Impossible for shorties to lose 2lbs per week?

littlenature

No matter how much I play about with the thing that predicts your rate of loss on this site, it never says I can lose more than a pound a week! Well actually, if I say I'll eat 600 cals a day (just for funsies), it gives my rate of loss as 1.5 lbs per week. Is this true in practice as well as in theory? I'm just curious, really!

zyxst

No, but I started out over 300#.

LivingtheLeanDream

you COULD lose 2lbs maybe in the first week with cutting back - never below 1200 though!! your body needs the fuel and it stops you from binging and undoing all your hard work in a few weeks time.
0.5 to 1lb is a GOOD loss per week - slow and steady etc!
If you don't have much to lose thats a good expectation

If you have a lot to lose 2lbs/week will come off easily even eating at 1200 and more - calculate your BMR/TDEE and see how much you could be eating to still lose.

Vkoons3

I am short. 5'3 and I have been losing at about a rate of 2 lbs per week. Some more some less. I have really been sticking to this for 11 weeks now and am only .6 away from being at 20lbs lost. My ticker only says 12 because I was on here before and didn't reset it when I started back. I eat 1200 cals a day and try to get in in some form of 30 min exercise 4-5 times a week. It's a lot of work and dedication and I have my days where I fall off the wagon but you'll have that. So it can be done. Good luck on your journey and feel free to friend me if you'd like. I can always use the support.

janicelo1971

I don't think your height has anything to do with it...it has to do with how overweight you are....clearly most people will not be at a loss of 7000 calories a week unless they are very obese....the less you have to lose the longer it takes...im at 1200 calories and I think it says I will lose .5 pound a week....

lucan07

You don't state your current weight but I doubt it has that much to do with height probably more to do with your starting weight and amount you wish to lose the site does not encourage unhealthy targets. It warned me several times about 2lb a week and I have a lot to lose.

toutmonpossible

No matter how much I play about with the thing that predicts your rate of loss on this site, it never says I can lose more than a pound a week! Well actually, if I say I'll eat 600 cals a day (just for funsies), it gives my rate of loss as 1.5 lbs per week. Is this true in practice as well as in theory? I'm just curious, really!

The rate of weight loss depends on how overweight you are and how drastic an eating plan you're on. Plus, everyone is different.

toutmonpossible

you COULD lose 2lbs maybe in the first week with cutting back - never below 1200 though!!

Some short women need to be under 1200 to lose. It's a matter of trial and error.

Love4fitnesslove4food2

Weight loss is mostly a matter of starting weight, not height. It is often the case that the shorter you are the less your starting weight; therefore, the less weight loss you can expect each week.

Pearsquared

Just think of it this way - because we're shorter, each pound matters more, either through a gain or a loss. So, 30 lbs. lost on you will be a bigger difference than 30 lbs. lost on someone who's 5'10''. In other words, it evens out in the end, so please, just focus on losing at a healthy rate and eating enough.

Cheeky_and_Geeky

I'm 5"1' & lost 2lbs a week for the first 10 weeks then lost 5lbs my 3rd month on here. SW 167lbs, CW 145lbs. But the closer I get to a healthy BMI, the less I will lose every week. Now, I'm hoping to lose 1lb a week. Good luck! You can lose 2lbs a week, but it all depends on your calories & exercise level. Good luck!

littlenature

Okay, thanks for the info! I do think height in itself comes into it though as my BMR is higher when I make myself taller! I'm 68kgs (150lbs) and only 5ft so I still have a lot to lose! Really I'm mostly just curious about how it all works though, I find it interesting

janicelo1971

Okay, thanks for the info! I do think height in itself comes into it though as my BMR is higher when I make myself taller! I'm 68kgs (150lbs) and only 5ft so I still have a lot to lose! Really I'm mostly just curious about how it all works though, I find it interesting

ok, if u really are that overweight..i would play around with the numbers more....seems you should be able to lose 2 pounds a week...im basing this on the assumption you want to lose around 50 pounds...when I initially responded I figured u just had 10 or so pounds to lose....

endoftheside

MFP has you eat back all your exercise calories, so you don't get any help there. However, if you change your general (non-exercise) activity level (going from sedentary to active say), that might get you to the point where MFP thinks you could lose 2 pounds a week.

At my height (short) and current weight (about 20 pounds left to lose), even if I netted 1200 and had the highest activity level, I would not reach a 2 pound/week loss. I just now played around with it to see since I hadn't checked in a while (I was never on 2 pounds/wk even when I weighed more because 1200 calories a day does not work for me).

Edited because what I said was probably confusing...at OP's height and weight, even if non-exercise activity level was very active I am guessing it will not be able to calculate a 2 pound/wk loss since it won't go lower than 1200.

HikerRR50

Depends on how much they run on the yellow brick road? settle down.... jeash you have such a short temper

sharleengc

I don't really go off of that. I don't think it's ever accurate. I can set it to lose 2lbs a week and be exact with my calories and still only lose 1.5 or 1lb a week. I lose at the same rate no matter what I set it to as long as I am eating at a deficit. Their "you should lose or weight ___" in 5 weeks is just a guess or prediction. I'm never at what the prediction says.

Side note, i'm 5'0

init2fitit

you COULD lose 2lbs maybe in the first week with cutting back - never below 1200 though!!

Some short women need to be under 1200 to lose. It's a matter of trial and error.

The thing about 1200 for women is that it rarely has to do with a weight loss figure, and more about nutrition. Meaning its hard to hit all your macros/micros on that small of caloric intake. Increase it further, and you risk not getting it at all unless you start taking nutritional supplements. If you need to decrease intake that low, I'd speak with a physician and join a gym because that doesn't seem healthy for the long run, as your entering VLCD area.

stealthq

you COULD lose 2lbs maybe in the first week with cutting back - never below 1200 though!!

Some short women need to be under 1200 to lose. It's a matter of trial and error.

The thing about 1200 for women is that it rarely has to do with a weight loss figure, and more about nutrition. Meaning its hard to hit all your macros/micros on that small of caloric intake. Increase it further, and you risk not getting it at all unless you start taking nutritional supplements. If you need to decrease intake that low, I'd speak with a physician and join a gym because that doesn't seem healthy for the long run, as your entering VLCD area.

True enough. Although, for someone's BMR to be less than 1200, they'd need to be sub 5 foot (or be slightly over and old, or have a medical condition). In that case, the RDAs are probably higher than they need to be, too, so it should still be possible to get that nutrition in as a very short person.

MinnieInMaine

It's a combination of both height and weight (and age). Going by your ticker, I translated your kg loss goal to 39.6 pounds. So setting your goal to 1 pound per week would be healthy and reasonable.

Here is a great guideline for setting weekly weight loss goals:
If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.

My mother is shorter and fairly petite and I was amazed at how little calories MFP gave her, even with a lower weekly weight loss goal. However, in her case she is lightly active, not sedentary, so once we fixed that, her daily goal was much more realistic.

MFP goals are only as good as the info you give them. You have to make sure every piece of the equation is set up correctly. Some people try to set their weekly weight loss goals to 2 pounds per week even if they only have 10 pounds to lose. Some people set their activity level as sedentary when it should be lightly or moderately active. And as someone else said, it's also trial and error. A lot of the numbers are estimates and may not work for everyone (given medical conditions, etc).

Jewlz280

I'm 5'4'' and I used the MFP settings for the last month and lost nada. Ok, I DID lose half a pound but that, to me, is arbitrary. I did their settings just to test it out for me. It had me at 1800 cals and then eating back exercise. My point is that you can't always trust what the MFP calculator says. You may have to be patient and play with it. What I'm doing now is tweaking. I'm going to stick with the 1800, but I'm going to follow the TDEE method of not eating back the cals because I think that is why I lost but only such a small amount. According to TDEE and my BMR, somewhere between 1500 and 1800 is my ideal. Which explains why before I did 1600 and lost pretty consistently. So, you may just have to do a few calculators, play with a few numbers, and ignore their predictions. Because that is really all it is! It's like talking to a gypsy! It's generalized and some may be accurate while some isn't. So, don't get too bummed. In the end, if you work at it and tweak what works and doesn't, you'll find the right spot. And really, if you lost 1.5lbs. every week until you hit goal, you're only talking a difference of a few weeks and that is if your body was a 100% perfectly accurate machine that guaranteed weight loss of 1.5 per week. Some weeks you are just going to have little to no loss and then others will be awesome. In the end, it all balances out and the point is progress not perfection. :flowerforyou:

littlenature

Thanks, y'all!!! Don't worry. I'm not actually putting too much stock into the predictions, it just made me curious. I can't help thinking that the 1200 cal/ day guideline is a bit arbitrary though.

But I'm not necessarily aiming for a 2lbs a week loss, I mean, that would be AMAZING! But, so long as I see the number on the scales reduce, I'll be pleased. I'm in my 20s and I'm very, very active in my everyday life (move/ run constantly all day as part of my job) and I still have energy for proper exercise after that, so I guess you never know how my body will reduce! A girl can dream

amyrob56

I am 5ft nothing, I started on 6/21 and the 1st two months I did average 2 lbs per week on about 800-1100 calories - no exercise.

However, once the 1st 20 lbs came off I felt better, ate worse and things slowed down and now I am trying to get back on track and am adding exercise but I do not think I will be able to see a 2# per week loss again. If I can get back to 1# per week I will be happy. For me just 10#s more. I had been maintaining the past two weeks so I do know what works to maintain. I just want to maintain at 10# less

amyrob56

Back in Ketosis .... 1.8 lbs gone in 3 days!!! Keto rocks!