1 lb? 1 1/2 lbs? What should I aim for??

candicecountscalories

Hello [: I'm coming back to myfitnesspal after an unfortunate hiatus. I'm aiming to lose 1lb a week which gives me 1900+ calories to work with. Should I change my goals to 1 1/2lbs a week so my calorie aim is lower? What did YOU start off with?

Jrredman87

Stick to one pound, anymore should be considered a bonus.

jmadams111

I'd say it depends on where you are now, where you want to get to and how fast you want or need to get there. I personally started shooting for 1.5 lbs per week 'casue I had a long way to go...and didn't want to die of boredom getting there!

SRHelicity

I started at a goal of 2 lbs per week, which resulted in a target intake of ~1250 calories. I wanted to do 2 lbs / week to start with since I wanted to see results quickly. At any rate, for the first 3 weeks, I had a 1000 cal / day deficit (i.e., 2 lbs / week loss). After then, I dropped my target to 1.5 lbs/week (i.e., 750 cal/day deficit), where I've been for the past almost 4 weeks. Since I started a little under two months ago, I've dropped from 185 to 167, losing more than 2 lbs/week when I was doing a 1000 cal deficit/day routine. I know a lot of the initial drop in weight was water weight and some lean muscle mass depletion, so I've been lifting weights 2-3 times per week to try to minimize muscle loss.

AllonsYtotheTardis

If your ticker is accurate in your profile, you could safely aim for 1.5 lb per week for the first 25lbs or so. When you have more to lose, you can be a little more aggressive. As you get closer to goal, you have to aim for slower loss.

candicecountscalories

Thanks for all your advice. I'm going to try 1 1/2 for right now & see how it goes. Feel free to 'friend' me. I need motivation!