Truth or False: A Bigger person should be able to lose more?

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MariRuiz24
MariRuiz24 Posts: 13 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I believe that this statement that a co-worker said is false. A healthy weight loss is 1 to 2 pounds a week. I believe that more people believe that since we see people on the biggest loser losing over 10+ lbs a week that it possible for anyone that big to lose weight faster. It's possible but for someone who works everyday and has a busy life, 4 - 6 hours a day of workout is not possible. What is your thoughts on this? I've have lost an average of 3 lbs per week but I know 10+lbs per week is too much too fast.

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  • afyfe
    afyfe Posts: 93
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    Statistically, the more weight you have to lose, the faster it will come off in the beginning. It is not a guarantee though and even if it does, eventually it will slow down. The last few to lose are always the hardest.
  • nopeekiepeekie
    nopeekiepeekie Posts: 338 Member
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    I'm not quite sure how to answer this. I started my journey (again), about 5 weeks ago and have lost 7lbs with changing my diet and adding exercise. My husband, who is almost 100lbs heavier than I, started 3 weeks ago only changing diet, adding no exercise, has lost 20lbs.

    Biggest loser is extreme weight loss with the supervision of doctors and shouldn't really be compared to normal life circumstances. I've heard both Jillian and Bob say that multiple times.
  • jasonweinberg
    jasonweinberg Posts: 270
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    i believe that when you very first dieting all dieters lose a certain amount of water weight. i think the bigger you are the greater the water weight loss. a larger person does burn more calories than a smaller person (if their activity is identical) so they might continue to lose weight at a faster rate. whatever your weight, it does take a lot more dedication to lose at the same rate after the first few weeks as your metabolism adjusts and the weight simply just doesn't come off as easily. maybe a better way of looking at your question is weight loss as a percentage of current body weight because of course it is going to be harder for someone 10 lbs over weight to lose 5 lbs. in a week than someone 100 lbs overweight to do it.

    anyway, don't let anyone get you down and keep plugging away. every bit helps!
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    as other's have already mentioned, it's an open ended question, so you can't really say it's true or false without clarifying the perspective.

    If 2 people are chronologically the same age, and are of similar height, the same sex, and are generally otherwise healthy, someone with a higher percentage of body fat should be able to lose more fat per week, month, year...etc. than another person, but even this statement has it's caveats as genetics plays a roll, as does technique, diet, and stress levels. So on a very general level, yes, the bigger you are the more total weight you can probably lose, but that doesn't mean you should be shooting for super high weight loss, it's neither safe, nor is it healthy in most cases (other than in situations where the person is monitored closely and supervised as to how to do it in a healthy manner).
  • canstey
    canstey Posts: 118
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    I have seen it mentioned that it is your fat reserves that determine how large a calorie deficit you can maintain before your body reacts negatively to the calorie deficit by slowing down your metabolic rate to compensate. A pound of fat can only support so many calories per day deficit. So someone with more fat to lose can lose more weight per week while they still have more fat. I think the 1-2lbs per week is a general guideline for those in the overweight category based upon typical fat reserves. If you are obese it can be more and if you are already in the healthy weight range but want to keep losing to be in the bottom half of the range, it will be less.

    This could be totally wrong but it does make sense.
  • mrsw510
    mrsw510 Posts: 169
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    I read an article not long ago (though I can't find it at the moment) that says it is healthy to lose 1% of your body weight per week. So therefore yes, a heavy person could lose more.
  • MariRuiz24
    MariRuiz24 Posts: 13 Member
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    Good answers. I just think it's funny that some people believe that it's that easy to drop that many pounds that fast just because your obese. I would tell you this much I was 275 last year and at some point I lost a lot of weight which I had been at 262 for a while now. I think I lost all that weight because I changed my diet due to a gallbladder issue. Anyway, I started watching my eating habit, doing a low calorie diet, and exercise and have lost about 15 lbs in the last 4 weeks...so I would say that MRSW510 is correct on losing about 1% a week.

    Thanks to everyone that responded.

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