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MyFitnessPal Community

What's your weight loss rate per week?

IbrahimAl

I'm interested to know what's your weight loss rate so I can measure if I'm doing it right.

I've started my diet on 2nd December, so it's been 9 days. I'm following a strict keto-like diet. I've cut out all carbs and sugars and living off salads, meat and chicken. I sometimes miss meals and snacks e.g. today I had 1 meal and 1 snack (salad). So almost combined with intermittent fasting.

I've lost over 3 kilos in under 10 days.

Is this a normal weight loss? How much do you lose a week?

Replies

AnnPT77

First 10 days isn't really indicative, because it's common to lose some water weight at the start, and to have relatively less digestive tract contents (waste) when eating less. The water weight shift can be particularly big with a low carb/keto diet, because our body holds onto some water while it's metabolizing carbs. Water weight loss shows up on the scale, but isn't fat loss, so it doesn't really mean anything.

With any new regimen, go for 4-6 weeks, then look at your average loss per week. If the first two weeks look dramatically different from what follows, drop that data and go for another couple of weeks before estimating average loss. If you start feeling weak or fatigued for unexplained reasons, eat more. Otherwise, stick with the consistent routine for the whole timespan to get reasonable averaging. (If you were female, I'd say to average over whole menstrual cycles.)

If you kept losing at 3kg per 10 days (2.1 kg per week) that would be too fast unless you weigh well over 200kg now, IMO. But you probably won't keep up that rate.

I'm in maintenance, so my generic answer is that I don't lose at all. I admit I'm up a bit (kg or so) from my preferred zone, so I'm eating in a way that would result in losing maybe a half kg a month, as long as I don't have any over-goal indulgent days, which is unrealistic. I'd like to lose a tiny bit, but I don't care how long it takes when it's that little. I just want it to be easy.

When I first started losing weight for serious, I weighed about 83 kg. (I'm female, around 165 cm/5'5", so that's class 1 obese). For a while, I lost just under a kg a week, which was too fast - I did get weak and fatigued; no one needs that. After that, I averaged around half a kg per week for a while, then intentionally slowed down to more like 0.25kg or less at the end. (I weigh around 59-60 kg now.)

IMO, the lighter you are, the slower it's best to lose. I wouldn't personally lose more than 1% of current weight per week, and 0.5% would be better in most cases IMO.

mtaratoot

@AnnPT77 has some great insight. One extra thing about water weight that she didn't mention is that you will likely lose MORE water weight with a low carb/no carb diet than just reducing how much you eat. When your body digests carbs, it converts as much as it can to glycogen. Glycogen is a quick energy source. For every gram of carbohydrate converted to glycogen, your body also stores two or thee grams of water. When you cut out carbs, your body uses this glycogen for energy, and the water gets excreted or leaves via respiration. After your body has used up glycogen, that's when ketosis starts. It's a way your body can access fuel without carbohydrate. It works for some people, but I'm a carbohydrate lover.

For sure wait a few weeks and track your daily weight to see how much it fluctuates, and only then figure out what your loss rate is. Is it too fast? Maybe. It's better to find a rate that's challenging but not too fast. It's very common to start off too fast, and it can lead to failure if you get so hungry you overeat and undo all the work. There's health implications of eating too little as well; I'm sure that will come up here soon. Your loss rate depends a lot on your current mass. We don't know your current mass, so we can't tell what a good rate might be for you. Typically no more than 1% per week; a healthy loss rate will be less as you become less massive. You also will need fewer calories because there's less of you, so your calorie budget will also need to be adjusted.

I'd suggest you look in the "GETTING STARTED" category and look for a post near the top called "Most Helpful Posts - Getting Started (Must Reads)"

The 10th item on the list is "WEIGHT LOSS Frequently Asked Questions: Infographic Answers." Go there, and you'll find some good guidance on what a healthy rate is for YOU. I've copied it below:

IbrahimAl

@AnnPT77 @mtaratoot Thank you both for your great replies - I learnt a lot of new things.

I'm a male and started at 108kg on 2nd December, this morning I'm at 104kg! I'm excited and motivated to continue this strict military diet, but wary this rate might not continue - as you two mentioned due to water loss. I guess I'll have to give it a few more weeks and measure the average. I'm not worried about giving in to cravings or getting bored of the same meals/snacks every day, but more about if I get demotivated if I see a dip in the weight loss rate.

I can already see differences in my belly size and waiste size! 💪

mtaratoot

IbrahimAl wrote: »

@AnnPT77 @mtaratoot Thank you both for your great replies - I learnt a lot of new things.

I'm a male and started at 108kg on 2nd December, this morning I'm at 104kg! I'm excited and motivated to continue this strict military diet, but wary this rate might not continue - as you two mentioned due to water loss. I guess I'll have to give it a few more weeks and measure the average. I'm not worried about giving in to cravings or getting bored of the same meals/snacks every day, but more about if I get demotivated if I see a dip in the weight loss rate.

I can already see differences in my belly size and waiste size! 💪

Do yourself a favor and go ahead and realize that you not only will see a dip in your weight loss rate, but there will almost certainly be times that you don't lose at all. You're almost sure to also have weeks when you gain. This is when you have to trust the process and stick to it even if you aren't motivated. Many people here suggest that nobody is motivated to brush their teeth, but many people still do it daily.

Do yourself another favor if you're not already: take body measurements! Get a tailor's measuring tape and measure the circumference of several parts of your body. Repeat this every month or so. There's some different places you can measure. Whichever you choose, use the same spot each time. Consider measuring your chest, girth at navel or largest part of your torso (some call this your waist), the place where your pants normally hang (some also call this your waist - for me it is closer to the top of my hip bones), widest part of your butt (gluteus maximus), neck, quad, and bicep. You should decide if you want to measure flexed or not and either always do it the same or do both. Sometimes these measurements can help you realize you are still transforming your body even if the scale suggests otherwise.

You can even use these measurements to get an idea of your health risks. Calculate your waist to height ratio and your waist to hip ratio. If your waist to height ratio is over 0.5, that's an indicator of overweight. If it's less than 0.4, you might be underweight. Many people feel this is a better metric than body mass index (BMI), although in reality it is very similar.

Waist to hip is different for men and women. For men, a waist to hip ratio of 0.96 to 1.0 indicates a moderate health risk. For women it's 0.81 to 0.85. Women tend to have wider hips. A waist to hip ratio over 1.0 for men or 0.85 for women indicates a high health risk.

Keep sticking to it. That's the main thing. Look at long term trends. Set goals. Find strategies to accomplish them, and then just keep sticking to it.