What is a sensible amount of weight to lose per week?

134Sally

If you cut your maintenance calories by 500 calories a day and exercise 500 calories a day you should average a loss of two pounds a week. This is doable over the long term. Nutrition and sensible exercise are really the only choice for good health, that's just the way our bodies work.

kdeaux1959

Generally speaking, losing over a couple of pounds per week is likely to include higher than average muscle loss-- not a desirable goal. That being said, if one is morbidly obese, then over the 2 lbs per week is not necessarily a bad thing. Permanent weight loss is better than fast weight loss. Change your lifestyle and let the rest of it fall where it may.

SkinnyForMinnie

Bump - great topic, thanks!

mygrl4meee

I have mine set to one pound per week. I know at my weight I could aim for more but I went with one pound since I thought I would be more likely to stick to it. If anyone is new to dieting or sticking with weight loss one pound is my suggestion. It can be changed at any time.

terilou87

well its slowly taken me 4 years to gain this weight so i think to lose it all in a 9 months (which 2lb a week would acheive) i will be very happy,

bathsheba_c

Here's a more precise guideline if you like math.

Subtract your BMR from your TDEE, and divide the result by 500. That's the maximum for how many pounds you can lose per week safely.

Of course, that doesn't mean that that's how much you *should* be trying to lose per week. As long as you eat under TDEE, you'll lose weight. There's no need to make yourself miserable in the process.

white_horse

bumping for later...