Weight Loss Goal to .5lb a week?

skinny4me2be

Just out of curiosity has anyone set their weight loss goal to a .5lb a week from the get-go? If so, would love to hear from your or your success with it.

Swiftdogs

I didn't start there, but changed to a half a week pretty quickly when I realized a pound a week was a bit aggressive for my age, size and activity level. I went to even less of a cut for the last 10 pounds. It worked very well for me, and I seem to be managing my first months of maintenance okay so far.

skinny4me2be

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skinny4me2be

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MBrothers22

It depends on how much you have to lose. 25 pounds or less and it would be recommended to set your goal at .5 pounds per week

26-50 pounds: 1 lb per week
51-75 pounds: 1.5 lbs per week
> 75: 2 lbs per week

skinny4me2be

Thank you! Just was looking to see if anyone started out at 1/2 pound weight loss per week and how it went for them. Just a curious thing is all. :-)

dmenchac

I would say the majority of people on here had at some point a lot to lose so they could lose 2lbs a week. However as we get closer to our goal .5 lb a week is a solid approach. Just be wary that your deficit isn't huge and you don't have a ton of margin for error.

TavistockToad

Just out of curiosity has anyone set their weight loss goal to a .5lb a week from the get-go? If so, would love to hear from your or your success with it.

i didnt from the start... but these days i am only after losing a bit of bodyfat so my weight loss goal is TDEE-10%, pretty much 0.5lb per week.

lamps1303

Mine was initially set to 2lb a week then 1lb a week. After coming to my senses and realising both were unrealistic, I dropped it to 0.5lb a week and saw much more success with weight loss. I was also thankful for the additional calories!

logg1e

lamps how long did you spend at 2lbs per week?

FierceLisa

I have mine set at 1 lb loss per week. I started at 332.8 lbs in January. As of Tuesday I am 307.2. So I have lost 25.6 lbs in about 4 months. I did MFP once before about a year and a half ago. My goal was set at 2 lbs a week and I lost like 40 lbs or so but it was depressing and I felt deprived. I ended up not sticking with it. In my experience setting a more attainable goal is always best. It's a life style change. Losing weight isn't going to happen overnight and you need to be satisfied and happy other wise you won't stick with it long term. I hope it helps. Best of luck

lamps1303

lamps how long did you spend at 2lbs per week?

Probably about month or so but as I was already 'healthy weight' and MFP has a minimum of 1200kcal, it probably wasn't enough deficit for me to lose 2lbs per week anyway so highly unrealistic. So I thought there's no point torturing myself with 1200kcal a day. I did up it to 1540kcal for a while but found that my best loss is 1350kcal, with my settings set to 0.5lb per week and sedentary (I have a desk job) and just log any exercise, excluding my walking. I lift too so I have found most success this way.

ETA: 1540kcal was based on TDEE from Scooby but my activity level changes loads each day so I find it more accurate to log exercise on individual days. I now use the MFP method, not TDEE (i.e. I log exercise)

Zardeenah

newbie here!
when i made the account mfp recommended i lose .5 kg a week, which is a little over 1 lbs. Which with my activity level meant I would end up eating just 1200 calories a day. To me that seemed really aggressive since I only have 5 kg to lose, so I changed it to .25 kg per week.

paperpudding

Just out of curiosity has anyone set their weight loss goal to a .5lb a week from the get-go? If so, would love to hear from your or your success with it.

yes, almost from the start - I think after 1 week when I realised that's what I should of been doing.

My aim was to lose 10 kg ( I think this is about 22 lb) which I did over a 10 month period - so yes, successfully lost a kg a month which is roughly equal to 1/2 lb per week.