How much weight loss is reasonable and sustainable per month

mimimunchery

Hi all

I am 46, female, 5’8” and currently 88 or 89 kg.

So, first of all , this isn’t my first rodeo! Been at this for awhile - I seem to toggle between 92 and 80 kgs, but I have been up around 90 kg for the last few years. I would love to be down at 70 kg. (I am in America, but I use kg so I don’t obsess about the number so much!)

I generally eat healthily (lots of whole foods, beans, veggies, etc) but I snack a lot and have some goodies. Oh and wine too.

For a New Years Resolution I’ve made one big change - I am eating dinner by 7:30 pm. Before this we were eating at 9:30 pm or even 10:30 pm. And I was snacking a ton from 5-8 pm and picking at my kids’ food.

So far the change has been great. I am snacking way less - I occasionally have small dessert after dinner but not sitting around snacking all night. I am not strictly counting calories, but I am sure I have been taking in fewer calories.

So my question - how much can I reasonably expect to lose? I started at 90.4 kg on Jan 1, I weigh myself daily and now “Happy Scale” (the moving average weight app) has my current weight at 88.9. So a loss of 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs) in one month.

Does this rate of weight loss seem reasonable? Sustainable? It seems pretty slow going to me but maybe I am being unrealistic?

So far the changes I have made seem easy and like I can keep them up, which is great. But I would love to be losing a little bit more quickly.

What do you all think?

yirara

1.5kg in a month sounds very realistic and sustainable. I guess the secret of successful weightloss is to chose a rate that is not too limiting so that you feel full and happy, and to eat food that makes you happy and not some diet products that tastes like shite. With your current weight you could potentially lose a bit faster, but during the first month odd things might happen that mask weightloss, like holding a bit more to water or a wee bit constipation. If you still have a menstrual cycle then water weight increase during various parts of your cycle might also be a fact. All of these have nothing to do with lack of fat loss but with factors that mask fat loss.

As you don't strictly count calories you don't know how much or little you really eat, but if weightloss remains at this rate in the next 4 weeks then you're doing quite well actually. I know I could not guess whether I'm eating less or not. If you find that not tracking properly doesn't lead to further weightloss then tracking more thoroughly might be necessary.

Corina1143

Do you weigh at the same time each day? It's possible that some of that loss on the scale is timing. It is longer from the time you eat supper until the morning when you weigh, so your body has time to digest more food and release more waste.
Yes, I would be impatient to lose a little faster.

PAV8888

Losing faster has not allowed you to retain your weight loss at maintenance over the years, has it?

I know that I lost and regained 10+ kg several times in my life.

Ten years ago I started without even the confidence that trying to lose weight would have a snow flake's chance of working long term so maybe it wasn't even worth trying.

Somewhere during the process I decided to reflect on all my previous attempts and to try to modify most of the things that didn't seem to have previously worked out long term with an eye to making choices I thought I could adhere to longer term.

Going fast is not the goal. Achieving and maintaining an appropriate weight is.

Making cumulative changes without over pushing is a valid strategy

AnnPT77

If you lost 1.5 kilos and you're happy with your routine, that's perfect IMO.

There are a couple of general rules of thumb that are often suggested here, concerning weight loss rate.

One is to lose no more than about 0.5-1% of current weight per week, with bias toward the lower end of that unless severely obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications. So, for you that would be just under half a kilo to one kilo per week, preferably half a kilo.

It's fine to lose slower, especially if that makes the process easier to stick with long enough to lose a meaningful total amount of weight.

An alternate rule of thumb is to cut no more than about 20%-25% from current-weight maintenance calories, which usually will be a similar number. This one doesn't seem to be applicable for you, since it sounds like you're not calorie counting. (It's not essential to calorie count; other methods like what you're doing are fine, as long as they're working for you.)

Too many people start with a goal of very fast loss . . . I guess wanting to get it over with and go back to normal? That's usually more of a path to yo-yo weight than a path to long-term healthy-weight maintenance, it seems like. IMO, maintaining a healthy weight long term is the true prize in this situation.

Gradual loss, alongside learning new sustainable habits, is perfect. A sensibly moderate weight loss rate we can live with, and the practice of new eating/activity habits during that, can get a person to goal weight (and keep them there) in less calendar time than some extreme, restrictive difficult regimen that causes deprivation-triggered over-eating bouts, breaks in the action, or even giving up altogether.

Sounds like you're doing great!

kshama2001

Keep up the good work! Sure, you could lose a little faster, but if your current rate of loss is sustainable, that is such a good thing.

age_is_just_a_number

On average losing 1-2 lbs per week is reasonable and possible. The less you have to lose the longer it takes.
So, 3.3 lbs in a month seems reasonable to me.
Slow and steady.

mimimunchery

Hi all,

Thanks for your helpful comments. Right now I am vacillating between feeling pretty good about my slow and steady rate and feeling really frustrated. I am at 88.6 on Happy scale and I was at 88.9 last Friday, so a 0.3 kg or 2/3 lb loss for the week. Not nothing but not a lot either.

I am feeling good because I am doing right now feels pretty sustainable.

I’m feeling frustrated because the last two times I lost weight (in Spring 2019 and Summer/Fall 2021) I lost weight a lot more quickly. I get that isn’t necessarily sustainable BUT the kicker is I wasn’t doing anything different then. Same tactics, easier weight loss.

I honestly know what more I could do now except skipping meals or drastically cutting calories which sounds unhealthy and definitely not sustainable

AnnPT77

There is a sense in which each round of weight loss can become more difficult, especially if we lose fast.

I'm oversimplifying for brevity, but a common pattern I've seen in my social group is losing weight fast by going to ultra low calories, eating mostly veggies/salads, doing a bunch of cardio . . . until it becomes unrealistic or unsustainable, and the person gives up. They "go back to normal", which involves eating more treat foods (fried foods, baked goods, candy, etc.), and not doing much if any exercise.

The loss phase doesn't include adequate calories, adequate protein, or strength challenge to remind the body we want to keep muscle, so unnecessarily much lean tissue is lost alongside fat loss. The regain phase still doesn't have enough protein or strength-challenging activity, so the regained weight is almost entirely fat.

Repeat that process, and the result is gradually worse body composition: Higher percentage of fat at any given weight, lower percentage of muscle.

That lowers metabolism a little bit, because a pound of muscle burns more calories even at rest than a pound of fat. But that effect is pretty small: Researchers estimate maybe 2-8 or so calories more per day per pound of muscle vs. pound of fat. (That would be roughly 1 to 4 calories per kg of muscle vs. fat daily - tiny effect.)

The bigger deal is that worse body composition makes it harder and less fun to move, not just exercise, but also daily life movement. Through that mechanism, we're gradually (and perhaps unnoticed) moving less, burning fewer calories. Research suggests that even fidgeting can make low hundreds of calories difference daily between fidgety people and otherwise similar non-fidgety ones. I'm not suggesting people fidget for weight loss, just saying that reduced movement can happen almost invisibly. I don't notice how much I fidget; do you?

If you're losing slowly, I think you're on a better course. That, plus getting enough protein (ideally in the context of overall good nutrition) and some strength-challenging exercise can help avoid another negative hit on body composition, maybe even reverse the issue if a person sticks with it long term (even at goal).

Also, it's possible to intentionally increase daily life movement. Various MFP-ers share their ideas about that here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

If exercising, I'd encourage sticking with a manageably challenging routine, not some extreme exhausting thing. Over-exercise can cause fatigue, and also reduce daily life movement (subtly or dramatically), simply because we rest more. That's counter-productive for weight loss, plus over-exercise isn't even the best route to fitness improvement. If fitness improvement is a goal, slow and steady works there, too. As we get fitter, we can increase exercise duration, intensity or frequency to keep that manageable challenge always present (or change exercise type). That ongoing challenge is what creates fitness progress.

You're doing great. Hang in there. Weight loss is a good goal, but IMO staying at a healthy weight long term, ideally permanently, is the really big prize, like I said in my PP on this thread. That depends on developing sustainable new habits we can continue forever, which is kind of the antithesis of the "lose weight fast" mentality.

Just my opinions, though . . . from around year 8 of maintenance, after a year of loss (obese to healthy weight) that followed around 30 previous years of overweight/obesity.

Best wishes!

HoneyBadger302

PAV8888 wrote: »

Somewhere during the process I decided to reflect on all my previous attempts and to try to modify most of the things that didn't seem to have previously worked out long term with an eye to making choices I thought I could adhere to longer term.

Just pointing out that this really stood out to me, especially the bolded part. With my business up and running (albeit needing growth, the groundwork has been laid), my #1 goal this year was to finally prioritize my health and fitness and once and for all get down to (and start maintaining) my goal weight.

I didn't really think about this being a thought process, but I went through this a bit when I was figuring out how to tackle this. I've lost before, even getting within ~5 pounds of where I figured I'd be happy, only to fall back off the wagon. I've known, but wasn't sure how to combat, what didn't work.

Going hungry doesn't work. My appetite refuses to adjust down. Macro profiles help, but do not solve the issue. Adding more and more gym sessions isn't sustainable - there are only so many hours in a day, and when life hits, spending hours a day in the gym has failed time and time again.

I also looked back at my life - when my weight wasn't a problem, it was when I was more active overall - job plus some fitness on the side. My appetite is reasonable with enough activity. But - I have a desk job. So, I chose to find ways to add a lot more activity to my day without adding a bunch of time. Whether this will result in sustainable weight loss remains to be seen, but I got a walking pad for under my desk, have found some "trail running" videos I can throw up and get a quick cardio session in over a break without being completely bored out of my mind (and not having to drive anywhere), and using the walking pad a fair bit - I'm not using it all day at this point (or even close to all day) but a couple hours/day on it makes a massive difference in my daily step count already. Pick up the pace over a break for 15 minutes with a video up and it's upping cardio with no serious impact to my day.

This is just what history, and my body, and my patterns have shown me - for me, enough activity will make or break things, but time is also at a premium (especially with the day job AND my business). Some creativity is sometimes needed