If you started out very overweight, how long did it take you to lose your first 20 lbs?

I'm 5'3" and started on 10/13/14 at 215 (last weigh in before was 219 on 2/19/14). I now weigh 189.6. The first 10 took about 6 weeks, the next 10 took a little bit longer, 8 or 10 weeks.

You're a lot skinnier than I was (I'm down 179 pounds);

You said: "I would love to be down 20 when we go on vacation March 1" -- 6 weeks from now - IMHO that is not unreasonable to expect for your initial loss.

I started at 370. 50 weeks ago. It took me about 4 weeks to lost the first 20 but I weighed a lot more than you xx

I lost 4 lbs the first week and 3 lbs the second week and 2 lbs a week for a month after that. I drank only water, cut out anything fried, dropped all ground meats, and ate a huge salad for lunch every day. The first twenty pounds was easy, after that it's kind of a struggle. You can do it!

I started out at 233 (I'm 5'3) and lost about 7lbs in my first 14 days. A lot of it is water weight at first. It did slow down quite a bit after that. It may be possible, but it might be a bit too fast.

jdb3388 wrote: »

NoelFigart1 wrote: »

jdb3388 wrote: »

260 is morbidly obese at 5'8''. You'll lose 20lbs in 2 or 3 weeks. When you begin, the heavier you are, the more you lose. It's the next 20 you're gonna have to work for.

No, women generally don't lose that fast.

Not in the long rung, but when you stop eating fried food and go water only, kicking the cokes and sweet teas and all that mess, then you're body is gonna let go of a lot of crap and you'll see that huge initial dip in weight. After that is when it slows down, man or woman.

No. No no no no no.

Even just roughly back-of-the-enveloping it:

20 lbs in 2 weeks = 10 lbs per week.
1 lb per week = 500 calorie deficit per day, so 10 lbs per week = 5000 calorie deficit per day. A 260 lb person does not even expend 5000 calories per day unless they have a day job as a draft horse.

So a 5000 calorie deficit? No.

Even accounting for the initial glycogen / water weight loss people lose the first month or so -- let's say 10 lbs, that's a typical amount of glycogen loss for a morbidly obese person --no. So then there's another 10 lbs of fat to loose. From the calculations above, that would still be a 2500 calorie deficit a day. For a 260 lb woman of her age at that height, her estimated TDEE (no exercise) is 2350 calories per day. So again, no way to achieve that deficit -- even if she stopped eating altogether (protip: don't do that) she would still be short the target deficit by 150 calories per day. It's not just a matter of "kicking the cokes and sweet teas and all that mess."

Also, for what it's worth: I'm not sure if this person is assuming OP is on a VLCD. Unless it is doctor-prescribed, there is no need to do a VLCD (and in fact unless you are under medical supervision VLCDs are extremely dangerous, so please DON'T. Please continue to eat food -- just less of it at a reasonable level).

I started at 338 pounds (5' 7"; "super morbidly obese"). I lost about 9 lbs per month at that stage, and I was eating about 1400 calories per day at that point, which I now think was too low, I probably would have done nearly as well at 1600 or even more. I continued losing at about that rate for about 100 pounds, even increasing my calorie intake to 1850 per day after just a couple of months (while also increasing my exercise).

At this point I have lost over 160 pounds over about 20 months and am still losing (now I'm losing more like 5 lbs per month). I currently eat just under 2000 calories per day and I exercise quite a bit.

I think the OP is wise to be looking at short-term goals like losing the first 20 pounds. But I personally would also recommend not getting too hung up on a timeline, even for short-term goals. At the early stages, it is sooooo much more helpful to your long-term success to be focussing on process goals: what habit changes are you going to make to maintain a calorie deficit (e.g., logging food faithfully for a certain number of days / weeks, possibly making some changes to whatever foods (especially snacks) are in your refrigerator and pantry; sticking to whatever your calorie intake plan is for X weeks, exercise Y minutes per week if that's part of your plan). Using the first couple of months to focus on building some good habits will pay off not only in the short term but will also make it so much easier to stick to your long-term plan.

I started last February, lost the first 20 by June and lost the second 20 by October. Plateaued through the fall and holidays. After a year of focusing on exercise, am now focusing on portion control.

The thing you have to keep in mind is you are talking about scale weight, or overall body weight. Persons with large amounts of weight to lose, like yourself and me, will usually see rapid weight loss at first. A lot of that is water, some fat, and maybe a little lean tissue. 20lbs in 6 to 7 weeks, in your case, may be normal. However, if you are following a healthy plan, that will slow down, and it should. If it doesn't, that's generally not good. But, up front, you are likely to have a short burst of weight loss on the scale

You should consult with your physician, if you haven't done it already. Hypothyroidism can skew your weight loss. As you are also breastfeeding, it is important that you lose weight under guidance.