Afraid of weight loss slowing down.

Well... I'm not an expert, but I've read a lot and a lot on here, and everywhere. The thing is, your weight loss will slow down. Don't be afraid of it, it's part of the process. You've lost 26 pounds! That's amazing! Keep going, but make sure you're going at a pace you can live with, even when the last 26 pounds take 6 months or more.

5weeks 26lbs
5lb+ a week
5lbs a week is way below maintenance
thats crazy high!!! there is no way that is sustainable


there is nothing wrong with 2lbs a week anyways don't forgot to eat food.

26lb in 5 weeks is a huge loss (it depends your starting weight though)... I suggest you eat 500 below your TDEE for 1lb loss. You won't stall out... You are going to lose a lot more lean body mass if you keep up with a massive deficit (which isnt good)

I can promise you one thing - if you dont eat back your exercise calories your weight-loss will slow down - it might be in a few weeks, a few months, but the day is coming where your body will say "you are not feeding me enough, so I am hanging on to the fat I have" - by that time your body has already started eating away at whatever muscle you might have had to feed itself....

It is called a plateau - search on it here and you will find 100's of posts....

Eat at least 50% of your exercise calories...personally I think anything more than a 2lb a week loss for a girl is too much - give your poor body a break - it is a very complex machine, and what you are doing right now is not the way to treat it!!

This is good advice!

You're losing muscle mass and starving yourself. Trust the program.

I eat every time im hungry i go for lower calorie foods. I dont understand how i could go into starvation mode when im eating every time im hungry. I snack and everything. I also watch fat and carbs im not on a low carb i just eat everything in a decent manor. Also i make sure i get plenty of protein so i usually feel full after all my meals. Im not arguing with everyone i just really cant understand how im starving my self when i eat when hungry and eat all day???

One day you'll stall out and stop loosing weight suddenly. By loosing weight so fast and dramatically, your body most likely will start eating muscle and keeping fat. Therefore although you may loose inches and pounds it's not where you want to loose it from. I got stuck in the same situation and now eat over 1600 calories a day. My weight loss has slowed down to .5lb per week but the muscle definition I'm beginning to see is awesome and I know I'm feeding my body properly now to maintain muscle and loose fat.

I eat every time im hungry i go for lower calorie foods. I dont understand how i could go into starvation mode when im eating every time im hungry. I snack and everything. I also watch fat and carbs im not on a low carb i just eat everything in a decent manor. Also i make sure i get plenty of protein so i usually feel full after all my meals. Im not arguing with everyone i just really cant understand how im starving my self when i eat when hungry and eat all day???

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's wrong. I'll try to give you a simple explanation - view your net calories (food eaten minus exercise calories burned) as the amount of calories your body is living on every day. I don't know what your calorie target is but for the sake of my example let's say you have your goal set to 2 lbs/week & your target is 1500. This means that based on your age, current weight, height & activity level, your body needs a minimum of 1500 calories to sustain its basic functions like breathing, pumping blood, digesting food, filtering toxins from your body, etc etc etc & allow you to lose weight. This means any weight you lose will mostly be from fat stores with only some of it being loss of muscle mass.

If you stay below your net for too long, that's when starvation mode can become a risk. A day here or there isn't a big deal if you're average net is still around 1500. But if your average drops too low for too long, your body will have to stop burning fat as efficiently because it will need that energy to sustain its daily functions. More of the gravitational weight you lose will come from muscle mass. You may put up some big numbers on the weight loss scoreboard, but without that muscle mass it will be harder to keep the weight off when you're done, plus it doesn't look pretty.

That said, if your target is 1500, you eat 1500, & don't exercise on a given day, your net is 1500. Perfect. The next day, say you eat 1500, then burn 500 through exercise. Your net becomes 1500-500=1000. That 1000 calories is what your body has to function on. Your body won't change its fat-burning efficiency based on one day. But if you end up with a trend of having a net of 1000 or even lower, your body will eventually adapt to the lower calorie intake and stop allocating as much energy to burning stored fat.

Educate yourself. This is a very simplified example, so if you're not convinced, then do the footwork and get solid information from credible sources. See a nutrionist or talk to your doctor. Don't just blindly keep doing something that is making you lose weight without understanding what it is doing to your body. It's ok if you don't know stuff. Then learn it. But not trying something a bunch of people kind enough to respond have suggested just because you don't understand isn't going to help you.

Best of luck.

I eat every time im hungry i go for lower calorie foods.

You did not get to be nearly 250 pounds by being in touch with your hunger signals. By eating at an extreme deficit, you are telling your body that you just don't want to hear about it unless you are on the verge of collapse. You are telling your body to shut up, meaning that you may never learn to feed it properly.

Look at it this way: Even the women on the Biggest Loser can't lose 5 lbs. every week and they are
a) under medical supervision
b) training like professional athletes
c) at least as big as you, often bigger.

In answer to your last question, no it is not at all likely that you will be able to continue to lose >2 lbs a week indefinitely and keep it off.

As others have said, it will slow down.

When I first started the first 25lbs came right off, all the weight after was a harder fight. I have been through the slow down freak out!

I can TOTALLY understand wanting to drop weight as fast as possible but unless you go to extremes it doesn't work like that.

Keep running like you are but do realize it will slow down. YOU WILL KEEP LOSING! Stick with it! I have to tell myself this every morning! Especially mornings where I see a gain. Cliche, it didn't come on in a few weeks it's not leaving in a few weeks.

Again, just keep pushing forward. There are ups and there are downs to this but it all goes to your overall weight loss and health!