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

How long did it take you to gain your excess pounds? So in theory it should take the same amount of time to loose the excess weight. God luck on your weight loss journey.

Ha! I wish. I gain much faster than I lose. Most of the weight I gained I put on in less than six months.

No kidding. If that was true, I should have lost 100% of me by now and/or weigh a negative number.

Anyway, I saw somewhere on the interwebs (so it must be true lol) that a reasonable rate of loss is .5%-1% of your total body weight per week. I don't have a lick of scientific evidence to support that and I honestly don't even remember where I read it, but it seemed very reasonable to me and I've used that as a guideline. I have averaged around .75% per week (sometimes more, sometimes less).

It looks like you're starting at 278- are you looking for someone to say it's ok to aim for closer to 3 lbs a week as a goal?

I would not advise it, it would require a 1500 calorie deficit, and with that you're risking metabolic damage. Damage your metabolism, and the whole process will be more difficult. If you stick to the recommendations for a safe weight loss plan, as laid out by PSUlemon, the whole rest of your weight will come off easier. It's much better to plan from the beginning to be successful than to try to push the limits and deal with the consequences as they arise. Consequences to metabolic damage include plateaus and generally some weight gain to repair. In reality, most bigger people will drop more weight than 2 lbs on a 2 lb plan from water in the beginning anyway.

What I would like to know is how are the contestants on "The Biggest Loser" able to lose pounds in the double digits in a week?

Why would the show allow them to lose an insane amount of weight every week? Seems like they should have a slew of medical professionals advising them against such rapid weight loss.

Wouldn't be a very good or dramatic show then would it? It's a reality show, everything is fake. They dehydrate themselves for the weigh-ins, they are doing hours of exercise a day and the "week" between weigh-ins are not real, in reality it's 2+ weeks.

Read this: http://www.bodylovewellness.com/2010/06/09/kai-hibbard-biggest-loser-finalist-part-1-of-3/


Pro-tip: don't follow anything on the biggest loser.

QFT. EVERYONE should read this link. It's mind blowing what they do on TBL to make for good TV.

If I'm not mistaken, I think one of the Biggest Loser contestants say the work out schedule is 3-4 hours a day...

That is crazy and irresponsible of the show to present a false reality when it comes to weight loss.

Moses from season 11 of The Biggest Loser is a trainer at my gym. He said the women on the show were eating about 800 calories a day and exercising 8-9 hours a day. Thus the huge losses per week. Definitely a "don't try this at home" warning applies.

That's crazy!!! Wow. I mean, I knew I didn't agree with all the tactics they use (way too much "dietary-fat-hating"), but daaaang. That's not good. That's setting people up for eating disorders. Yikes. No wonder they're all throwing up and passing out in the first week.

I watch it for the emotional aspects--the struggles, the epiphanies, etc--because I can relate to a lot of their stories. But this is starting to make me rethink supporting a show that does that...

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.

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.

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.