Tell me 1 lb a week is good; ready to try something more drastic.

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  • Johannes1
    Johannes1 Posts: 5
    edited January 2015
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    1 lb a week is good, look at it this way, 52 weeks x 1lb a week= 52lb a year weight loss, well done and keep going :)
  • lemon629
    lemon629 Posts: 501 Member
    edited January 2015
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    Losing one pound a week is great. I would be thrilled to have lost three pounds over the past three weeks. :wink: Plus, supposedly if you lose only one pound a week, you are less likely to lose muscle mass which is a good thing because muscle makes your body look better even if you're still overweight, and muscle burns more calories than fat so having good muscle mass helps your metabolic rate.

    However, there's no reason not to cut sugar out for a few more weeks. It's really not a drastic thing to do at all. You've done fine so far, why not? It's not like eliminating sugar means you would be eliminating vital nutrients. (Continue to eat fruit, but eat it with meals.) At the end of three weeks, you'll find you no longer like sweet things as much you used to which will probably help you with your weight loss efforts. (My dietitian had me do this several years ago. Cutting out sugar helped me lose weight and get off a weight loss plateau as well as improve my blood numbers. I let sugar creep back into my diet and ended up gaining some of the weight back which is why I am here now.)
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    To put it into perspective, think about it the other way around...gaining 1 Lb per week...then it sounds like a lot right?

    Also think about it this way...what good is it going to do you to crash your diet and lose more quickly...but then turn around and put it back on because what you're doing cannot be sustained? Wouldn't it be better to eat at a sustainable level and be consistent and stop with the yo-yo crap? IMO, people who go slower actually tend to lose more in the same period of time as people who try to be more aggressive.

    This isn't some kind of competition..this is about making life changes...as in for the rest of your life. Ultimately, that's the only way to maintain a healthy weight...you have to adopt a healthful lifestyle (to include energy consumed in appropriate quantities).

    Don't focus so much on the number...focus on the process and making healthful decisions and developing healthful habits. One day you wake up and you're like, "holy *kitten*...I actually did this."
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
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    1 pound a week for someone who weighs 175lbs is nearly 30 percent of your body weight in a year! That's pretty good, eh?

    I think that our biggest hurdle sometimes with weight loss is that our expectations are completely out of whack with reality. 1 pound per week is GREAT. As you get smaller, expect that rate to reduce -- my current target is 0.8lbs/week and I expect to go down to 0.5lbs/week for the last 10 pounds or so.

    The benefits of this sort of approach:
    • You're losing nearly all fat, and preserving LBM (especially if combined with strength training).
    • You're eating at a deficit that doesn't make you hungry and miserable all the time.
    • You're getting enough nutrition and fuelling your workouts.
    • You're learning healthy habits for life.
    • All the research shows that you're far more likely to be able to keep the weight off permanently if you don't lose it too quickly.
  • HeySwoleSister
    HeySwoleSister Posts: 1,938 Member
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    1 pound a week is good and steady. Going too fast is a recipe for not losing all you want, or gaining it all back.

    Weight training would be really good for you, I think. It will help you to preserve your muscle mass, but it will also give you some real satisfaction in your "Go big or go home" impulses. Don't think about the scale, think about how badass you are when you are lifting heavier and heavier weights...and a bonus for beginners is that you hit personal bests pretty frequently. (At least I do, because I started with insanely low weights on account of my general wimpiness)

    Focus your intensity and competitive spirit on your fitness and not the scale. You'll lose what you lose. But thinking about what your body can DO is not only a more joyful way to walk through life, it has the added bonus of giving more opportunities for "THAT'S RIGHT, I'M AWESOME" strutting.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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    Holla4mom wrote: »
    Okay, possibly dumb questions, but I have to talk to myself like a two year old sometimes when I get in my mood to see some results "right now".
    Some of us need to do that quite often, at least until new habits are formed, and then again occasionally when we are stressed, bored, anxious etc. I think that's normal; our brain consists of many parts that want different things - the more primal parts want instant gratification, whereas the more adult/evolved parts are able to delay gratification, plan ahead, make decisions. We can make our lives easier if we can relieve the higher functions from many of the simple daily tasks and constant arguments with the "child brain" - instead of always relying on will power, make "precommitments", tweak your environment to suit a healthier lifestyle, and above all, make changes you can see yourself live with every day for the rest of you life without dread. And get proper rest, fun and relaxation.
  • kcjchang
    kcjchang Posts: 709 Member
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    Lean Body Mass (LBM) is everything that is not fat.

    When you lose fat, you don't need as much of the connective tissues and other that is necessary to support the engorged fat cells. Some LBM loss is good and necessary but what you want to do is minimize skeletal muscle loss, those that have developed to support the weight (fat), as they are your primary metabolic engine. Eating a higher protein % diet and during light weight/resistance training helps preserve them while improving your metabolic efficiency (increase the number and efficient of the mitochondria organelle in your muscle cells). Not required but good for overall health.

    By definition water is a constituent of LBM, dehydrate yourself and you have weight loss; the goal should be fat loss not just weight.
  • Holla4mom
    Holla4mom Posts: 587 Member
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    Great responses and very helpful. Thank you!
  • mamacoates
    mamacoates Posts: 430 Member
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    One lb a week is AWESOME! And you are doing it while eating real food: EVEN MORE AWESOME! With that said, something I learned from KAIA FIT, is the benefits of a nutritional detox every so often to get our diets back to where they should be. Great opportunity to purge soda, processed foods, etc. and try new things like different combinations of green smoothies, vegetarian soups and dishes, and the like. It gets us back to clean eating which is always a plus. It is also a great little jump start when we need a boost. But keep in mind, it is about health and body recompositon. Not about calories and scale weight. Health is a life long choice so no need to be so quick to get there. Hope this helps put things back into perspective for you. Keep up the good work!
  • LAWoman72
    LAWoman72 Posts: 2,846 Member
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    Losing a pound a week is better than gaining a pound a week. :)

    It's better than just not losing, too.

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