Losing 1 lb/ week vs 2 lb/ week

spchandr · January 2014

How is it unhealthy to lose more than 1 pound a week ? Think about those who have 100... 200 lbs to lose. They don't stop at losing only 48 lbs in a year. They exercise and push themselves harder to lose more pounds each week, so they can see results and don't take a very long time to lose their goal weight.

Similarly, I could start exercising on top of my 1310 calories, and lose more weight. Or I could start eating 1510 calories and work on losing 500 calories a day due to exercise to stimulate my diet.

Any thoughts ?

MysteriousMerlin · January 2014

All I know is the more you have to lose, the more and faster you'll lose it in the beginning. I do minimal exercise, but with cutting my calories down, I've consistantly lost 1 to 1.5 lbs a week.

Francl27 · January 2014

A big deficit isn't a big deal when you have a lot to lose... but if you don't have much, you're not getting the nutrients your body needs to function properly. Same thing if you just burn them up with exercise.. in the end your body won't get enough energy. There's just so much it can get from your own fat reserves.

amyx593 · January 2014

Someone who has upwards of 100lbs to lose could lose even 3-4lbs/week in a healthy manner. It's just recommended at 2lbs if you have a lot to lose, and 1lb if you have less to lose. I want to lose 15-20lbs and am set up to lose 1lb per week. Slow and steady wins the race!

Holly_Roman_Empire · January 2014

It's fine if you want to deal with loose skin at your goal weight.

Duck_Puddle · January 2014

A healthy rate is between .5 and 1% of your total body weight per week (or so says the interwebz). For very overweight people, this probably is more than 2lbs/week. For most people, it's somewhere between .5 and 2 lbs/week.

Most of us also know there is no finish line. So rushing to arrive at some number is not the battle. Learning to live and maintain the lifestyle that keeps you at the number forever is the battle. So no, everyone is not pushing hard to lose more week after week.

At a certain point, the caloric deficit needed to see large losses becomes unreasonable. If your TDEE is 2000, in order to lose 2lbs/week, you need a 1000 deficit. That means you can consume 1000 calories. It's virtually impossible to get all the nutrients you need at that calorie level-not to mention that you won't have much gas in the tank to exercise/live. And going back to the above-it's about doing things that are sustainable for life.

1mountainmama · January 2014

If you lose too fast, you risk gaining it all back and more, and developing some pretty nasty disordered eating patterns in the process. There are real, scientific, physiological reasons why this is so.
The heavier a person is, the more they can lose because it is more about the percentage of your total body weight you are losing than the actual pounds. i.e. if a 300 lb person loses 3 lbs it is 1% of their body weight. If a 150 lb person loses 1.5 lbs it is 1% of THIER body weight. A person should aim for weight loss of 0.5-1% of their bodyweight per week.

RGv2 · January 2014

How is it unhealthy to lose more than 1 pound a week ? Think about those who have 100... 200 lbs to lose. They don't stop at losing only 48 lbs in a year. They exercise and push themselves harder to lose more pounds each week, so they can see results and don't take a very long time to lose their goal weight.

Similarly, I could start exercising on top of my 1310 calories, and lose more weight. Or I could start eating 1510 calories and work on losing 500 calories a day due to exercise to stimulate my diet.

Any thoughts ?

Trying to net 1000 calories per day probably isn't going to stimulate your diet. You don't have a lot to lose per your ticker, so if you're goal is to lose 2lbs a week, you will most likely need to sacrifice muscle in order to make that goal.

WalkingAlong · January 2014

How is it unhealthy to lose more than 1 pound a week ?

It's not. In this forum there is an exaggerated belief that you can preserve lean body mass and/or maintain better if you do it at a slow pace.

There is virtually no discussion ever about the cons of that approach, such as how people get frustrated at the lack of scale movement or at the tedious logging and they quit entirely, or that they remain obese for far longer than is necessary, putting them at greater health risk than simply losing the weight at a normal, medically-accepted rate, which includes up to 2 lbs/week.

hmg90 · January 2014

I think 2 lbs is fine. I mean in Scandinavian weight loss guides they say 1 kg/week is okay, and that's 2.2 lbs.

I've done 1300 calories a day plus exercise, I ate most of them back - not all. I'm obese or anything to begin with, and even though my goal was 1 lbs a week, I often lost 2. That usually happens in the beginning though, but if you CAN continue to lose 2lbs/week I don't see anything wrong with that.

Duck_Puddle · January 2014

How is it unhealthy to lose more than 1 pound a week ?

It's not. In this forum there is an exaggerated belief that you can preserve lean body mass and/or maintain better if you do it at a slow pace.

There is virtually no discussion ever about the cons of that approach, such as how people get frustrated at the lack of scale movement or at the tedious logging and they quit entirely, or that they remain obese for far longer than is necessary, putting them at greater health risk than simply losing the weight at a normal, medically-accepted rate, which includes up to 2 lbs/week.

So you're saying it's safe and healthy for me to gross 600-900 calories a day? Can you provide a meal plan that will get me all the necessary vitamins and minerals as well as provide me with the necessary energy to get up and move around? When I was morbidly obese and obese, yes-it's fine to lose more than 1lb/week. I could not survive on 600-900 (and 900 is assuming I'd even have the energy to do an hour of cardio-so really more like 600). Nor would anyone want to be around me because I'd be a miserable, nasty person. Maybe that's just me. I like being happy and doing stuff-and eating.

WalkingAlong · January 2014

So you're saying it's safe and healthy for me to gross 600-900 calories a day?

I imagine at your age and doing an hour of cardio you burn at least 2200/day and I do think you'd be fine eating 1200.

gigglesinthesun · January 2014

I'd have to do 4-5 hours of strenuous exercise a day to be able to support a 1000 calorie a day deficit healthily, but then I am pretty small and short.

However there was that diabetes study at the University of Newcastle where obese people where on 500 cals a day diets and it worked, but these people where under strict medical supervision. Most people here on MFP are not, so for the majority of people here it is probably better to eat a little more and lose less quickly, but get all the nutrients need to stay healthy and perhaps learn the life style change rather then follow another diet.

xRedHeaterx · January 2014

Personally I'd look in terms of the deficit you want to have rather than the amount per week. As an aside, for most people the amount of fat lost is what counts most and this can be hidden in the weight loss figure (as I'm sure nearly everyone is aware of, but it's worth remembering).

It totally depends on the individual. In general from what I have read it's good to have a deficit that is 10-30 percent of your maintenance calories. So for somebody maintaining on 2000 that would be 200-600. For someone maintaining on 2500 that would be 250-750. I wouldn't go so far as to say its unhealthy to have a bigger cut, but it might be difficult to maintain and you have to watch out for the problems that may come with a bigger deficit. For example some will claim you risk a type of starvation mode, although that may be overcome with some cheat days. AFAIK there is no conclusive evidence as to what the best strategy is. I'd definitely look in terms of percent of maintenance calories though rather than an absolute number of pounds because the weight of the individual is going to play a big part.

xRedHeaterx · January 2014

Interesting study that. I didn't know if you saw the Channel 4 documentary where they had some pre-diabetic folk on the newcastle type diet and some others on a slightly less strict one?

I think the point of the Newcastle diabetic trial was that the subjects were damaging their health by being diabetic, so the quicker they could be taken out of that situation the better, hence the rapid weight loss. I'm not saying it's wrong, but maybe born out of an urgency that would not apply to somebody without diabetes or another serious condition.

I think it may have been the same department that put the plan together for The Hairy Bikers. Their regime was also strict but more like 1500 calories I think.

WalkingAlong · January 2014

I'd have to do 4-5 hours of strenuous exercise a day to be able to support a 1000 calorie a day deficit healthily, but then I am pretty small and short.

Even if your pre-exercise burn is only 1600 and your exercise burn only 400 an hour, at 4 hours, that's 3200 calories a day. Subtract 1000 gives 2200, which is still 1000 over the 1200 minimum recommended here.

gigglesinthesun · January 2014

I'd have to do 4-5 hours of strenuous exercise a day to be able to support a 1000 calorie a day deficit healthily, but then I am pretty small and short.

Even if your pre-exercise burn is only 1600 and your exercise burn only 400 an hour, at 4 hours, that's 3200 calories a day. Subtract 1000 gives 2200, which is still 1000 over the 1200 minimum recommended here.

No, actually my TDEE is around 1500. I burn maybe 200 cals max per hour bringing 4 hours to 800 cals if I am lucky (unlikely, considering that I could not sustain that burn for that amount of time). That would bring my total to 2300. Subtract 1000 would give you 1300 and which is not something I could live on if I were to exercise for 4 hours.

alisonlynn1976 · January 2014

I think the reason for 1-2 pounds per week is because the standard is about 1% of your body weight per week, so that's for people who are around 200 pounds or less. People who weigh more than that can lose a little more per week. That's my understanding anyway.

JustineV88 · January 2014

The reason the guideline is such is because if you aim for a faster rate of weight loss than ~1lb per week you will lose a greater ratio of muscle alongside the fat you want to lose. This means that if you lose too quickly- though it will work in the short-term- you are more likely to gain back what you have lost AND more because your metabolism has been reduced more than necessary.

Muscle is more metabolically active (burns more energy for maintenance at rest) than fat, and so the more muscle you can preserve as you lose fat the easier it will be to maintain when you reach your goal weight.

Zolita · January 2014

I found at 315lbs I lost the weight quicker without trying. Now that I'm 212lbs it has slowed even though I am more active and train three times a week. My body seems to lose around a pound a week regardless. But I have more muscle now so that accounts for it I suppose.

Francl27 · January 2014

How is it unhealthy to lose more than 1 pound a week ?

It's not. In this forum there is an exaggerated belief that you can preserve lean body mass and/or maintain better if you do it at a slow pace.

There is virtually no discussion ever about the cons of that approach, such as how people get frustrated at the lack of scale movement or at the tedious logging and they quit entirely, or that they remain obese for far longer than is necessary, putting them at greater health risk than simply losing the weight at a normal, medically-accepted rate, which includes up to 2 lbs/week.

The OP isn't obese.

Losing 1 lb/ week vs 2 lb/ week

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