extreme cases. When talking about the average TDEE of 2,000 calories, and the midpoint of the "safe" weight loss of 1-2 lbs per week, the percentage would be 37.5%. A person with a TDEE of 1,800 would have a deficit of 675, which would drop her below 1,200, so that limit still isn't the limit on the low side. A person with a TDEE of 3,000 calories would have a deficit of 1125, which might not be so bad for an obese person. But what if they aren't obese. My TDEE is between 3,000 and 4,000 calories most days and I weight 205lbs. Me that it is okay to cut up to 1,500 calories out of my diet doesn't make sense. Some athletes have TDEEs that are as high as 8,000 calories per day. 37.5% of 8,000 is 3,000 calories. Telling someone with a low body fat percentage isn't a good idea.
Ideally, we would make recommendations on how much body fat a person has rather than on what a person's TDEE is or how far they are from their goal weight. The problem with that is that few people know their body fat percentage. And for those who do, the calculation isn't simple and easy to remember. Health guidelines usually say something like 1-2lbs per week because that is easy to remember. Of course, that is about 1% of body weight for people between 100 and 200 lbs. And since some studies have suggested that obese people losing more than 2lbs is probably safe, 1% of body weight may be the best easy recommendation we have. That's not to say that it is perfect. It wouldn't make sense, for example, to tell a 250lb guy with 10% body fat that it's okay for him to lose 2.5 lbs per week. On the other hand it might be fine to tell a 150lb woman with 50% body fat that losing 2.5 lbs per week is okay. It could be an interesting topic for a thesis.
You're the one who introduced the 37.5% figure. TDEE-25% is as high as you go by that measure (and only for the obese; otherwise TDEE-20% or less). So, 20% of a 3,000 calorie/day TDEE would correspond to a 600 cal/day deficit - which is quite reasonable. 20% of a 2,000 calorie/day TDEE corresponds to a 400 cal/day deficit. The idea is that somebody with a lower TDEE needs to move more to be able to sustain a larger deficit in a healthy way. Want a 500 cal/day deficit? Move enough to increase the TDEE to 2,500 cals/day. Can't move more due to disability? Accept that a slightly smaller deficit is a healthier choice. These are, of course, long-term values. A week or two at a slightly higher deficit (while you figure out the right numbers for you) never hurt anyone.
As for the athlete example, why would an athlete burning 8,000 calories/day be looking to lose weight? People with low bodyfat would be encouraged to eat at maintenance. The TDEE-x% values are for those who want/need to lose weight.
The point is that we can't just put a percentage of TDEE out there without taking into consideration where that TDEE is coming from. A 600 calorie deficit for a person who is inactive and still has a TDEE of 3,000 calories would be too low because the health risks of obesity is putting their life in danger.
What makes you think that an athlete burning 8,000 calories/day isn't trying to lose weight? Marathon runners and cyclists often lose weight before a race to increase their power to weight ratio. It would be nonsense to tell them that it is safe for them to cut 25% of their TDEE out of their diet.0 -
red99ryder wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »How much you have to go doesn't matter. If 2lbs is more than 1% of your weight then it is too aggressive. If it is less than 1% of your weight then it is fine.
Not necessarily. I'm at ~154 pounds and I want to lose about 12 more pounds. There's no way that I could aim for 1.5 pounds per week because that would put me at a daily calorie goal of about 850. The weight loss goal ranges stated above have been a better fit for me but, even then, they are a bit aggressive for me and I've lost more slowly than that in order to have a sustainable daily calorie goal.
There are a number of things at play here. First, is it safe for a 154 lb person to lose 1.5lbs in a week? Probably, since 1-2 lbs is generally considered safe. Second, is it safe for a 154 lb person to eat less than 1200 calories per day? Probably not. Third, why would a deficit of 750 calories cause a 154 lb person to eat only 850 calories? Because that person is sedentary. Fourth, is it safe for a person to be sedentary? Probably not. Fifth, if a person is as active as health organizations recommend, would they burn enough calories during the day that a 750 calorie deficit has them eating more than 1,200 calories? Probably.
It seems to me that the issue is one of an unsafe activity level, not an unsafe calorie deficit.
Not everyone can be active. Whether inactive by choice or necessity, an unsafe calorie deficit is still unsafe. Weight loss isn't exclusive to those who are active so a weight loss goal of 1% isn't always fine.
I can think of a few examples of people who can't be active and in every case they have health problems that would be helped if they could be active. Saying, "Not everyone can be active" is just an excuse for promoting an unhealthy lifestyle.
Timothy I'm sorry but you are so very wrong here
Good luck
Carry to explain what you are sorry about?1 -
TimothyFish wrote: »My point is that since we know that inactivity is unhealthy regardless of the reason people are inactive, we shouldn't tell people that can be more active than they are that it's okay for them to be inactive. Of course one shouldn't walk on a broken ankle, but there's no reason why a person with a broken ankle can't do laps around the block on crutches, or use a hand crank bicycle for a bicycle ride. Even sitting in a recliner and lifting weights is better than being completely sedentary.
Yeah... I think the physio treating my damaged shoulder would have had words about my doing any of those things. Being on crutches for two weeks after surgery darn near dislocated the thing as it was.
It's my experience that most people with chronic conditions are pretty solid on how much they can do. The last time my mobility was seriously restricted and I followed someone's advice to do more, I ended up barely able to hobble for a month.
I don't think we do tell people who can be more active that it's OK not to be. And I also don't think it's remotely ethical to tell people who can't be more active to do things that will cause them physical damage. Leave that to the medical professionals.
I think you are purposefully missing the point here. As I said before, I'm not saying that anyone should do something that they are physically unable to do, but we all have a choice. We can either do what we are able to do or we can make excuses. We all have things we can't do. I, for example, can't box. My eye doctor has basically told me that it is a bad idea to get hit in the head. Now, I could say, "I can't box, but that's okay because I can maintain my weight by eating less." Or I could say, "I can't box, but there are other things I can do, so I'll do those instead." Which of those two do you think produces better results?1 -
TimothyFish wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »My point is that since we know that inactivity is unhealthy regardless of the reason people are inactive, we shouldn't tell people that can be more active than they are that it's okay for them to be inactive. Of course one shouldn't walk on a broken ankle, but there's no reason why a person with a broken ankle can't do laps around the block on crutches, or use a hand crank bicycle for a bicycle ride. Even sitting in a recliner and lifting weights is better than being completely sedentary.
Yeah... I think the physio treating my damaged shoulder would have had words about my doing any of those things. Being on crutches for two weeks after surgery darn near dislocated the thing as it was.
It's my experience that most people with chronic conditions are pretty solid on how much they can do. The last time my mobility was seriously restricted and I followed someone's advice to do more, I ended up barely able to hobble for a month.
I don't think we do tell people who can be more active that it's OK not to be. And I also don't think it's remotely ethical to tell people who can't be more active to do things that will cause them physical damage. Leave that to the medical professionals.
I think you are purposefully missing the point here. As I said before, I'm not saying that anyone should do something that they are physically unable to do, but we all have a choice. We can either do what we are able to do or we can make excuses. We all have things we can't do. I, for example, can't box. My eye doctor has basically told me that it is a bad idea to get hit in the head. Now, I could say, "I can't box, but that's okay because I can maintain my weight by eating less." Or I could say, "I can't box, but there are other things I can do, so I'll do those instead." Which of those two do you think produces better results?
I understood what you were saying. I have knee issues and have to do lots of work arounds for that, but I do stay active and have improved my knees in the process. I'd love to be able to do traditional squats in the gym, but not being able to do this doesn't keep me from doing upper body, and doing the things for my lower body that I can do despite my challenges.0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »My point is that since we know that inactivity is unhealthy regardless of the reason people are inactive, we shouldn't tell people that can be more active than they are that it's okay for them to be inactive. Of course one shouldn't walk on a broken ankle, but there's no reason why a person with a broken ankle can't do laps around the block on crutches, or use a hand crank bicycle for a bicycle ride. Even sitting in a recliner and lifting weights is better than being completely sedentary.
Yeah... I think the physio treating my damaged shoulder would have had words about my doing any of those things. Being on crutches for two weeks after surgery darn near dislocated the thing as it was.
It's my experience that most people with chronic conditions are pretty solid on how much they can do. The last time my mobility was seriously restricted and I followed someone's advice to do more, I ended up barely able to hobble for a month.
I don't think we do tell people who can be more active that it's OK not to be. And I also don't think it's remotely ethical to tell people who can't be more active to do things that will cause them physical damage. Leave that to the medical professionals.
I think you are purposefully missing the point here. As I said before, I'm not saying that anyone should do something that they are physically unable to do, but we all have a choice. We can either do what we are able to do or we can make excuses. We all have things we can't do. I, for example, can't box. My eye doctor has basically told me that it is a bad idea to get hit in the head. Now, I could say, "I can't box, but that's okay because I can maintain my weight by eating less." Or I could say, "I can't box, but there are other things I can do, so I'll do those instead." Which of those two do you think produces better results?
What's wrong with eating less? How is it a better choice to depend upon exercise for 100% of your weight management? What will you do when you get hurt? How many people gain weight when they go from active to inactive?
People do what they can do. Medical practitioners chew me out when I hurt myself being more active than I know I should be. Sedentary isn't necessarily equal to immobile but, even if it is, weight loss is still obtainable. The loss of weight, in and of itself, provides a better result than staying obese.
There is no one true way to lose and then maintain weight. If 100% exercise works for you, that's great. Don't belittle people who use 100% (or 90% or 50% or X%) intake control. People need to find sustainable methods for weight control and sustainability is a very personal issue.
How would you react if I said that exercise is your excuse for not carefully tracking your calories? That you were lazy because you couldn't be bothered to track your macros?4 -
I use the 1% of body-weight rule of thumb...any more than 1% of body-weight is too aggressive.
I'm just really starting my winter weight cut this week...I'll be shooting for around 1.5 Lbs per week which is fairly aggressive, but I'll be done in about 6 weeks or so...so pretty short lived and doable for me even though it will require more discipline than a slower cut.0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »My point is that since we know that inactivity is unhealthy regardless of the reason people are inactive, we shouldn't tell people that can be more active than they are that it's okay for them to be inactive. Of course one shouldn't walk on a broken ankle, but there's no reason why a person with a broken ankle can't do laps around the block on crutches, or use a hand crank bicycle for a bicycle ride. Even sitting in a recliner and lifting weights is better than being completely sedentary.
Yeah... I think the physio treating my damaged shoulder would have had words about my doing any of those things. Being on crutches for two weeks after surgery darn near dislocated the thing as it was.
It's my experience that most people with chronic conditions are pretty solid on how much they can do. The last time my mobility was seriously restricted and I followed someone's advice to do more, I ended up barely able to hobble for a month.
I don't think we do tell people who can be more active that it's OK not to be. And I also don't think it's remotely ethical to tell people who can't be more active to do things that will cause them physical damage. Leave that to the medical professionals.
This. It's not like my paraplegic friend can be very "active."
I've also had times in my life when activity wasn't a choice, I wasn't watching my weight- the injuries actually contributed to weight gain- but moving more wasn't a choice.
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TimothyFish wrote: »SusanMFindlay wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »I really wish people would express some of these limits as a % of total calories expended in a day, aka TDEE.
If 1% or 2lbs is a 75% deficit off a low tdee I would not view it the same as i would view an acceptable 25% cut for someone who is obese.
In general 15-20% cuts (i.e. caloric deficits)when people are normal weight or low overweight, increasing to 25% when obese seem to work fine for results over time with minimal side effects.
As to the OP, assuming your deficit is not wildly above ~25%, 2lbs a week is fine.
My only other comment is, that depending on the type of hernia and dangers it presents, and depending on ease of access to surgery and availability of surgical dates in your world, I would be tempted to keep on losing weight as opposed to putting the loss in the backburner for semi elective surgery.
I am not suggesting that you should keep to a large deficit while healing. To the contrary, doing so will slow down your healing, so reducing or eliminating weight loss while healing makes a lot of sense.
But there are a few weeks of healing to do and having recently gone through minor hernia surgery I can guarantee you that my thoughts were along the lines of "holly crap this would have been so much harder at my original weight" (and our starting points were extremely similar, if you consider the couple of inches I have on you)
Of course there are a whole whack of considerations that may make a delay a bad idea... just throwing out to you that weight loss is just as much of a health necessity for you moving forward and that you have no reason to only aim for limited short term results... think of achieving and maintaining long term a large loss.
That's an interesting concept that may be worth exploring but my initial thought is that it may difficult to deal with the extreme cases. When talking about the average TDEE of 2,000 calories, and the midpoint of the "safe" weight loss of 1-2 lbs per week, the percentage would be 37.5%. A person with a TDEE of 1,800 would have a deficit of 675, which would drop her below 1,200, so that limit still isn't the limit on the low side. A person with a TDEE of 3,000 calories would have a deficit of 1125, which might not be so bad for an obese person. But what if they aren't obese. My TDEE is between 3,000 and 4,000 calories most days and I weight 205lbs. Me that it is okay to cut up to 1,500 calories out of my diet doesn't make sense. Some athletes have TDEEs that are as high as 8,000 calories per day. 37.5% of 8,000 is 3,000 calories. Telling someone with a low body fat percentage isn't a good idea.
Ideally, we would make recommendations on how much body fat a person has rather than on what a person's TDEE is or how far they are from their goal weight. The problem with that is that few people know their body fat percentage. And for those who do, the calculation isn't simple and easy to remember. Health guidelines usually say something like 1-2lbs per week because that is easy to remember. Of course, that is about 1% of body weight for people between 100 and 200 lbs. And since some studies have suggested that obese people losing more than 2lbs is probably safe, 1% of body weight may be the best easy recommendation we have. That's not to say that it is perfect. It wouldn't make sense, for example, to tell a 250lb guy with 10% body fat that it's okay for him to lose 2.5 lbs per week. On the other hand it might be fine to tell a 150lb woman with 50% body fat that losing 2.5 lbs per week is okay. It could be an interesting topic for a thesis.
You're the one who introduced the 37.5% figure. TDEE-25% is as high as you go by that measure (and only for the obese; otherwise TDEE-20% or less). So, 20% of a 3,000 calorie/day TDEE would correspond to a 600 cal/day deficit - which is quite reasonable. 20% of a 2,000 calorie/day TDEE corresponds to a 400 cal/day deficit. The idea is that somebody with a lower TDEE needs to move more to be able to sustain a larger deficit in a healthy way. Want a 500 cal/day deficit? Move enough to increase the TDEE to 2,500 cals/day. Can't move more due to disability? Accept that a slightly smaller deficit is a healthier choice. These are, of course, long-term values. A week or two at a slightly higher deficit (while you figure out the right numbers for you) never hurt anyone.
As for the athlete example, why would an athlete burning 8,000 calories/day be looking to lose weight? People with low bodyfat would be encouraged to eat at maintenance. The TDEE-x% values are for those who want/need to lose weight.
The point is that we can't just put a percentage of TDEE out there without taking into consideration where that TDEE is coming from. A 600 calorie deficit for a person who is inactive and still has a TDEE of 3,000 calories would be too low because the health risks of obesity is putting their life in danger.
What makes you think that an athlete burning 8,000 calories/day isn't trying to lose weight? Marathon runners and cyclists often lose weight before a race to increase their power to weight ratio. It would be nonsense to tell them that it is safe for them to cut 25% of their TDEE out of their diet.
Which is why TDEE-25% is only recommended to the *obese*. The "actually obese" not the "I'm a shotputter with a lot of muscle who comes in with a BMI slightly over 30" "obese". Someone at a healthy weight would typically be recommended to use TDEE-20% as a *maximum* deficit and adjust accordingly. Someone with a lot of lean mass (like an athlete) would be encouraged to stay closer to TDEE-10%.
And someone with a TDEE of 3,000 calories is not necessarily someone whose weight is immediately threatening their life. Run the numbers. A man who is 6 feet tall and weighs 250 has a sedentary TDEE just over 3,000 cals/day. That man is not about to drop dead as a result of his weight. He has some weight to lose, but he will be just fine losing it at a rate of 1 pound/week. Personally, I wouldn't worry overly if he chose to lose it at 2 pounds/week (at least at the start). But 600 cals/day is a completely reasonable deficit for him, and his health does not require him to "lose weight as fast as humanly possible NOW!!!".
Every measure is broken for someone. The TDEE-x% measure is broken for fewer people than most other measures.1 -
TimothyFish wrote: »My point is that since we know that inactivity is unhealthy regardless of the reason people are inactive, we shouldn't tell people that can be more active than they are that it's okay for them to be inactive. Of course one shouldn't walk on a broken ankle, but there's no reason why a person with a broken ankle can't do laps around the block on crutches, or use a hand crank bicycle for a bicycle ride. Even sitting in a recliner and lifting weights is better than being completely sedentary.
Yeah... I think the physio treating my damaged shoulder would have had words about my doing any of those things. Being on crutches for two weeks after surgery darn near dislocated the thing as it was.
It's my experience that most people with chronic conditions are pretty solid on how much they can do. The last time my mobility was seriously restricted and I followed someone's advice to do more, I ended up barely able to hobble for a month.
I don't think we do tell people who can be more active that it's OK not to be. And I also don't think it's remotely ethical to tell people who can't be more active to do things that will cause them physical damage. Leave that to the medical professionals.
This. It's not like my paraplegic friend can be very "active."
I've also had times in my life when activity wasn't a choice, I wasn't watching my weight- the injuries actually contributed to weight gain- but moving more wasn't a choice.
Some can. Have you ever watched wheelchair basketball? Some of those guys are better players than most of us who can walk.0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »My point is that since we know that inactivity is unhealthy regardless of the reason people are inactive, we shouldn't tell people that can be more active than they are that it's okay for them to be inactive. Of course one shouldn't walk on a broken ankle, but there's no reason why a person with a broken ankle can't do laps around the block on crutches, or use a hand crank bicycle for a bicycle ride. Even sitting in a recliner and lifting weights is better than being completely sedentary.
Yeah... I think the physio treating my damaged shoulder would have had words about my doing any of those things. Being on crutches for two weeks after surgery darn near dislocated the thing as it was.
It's my experience that most people with chronic conditions are pretty solid on how much they can do. The last time my mobility was seriously restricted and I followed someone's advice to do more, I ended up barely able to hobble for a month.
I don't think we do tell people who can be more active that it's OK not to be. And I also don't think it's remotely ethical to tell people who can't be more active to do things that will cause them physical damage. Leave that to the medical professionals.
This. It's not like my paraplegic friend can be very "active."
I've also had times in my life when activity wasn't a choice, I wasn't watching my weight- the injuries actually contributed to weight gain- but moving more wasn't a choice.
Some can. Have you ever watched wheelchair basketball? Some of those guys are better players than most of us who can walk.
I could point out that some could, but she's nearly a quadriplegic. Chiari malformation.0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »Some can. Have you ever watched wheelchair basketball? Some of those guys are better players than most of us who can walk.
Do you have any idea how much those wheelchairs cost?
3 -
TimothyFish wrote: »Some can. Have you ever watched wheelchair basketball? Some of those guys are better players than most of us who can walk.
Do you have any idea how much those wheelchairs cost?
Also, some wheelchair basketball players can partially walk.1 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »Which is why TDEE-25% is only recommended to the *obese*. The "actually obese" not the "I'm a shotputter with a lot of muscle who comes in with a BMI slightly over 30" "obese". Someone at a healthy weight would typically be recommended to use TDEE-20% as a *maximum* deficit and adjust accordingly. Someone with a lot of lean mass (like an athlete) would be encouraged to stay closer to TDEE-10%.
And someone with a TDEE of 3,000 calories is not necessarily someone whose weight is immediately threatening their life. Run the numbers. A man who is 6 feet tall and weighs 250 has a sedentary TDEE just over 3,000 cals/day. That man is not about to drop dead as a result of his weight. He has some weight to lose, but he will be just fine losing it at a rate of 1 pound/week. Personally, I wouldn't worry overly if he chose to lose it at 2 pounds/week (at least at the start). But 600 cals/day is a completely reasonable deficit for him, and his health does not require him to "lose weight as fast as humanly possible NOW!!!".
Every measure is broken for someone. The TDEE-x% measure is broken for fewer people than most other measures.
Nothing to add as @SusanMFindlay has more than adequately said what I would have said both here and in a previous post
The issue with TDEE - x% is the obvious one: most people do not know and are not very good at estimating their TDEE.
So a guideline of 1-2lbs a week directed to the vast majority of the world who do not use calorie counting to achieve their goals makes some sort of sense.
If for no other reason because most people who are set to lose slower than that have trouble seeing their weight loss on the scale, get discouraged, and give up.
You may also note, however, that the vast majority of people do not succeed in achieving and maintaining weight loss long term.
It is my opinion that appropriate goals increase the likelihood of long term success.2
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