80 pounds to lose

cgcrutch

So I've pretty much undone any progress I made with weightloss the past couple years.. the last couple months of stress and fast food packed on 30lbs!!! Dental work, deadlines, and not being able to cook regularly (along with poor choices of course) has brought me back to square one. I'd like to be at a fit 145lb by end of June 2020. Anyone else had significant weight loss in 6 months or less?? Looking for hope and/or reality check

tcunbeliever

The average person can metabolize a maximum of 1% body fat per week. Anything lost above that is water or muscle or other lean body mass.

For example, I weigh 156 pounds, so in any given week the most I can lose is about a pound and a half.

In reality, losing at that rate requires eating a very small amount of food and I don't have the mental fortitude to eat that little, so it isn't sustainable. I usually aim for about half that so about a pound and a half over a two week time period, or about 3 pounds a month.

I also like to take a break on the weight loss, so I usually do 2 months deficit and one month maintenance...in the pas I have also been successful with 6 weeks of deficit and 2 weeks of maintenance...but for me, I definitely need a break from eating so little or I just can't keep up the deficit eating at all. Sustainability is a very individual thing, but for me diet breaks are necessary to sustain long term healthy eating including deficits.

Assuming you are 225 (145 to lose 80 lbs), then you should be able to lose a max of 2.25 lbs the first week down to about 1.5 lbs per week toward the end of your weight loss, and in theory about 43 weeks should do it...but that's at absolute max loss every single week, which may or may not be reasonable for you depending on how well you can sustain it and stick to plan.

43 weeks is around the week before Halloween. 80 lbs in 6 months (26 weeks) would be 3 lbs a week and would mean losing more than just fat. Isn't the goal to lose the fat and keep the muscle as much as possible? There may be some water loss the first couple weeks, but after that it should level out on the water.

For me, short term goals work better...I would pick a date to lose 10 or 20 lbs, then adjust the goal to a new weight as I reach each milestone - but that's also very individual, some people are good at long term goals...I tend to have the attention span of a 5 year old.

FIT_Goat

I was under the impression that is was something like 22 calories per pound of body fat per day. So, that takes a bit more math.

If we assume 145 lbs is a healthy weight and ~23% body fat and we start at 225 lbs, with no loss of LBM we start with 113.4 lbs of fat and end with 33.4 lbs. Meaning the max deficits range from 2,490 calories down to 730 calories. This still takes 195 days. That's 28 weeks. BUT, and this is a huge BUT, this is a theoretical maximum. So, even at the maximum rate, you still don't hit the 6 month mark.

The only way to hit the 6 month mark is to lose muscle and other lean body mass along with the fat, which you really do not want to do. There really is no practical or healthy way to maintain the deficits in this theoretical model. You will end up harming your body and metabolism.

You probably didn't put on 80 pounds in six months. Give your body more time to take it off correctly.

cgcrutch

Anyone know why fat can be gained quickly but not lost as quickly

cgcrutch

About 50 of the lbs is from the past 6 months, the other 30 is a goal I hadn't reached yet

FIT_Goat

Losing two pounds a week is quick and likely not healthy, but would get 50 pounds off in 6 months, as quickly as you gained them. But, gaining and losing weight that fast is not healthy.

Losing weight is controlled by what your body can mobilize, gaining is controlled by how much you can put in.

herblovinmom

cgcrutch wrote: »

About 50 of the lbs is from the past 6 months, the other 30 is a goal I hadn't reached yet

Have you seen a doctor to check your hormones? Last time I gained lots of weight that quickly was because my thyroid went wacko and I was diagnosed with Hashimotos, not saying this is the case for you. It just doesn’t seem right to gain that much weight that quickly.

cgcrutch

herblovinmom wrote: »

cgcrutch wrote: »

About 50 of the lbs is from the past 6 months, the other 30 is a goal I hadn't reached yet

Have you seen a doctor to check your hormones? Last time I gained lots of weight that quickly was because my thyroid went wacko and I was diagnosed with Hashimotos, not saying this is the case for you. It just doesn’t seem right to gain that much weight that quickly.

It's from stress and fast food every day, sometimes multiple times a day. And alcohol but I can usually have drinks and still lose weight when I'm cooking my own keto meals. But McDonald's and Popeye's can make me gain like a pound a day. Also stress made my social life non-existent so I've been less active too.