Weekly Goal

Joramaisi3

If you have 75 lbs to lose where do you start? I don’t want to be starving.

cmriverside

Well, the Goals wizard will let you choose any of those.

It will also suggest you choose, "Lose 1 pound per week."

Do as you want. You can probably safely choose, "Lose 2 pounds per week," at your current weight and be healthy enough if you choose your nutrition wisely. The lower the calories, the more difficult it is to stick to it. Up to you. Pick one and try it for a while, change if you need to.

If you know your TDEE, you can just eat below that and lose weight, but if you don't know your TDEE then you'll need to experiment for a month or two to figure it out.

Lietchi

Lose 1lb per week

I lost 75lbs. I chose 0.5lbs per week from the start... Perhaps I'm more patient than most, but slower is definitely better than faster:
- more calories to play with
- less hunger
- less risk of loose skin
- more time to build new habits (instead of choosing temporary strategies and then 'going back to normal eating' and gaining all the weight back)

xrj22

I would say to start with lower goals. If it seems easy, or once your habits are better, you can always up your game. It is more motivating be successful and increase your goals than to aim to high and need to scale back.

AnnPT77

0.5% to 1% of current weight per week as a maximum, with a bias toward the lower end of that as long as current body weight is not an acute health threat in itself. (If current weight is an acute threat, that person should be under close medical supervision while losing.)

For most people, 20% of TDEE is another possible rule of thumb, as a maximum loss rate.

Personal context matters: Slower loss if other parts of life are high stress (because calorie deficit is a stressor and stress is cumulative, including both psychological and physical stress). Note that any new exercise, especially if intense, is also a stressor - even though the long-run result of that stress may be positive. Slower loss if older (I'm less resilient to extremes at 66 even though healthy, bet others may be, too). Slower loss if healing from an injury/illness, or dealing with a chronic health condition - mitigating those things requires both calories and nutrition.

Slower than any rule of thumb suggests as a max is also fine, if it makes the process more sustainable. Losing any meaningful amount of weight - like 75 pounds - is inherently going to take a long time. For 75 pounds, it'll certainly take many months, even multiple years. That puts a premium on sustainability - tactics you can stick with long enough to get to goal weight.

At goal, you face the challenge of maintaining. Treating weight loss as a quick project with an end date, all the way through, doesn't tend to build the habits to keep us at a healthy weight long term almost on autopilot. Habits that work on autopilot, or close, can be figured out and grooved in while losing, with a good plan. Doing that at some point during loss will help avoid regained pounds with friends.

How weight is lost is more important than how fast, IMO. The right tactics are individual, because we all have different preferences, strengths, and challenges.

Joramaisi3

Thank you everyone for your insight