How to lose 5 pounds a week.

Just1forMe

First of all... congratulations on your weight loss and reclaiming your life! So excited for you!

I think the concern that people express is not necessarily based on "your" situation... but for anyone else who might stumble across your posts. Someone who has 30 lbs to lose will not be able to lose 5 lbs a week, shouldn't expect it and should not try it.

Ditto! Congrats and great job. Being a male at your starting weight, 5 lbs a week seems very do-able. Once you get to a healthier BMI, you should expect (& adjust for) your losses to slow down. A woman with 25 lbs to lose should probably be losing at closer to a rate of .5-2 lbs a week.

Sounds like you are doing everything right...keep up the great work!

Mary830

Now I am not saying by any stretch of the imagination that everyone out there should go lose 5 pounds a week. For some people, it would be unhealthy. I myself, have already slowed down...as of right now, I will be lucky to lose 1-2 pounds this week. I know this was rather long and I apologize (but also thank you for reading all of it). My point is this...we are all here to get healthy. And we all want to help each other out. But we all have to remember that sometimes the best advice is..."sorry, I can't help you. You really should talk to your Doctor and get a medical opinion on that."

Thanks for sharing your story and your success so far. It sounds like your body has been adjusting to your new, healthier lifestyle with some very motivating results. Best of luck to you on the rest of your journey- it sounds like you've got a great attitude and mindset and I know that can take people far.

I will say that most doctor got 2 days training on nutrition!!! We see people here that their doctor put them on a 900 cals a day. Go to a specialist that is not trying to sell you something.

I'm a little confused by this. I agree that most doctors do not specialize in nutrition- so I am not disagreeing with your point but... :::pops the next bag of calorie-free drama popcorn for the on-lookers:::

Wouldn't a specialist be trying to sell you something? They're trying to sell you on themselves, an their experience.

I know that when I went from being an employee at a gym to being a personal trainer, my focus did shift to "selling" (to a certain extent) Where previously I was offering advice and encouragement for the sole purpose of being motivating and friendly, once I "specialized" I began offering advice and encouragement to be motivating, friendly and *hopefully* getting paid.

That said- I'm the worlds worst personal trainer when it comes to bringing in a paycheck! I genuinely want to see people succeed, and gave away way too many free sessions just because I liked being helpful.:laugh:

downtome

Hmmmm.....I started out at 315 pounds on Nov.26th and I'm doing almost everything you have been doing and I'm not losing 5 pounds a week?! However, I have lost 47 pounds in just under 3 1/2 months which I think is very good! Maybe if I were to be extremely strict and NOT allow myself a cheat meal once or twice a week, I might lose more than 2-3 pounds a week as well! I am very happy with my progress so far because I believe that if I were to be very strict, I wouldn't have been able to come this far by not allowing myself the foods that I love such as Mexican, Pizza, Chinnese or Dark Chocolate bars every so often. I know that I can and will lose the remaining 108 pounds by this time next year.I even plateaued at 30 pounds lost for 3 long weeks straight but I kept going. I am doing it the healthy and realistic way too and I feel so much better now. I know I still have a long journy ahead but I have not lost one ounce of motivation and I plan to continue moving forward. Of course I would love to lose 5 pounds a week no matter how unhealthy some might think it is, but I know that it's just not realistic for me as some days I eat more calories than others and allow for those cheat meals and thats Ok with me, I get to enjoy anything I want to eat pretty much within reason, exercise and STILL lose a good sum of weight each week and that to me is exciting! I do have to stay away from ice cream though, especially Ben & Jerry's....LOL, I would probally lose control and B & J and it has soooooo many calories, just not worth wasting my whole day for. Before I started this healthier way of eating, I had a severe Ben & Jerry's addiction, eating 2-3 pints a day most days of the week, I'm embarrassed to admit that but that was my drug of choice to ease my pain but not anymore, those days are over. I wouldn't trade this feeling of having lost weight for that feeling ever again! Another thing that I would like to add is that as you lose weight, I believe that when you hit plateaus it's becasue your body is adjusting to the wieght loss, then after sometime, it starts moving along again....thank goodness for that, and I know there will be more to come. Ok, enough rambling from me, I just wanted to share my excitement and how great I feel. I honestly can't believe that I have come this far, all I can say for that is, it's about time I finally made the decision to become healthy and exercise, it was long, long over due! Keep up the great work everyone and as always, stay focused and stay motivated! AND thanks for the continued support and inspiration I get here from all the MFP'ers. Hugs to you all!

lmclaine

I could have written this post--almost identical to my journey so except for the 5 lbs/wk. I also started on January 2nd and discovered MFP soon after. I have been counting calories and documenting everything I consume. That alone has helped tremendously. I walk about 3-3.5 miles during my lunch break at least 3 days/wk. I was averaging 2.2 lbs/week lost although I have hit a wall and not lost anything for 2 weeks, I hope that changes next week so I won't get discouraged. My biggest problem has been staying under 1,500 calories/day. I bet I was doing 2,500-3,000 easy. It's a tough adjustment.

I will admit that I still eat many of the same foods, I haven't converted to berries, nuts and granola bars. I find that as long as I watch portions and stay in my calorie count, I lose weight. Thank goodness for this app/website, it really makes you scrutinize what you are eating and helps to learn what's in the foods you eat--not just calories.

Thanks for all the support!

socialite51

Congratulations on your weight lose.

Shay127

Good for you! Keep doing what you are doing!! I am a ZUMBA instructor and it's an amazing workout!! Don't be ashamed

kettlewitch

35lb in 8 weeks and I'm averaging 4 lb a week now. I work out and I don't eat back my exercise calories, ever. Shock horror! It may be bad for me but not as bad as being over 300 lb with diabetes and a fatty liver. My doctor's attitude is get it iff as quickly as you can as you are morbidly obese and will die if you keep it up. That's the reality and I don't care about starvation mode cos from where I'm sitting, I don't see people who are really starving staying fat. If I felt Ill then I'd eat more, but I don't. If I looked Ill then I'd eat more, but I don't. Thanks to the OP and hope you get to your goal in whatever way works for you

stormieweather

If I ate nothing all day (I burn 2000 calories a day so that would be a 2000 calorie a day deficit), I still couldn't lose 5 pounds a week. I'd have to add another 500 calorie a day workout (still while eating nothing) in order to achieve that.

So I don't know how you did it, but congratulations anyway!

Swilson87

The body responds to whatever is being used to stimulate a response. If you eat tons of unhealthy calories, it responds by putting on a lot of weight. If you clean your intake up, it responds by getting rid of that weight. The one thing thats hard to control is how much, or how fast it rids itself of that weight. As long as the intake is enough, there is very little to worry about.

One of the main reasons loosing too much weight too fast has been called taboo, is the fear of muscle loss. I've been around the powerlifting and bodybuilding game for a long time. However, I've seen bodybuilding coaches take clients and put them on 1500 calorie diets that include only cardio. They don't even worry about building muscle until the fat is gone. So if the body drops 5,10,15, even 20 lbs in a week, and you are doing everything right, it's not a big deal at all. If we could regulate our weight loss, who would have weeks where we lose nothing, or just 1 lb?

Iceskatefanrn

What a great post, thank you so much for sharing!

Obviously you are taking great care of your body, and yes, you do need to be ready for the slower loss as well as the "plateau" weeks that may come. But that's when we need to focus on the other benefits - more energy, better sleep, general overall "feeling better"!

I completely agree with the message you are sending - 5lbs/week IS completely acceptable for you where you are right now, and there are others losing at that rate too - with healthy eating and exercise, of course. So the message - everyone's body will respond in their own way to heatlhy eating and exercise - but it's allllllllllllllllllll good!!!

I agree that many doctors don't know AS MUCH about nutrition as a nutritionist or a dietitian - but most of them are not complete idiots, and I'm pretty sure most would recognize someone who was damaging their health by starving. And when I go back to my doc after losing weight and getting in shape, I want him to measure my health status in his way - reviewing my labwork, blood pressure, heart activity - AND MY WEIGHT and BMI. Having your doc's stamp of approval on your 5lbs/week weight loss is the RIGHT way to go, your doc must be completely thrilled!

On a personal level, as much as I envy your rate of pounds lost, I'm totally happy with my 6lbs down so far. Those of us that lose at a rate of 0.5 - 2lbs/week can also be totally happy with that! 'Cause here's the thing - time passes, and even though when losing weight it seems slow, it really passes pretty quickly. I mean, if we all think about 1 year ago, what we were doing, it seems like YESTERDAY! Well, ONE YEAR from NOW, me writing this post will SEEM LIKE YESTERDAY - EXCEPT by then I WILL BE at my goal weight, no matter how slowly I got there!

Congratulations on all the LOSERS that posted here - keep up the good work, and celebrate your losses, no matter if they are at the pace of the tortoise or the hare!

And you, Mike S - get you some of those Zumba pants with the tassels on the butt - I mean, if your gonna Zumba, you might as well go all out!

:drinker:

Ice

1southernchick

I'm down 40lbs since January 1 as well. It's called clean eating. No processed foods or sugar and keeping sodium levels low. I also drink 100 oz of water a day. Btw, I've had very little exercise do to a previous knee injury. All I'm eating is healthy foods, 5 to 6 meals a day. Kind of hard to argue with that.

kdao

You are a ROCK STAR! Keep it up!

Skolls081102

Thanks to everyone that has posted your stories as well as congrats!!! You are all a motivation to me!!! And congrats to all of you! You are all doing an awesome job. Keep it up!!!

I just wanted to add a few things- I got my blood work back...my Bad Cholesterol is low (YAY!!!), my Good Cholesterol is low (Yay??????? She wants me to take a suplement...lol), and my Blood Sugar is right on target. It appears my kidney and liver are working!!!! YAY ME!!! lol

For those of you that referenced BMI...I don't actually believe in the BMI system. My healthy BMI according to this site would put me between 136.4-184.4 pounds....ummmmmmm I would look sickly at 136 pounds. 184 might be doable...but that would really be pushing it...I was looking to hit 220 which would put me in the overweight category. My close friend that introduced me to MFP is sitting at 220 pounds at 6'...he is considered (by BMI standards) to be overweight....he has been doing P90x and Insanity for a year. He is in no way overweight. He is large framed (not as large as me) and pretty solid. Yes he could lose weight (a few more pounds of fat) but he looks great.But he's not overweight (in my opinion). I'm sure BMI works for some, but there are too many variables that BMI doesn't account for, so in my opinion, it doesn't work for all.

And tassle pants???? That might be pushing it just a little bit. Me doing Latin dance is pushing it to begin with....doing it with tassle pants would just be....wrong....on soooooo many levels....lol