Question about the "How Quick/How Much to Lose" Chart

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Replies

  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Zedeff wrote: »

    Or the example Lyle uses of the guy trying to get to competition levels of bodyfat who needs to lose less than 1 pound per week.

    Also keep in mind, those would be the maximum amounts, if you want to ensure you're not losing LBM you'd be advised to not scrape at the upper limits there.

    Sure, or using our person going from 205-125lb example above who has 80lbs to lose but only 60lbs of that is fat, they want to lose at a ratio of 1/4 pound lbm to 3/4 pound fat. (I'm not sure if it's possible to specifically control that ratio?!)

    Going over the maximum fat conversion number by 1/3 would make it 1/4 lbm 3/4 fat. Though I don't know why you would purposely do that.

    This isn't true.

    If you've burned all you can from fat and then need to burn more, you'd be burning protein. This is less dense (in calories) than fat and thus you'd burn proportionally more of it. Just to make up numbers as an example, if someone had a maximum daily burn of 1000 calories (32 lbs of fat) and in fact burned 1300 calories, that's 300 calories from muscle. At approximately 4 calories per gram with an 87% density (assuming the same as fat, as a pound of fat tissue is not a pound of triglycerides) then those 300 calories would account for 86 grams of muscle atrophy, compared to 129 grams of fat loss.

    Yeah I went by calories. The weight amounts would be different.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    MrM27 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    peleroja wrote: »
    1.5% is 1.5 lbs for a 100 lb person. That is three times the 0.5 lbs that some people keep pushing.

    Okay, and are you trying to say that's a good thing? Because I'm a 118 pound person who would have to cut my calories to 700-900/day to lose 1.5lb/week...which doesn't seem like a great idea to me.

    I know nothing about "the chart" but to me it seems pretty unlikely that 1.5% would be healthy for someone my size. I mean...I've been there eating less than 1000 calories a day and dropping weight like crazy but I was sick, both mentally and physically, while I was doing it.

    Not if you are exercising you wouldn't. If you aren't getting your 150 minutes a week of exercise, you really should be. The fact that you can lose weight without exercise doesn't mean you should be losing weight without exercise.

    But wouldn't that still mean she would have to eat 1200 cals per day PLUS burn 400 calories with exercise? That would def make me sick and miserable :(

    The point is that it is possible and not out of reach, even for a 100 lb person. But many of us are not aiming to be 100 lbs. Even if 0.5 lbs makes sense for a few people, it is excessively low for some of the rest of us.

    So it's possible in your opinion for a 105 lb woman to lose 2 lbs per week of fat to end up at 99 lbs after 3 weeks?

    Fish, are you going to answer the question above without trying to question me on something I never said?

    My point had nothing to do with a 100 pound woman losing 2 pounds a week. My point was that it is possible to have a calorie deficit that would allow for 1.5 pounds loss without dropping below 1200 calories. For a 100 pound woman, I would think that 1 pound a week would be more appropriate. But the reason I asked you the question is because anyone below 108 lbs is below the 5th percentile. Given that recommendations like 1-2 pounds are based on the general population, what applies to them may not apply to a 100 pound woman. But people keep talking about this 0.5 pound weight loss as if it is gospel, presumably because it might make sense for someone below one hundred pounds. It doesn't seem to matter that some people have a healthy weight that is significantly higher than that.

    You have no supporting information to back up your beliefs. It's as if you believe there is no limit to how much fat we can burn daily.

    Would you, please, stop putting words in my mouth?
  • Zedeff
    Zedeff Posts: 651 Member
    MrM27 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    peleroja wrote: »
    1.5% is 1.5 lbs for a 100 lb person. That is three times the 0.5 lbs that some people keep pushing.

    Okay, and are you trying to say that's a good thing? Because I'm a 118 pound person who would have to cut my calories to 700-900/day to lose 1.5lb/week...which doesn't seem like a great idea to me.

    I know nothing about "the chart" but to me it seems pretty unlikely that 1.5% would be healthy for someone my size. I mean...I've been there eating less than 1000 calories a day and dropping weight like crazy but I was sick, both mentally and physically, while I was doing it.

    Not if you are exercising you wouldn't. If you aren't getting your 150 minutes a week of exercise, you really should be. The fact that you can lose weight without exercise doesn't mean you should be losing weight without exercise.

    But wouldn't that still mean she would have to eat 1200 cals per day PLUS burn 400 calories with exercise? That would def make me sick and miserable :(

    The point is that it is possible and not out of reach, even for a 100 lb person. But many of us are not aiming to be 100 lbs. Even if 0.5 lbs makes sense for a few people, it is excessively low for some of the rest of us.

    So it's possible in your opinion for a 105 lb woman to lose 2 lbs per week of fat to end up at 99 lbs after 3 weeks?

    Fish, are you going to answer the question above without trying to question me on something I never said?

    My point had nothing to do with a 100 pound woman losing 2 pounds a week. My point was that it is possible to have a calorie deficit that would allow for 1.5 pounds loss without dropping below 1200 calories. For a 100 pound woman, I would think that 1 pound a week would be more appropriate. But the reason I asked you the question is because anyone below 108 lbs is below the 5th percentile. Given that recommendations like 1-2 pounds are based on the general population, what applies to them may not apply to a 100 pound woman. But people keep talking about this 0.5 pound weight loss as if it is gospel, presumably because it might make sense for someone below one hundred pounds. It doesn't seem to matter that some people have a healthy weight that is significantly higher than that.

    You have no supporting information to back up your beliefs. It's as if you believe there is no limit to how much fat we can burn daily.

    You are inferring things not written.

    You are describing fat loss. TimothyFish is writing "weight loss." Are you that adamant that it's not possible for a 100 lb person to lose a pound of undifferentiated mass per week? I assure you, it's possible.

    Now, the obvious conversation should be able the healthfulness of an approach rather than the feasibility. But in terms strictly of your allegations against TimothyFish, I'm afraid you're incorrect.

    A direct quote from TimothyFish on the matter:
    The point is that it is possible and not out of reach, even for a 100 lb person.

    He said "possible" not "advisable."
  • Zedeff
    Zedeff Posts: 651 Member
    You're wrong in this conversation. I don't care about your other ones.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Zedeff wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    peleroja wrote: »
    1.5% is 1.5 lbs for a 100 lb person. That is three times the 0.5 lbs that some people keep pushing.

    Okay, and are you trying to say that's a good thing? Because I'm a 118 pound person who would have to cut my calories to 700-900/day to lose 1.5lb/week...which doesn't seem like a great idea to me.

    I know nothing about "the chart" but to me it seems pretty unlikely that 1.5% would be healthy for someone my size. I mean...I've been there eating less than 1000 calories a day and dropping weight like crazy but I was sick, both mentally and physically, while I was doing it.

    Not if you are exercising you wouldn't. If you aren't getting your 150 minutes a week of exercise, you really should be. The fact that you can lose weight without exercise doesn't mean you should be losing weight without exercise.

    But wouldn't that still mean she would have to eat 1200 cals per day PLUS burn 400 calories with exercise? That would def make me sick and miserable :(

    The point is that it is possible and not out of reach, even for a 100 lb person. But many of us are not aiming to be 100 lbs. Even if 0.5 lbs makes sense for a few people, it is excessively low for some of the rest of us.

    So it's possible in your opinion for a 105 lb woman to lose 2 lbs per week of fat to end up at 99 lbs after 3 weeks?

    Fish, are you going to answer the question above without trying to question me on something I never said?

    My point had nothing to do with a 100 pound woman losing 2 pounds a week. My point was that it is possible to have a calorie deficit that would allow for 1.5 pounds loss without dropping below 1200 calories. For a 100 pound woman, I would think that 1 pound a week would be more appropriate. But the reason I asked you the question is because anyone below 108 lbs is below the 5th percentile. Given that recommendations like 1-2 pounds are based on the general population, what applies to them may not apply to a 100 pound woman. But people keep talking about this 0.5 pound weight loss as if it is gospel, presumably because it might make sense for someone below one hundred pounds. It doesn't seem to matter that some people have a healthy weight that is significantly higher than that.

    You have no supporting information to back up your beliefs. It's as if you believe there is no limit to how much fat we can burn daily.

    You are inferring things not written.

    You are describing fat loss. TimothyFish is writing "weight loss." Are you that adamant that it's not possible for a 100 lb person to lose a pound of undifferentiated mass per week? I assure you, it's possible.

    Now, the obvious conversation should be able the healthfulness of an approach rather than the feasibility. But in terms strictly of your allegations against TimothyFish, I'm afraid you're incorrect.

    A direct quote from TimothyFish on the matter:
    The point is that it is possible and not out of reach, even for a 100 lb person.

    He said "possible" not "advisable."

    This whole thread has been about safe rates of weight loss. Which means: minimal LBM loss.
  • Chrysalid2014
    Chrysalid2014 Posts: 1,038 Member
    MrM27 wrote: »
    Zedeff wrote: »
    You're wrong in this conversation. I don't care about your other ones.
    How exactly am I wrong. Go ahead and tell me. You could say you don't care about the past conversations but the point is you don't know enough to comment on the conversation.

    At the point you originally asked the question, it had already been answered. You asked if a 105lb woman could lose 2lbs of fat (presumably you meant "safely"). Now we weren't talking about losing pure 'fat', we were talking about weight loss, so let's assume you meant 2lbs of weight. As we were at that point using the method of 1.5% of total weight, then, no, the maximum she could lose "safely" would be 1.57lbs per week. TimothyFish had stated that a 100 pound woman could lose 1.5lbs, which you for some bizarre reason correlated to a 105 pound woman losing 2lbs. (In case you don't know, to calculate a percentage you multiply the two numbers and divide by 100.)

    Now jump forward to this point in time, and the discussion has moved on with new information supplied that we all agreed was a better method of calculation, and which requires us to know how much body fat the theoretical 100 pound person is carrying. So just taking an estimate for your theoretical 100lb woman, say, height of 5'4... LBM is estimated to be 81.57 so 18.4 pounds of fat, so... the maximum she can lose without loss of lbm is 1.14lbs per week (assuming that estimate of LBM is correct).



  • Chrysalid2014
    Chrysalid2014 Posts: 1,038 Member
    edited May 2015
    MrM27 wrote: »

    No, do not assume I meant 2 lbs of weight. I meant 2 lbs of fat. Do not try and twist the argument to something that benefits you. Don't bother.

    Well then your question was unrelated to the discussion, as we were discussing safe rates of weight loss and the articles linked to refer to weight loss, not pure 'fat loss'.
    MrM27 wrote: »

    Then you made up some random numbers about what some woman would weigh, how much fat she has and that she can lose 1.4 lbs of fat per week. None of those numbers make sense. I'm not even going to bother with that hypothetical. It just makes no sense at all. Your math makes no sense.

    So let's run through it again:

    Methods of calculating safe weight loss

    1. Method one: 1.5% of body weight per week
    105lbs x 1.5%
    = 105 x 1.5 divided by 100
    = 1.6 lbs per week

    2. Method two: 31 calories per day deficit per pound of bodyfat
    In my previous calculation I used a hypothetical 100 lb woman with 18.4 percent bodyfat; this time I'll use a 105lb woman as posed in your question, using the same percentage of bodyfat (I chose this percentage as it puts her somewhere at the upper edge of the lean category).

    So, first, how much bodyfat (in pounds) does she have?
    18.4% of 105lbs
    = 105 x 18.4 divided by 100
    = 19.32 pounds of bodyfat

    Then we calculate her daily and weekly safe deficit:
    19.32 lbs x 31 calories
    = 598.92 calories per day
    x 7 = 4192.44 calories per week
    divided by 3500 calories (assuming 3500 calories deficit = 1lb of weight loss)
    = 1.2 pounds loss per week

    Hope that's clearer now.
    MrM27 wrote: »

    That information you saw about 31 might be new to you, you just learned about it but it's been discussed many times many many months ago. Congratulations on learning something new.

    Thanks! Yes I did learn something new. If it's common knowledge on MFP I wonder why people keep quoting the 1-2 pounds per week thing as if it's written in stone.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    edited May 2015
    Can I ask what might be a dumb question?

    Is there a reason caloric intake needed to create this theoretical maximum optimum weight loss per week is not being discussed?

    I'm thinking of the 100 pound woman and what her likely TDEE is and the idea that intake calculated on a 598.92 calorie deficit per day is being discussed as "safe" is blowing my mind.
  • Chrysalid2014
    Chrysalid2014 Posts: 1,038 Member
    edited May 2015
    Can I ask what might be a dumb question?

    Is there a reason caloric intake needed to create this theoretical maximum optimum weight loss per week is not being discussed?

    I'm thinking of the 100 pound woman and what her likely TDEE is and the idea that intake calculated on a 598.92 calorie deficit per day is being discussed as "safe" is blowing my mind.

    If she's an athlete, her TDEE would be quite high – say around 2250, or if she's just a 'very active' person who exercises daily it could be around 2000? So her calories even with the required deficit could still be well above the oft-quoted 1200 minimum.

    [p.s. I used an online calculator to get those numbers, if you're wondering.]
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    Can I ask what might be a dumb question?

    Is there a reason caloric intake needed to create this theoretical maximum optimum weight loss per week is not being discussed?

    I'm thinking of the 100 pound woman and what her likely TDEE is and the idea that intake calculated on a 598.92 calorie deficit per day is being discussed as "safe" is blowing my mind.

    If she's an athlete, her TDEE would be quite high – say around 2250, or if she's just a 'very active' person who exercises daily it could be around 2000? So her calories even with the required deficit could still be well above the oft-quoted 1200 minimum.

    [p.s. I used an online calculator to get those numbers, if you're wondering.]

    And would she be able to sustain that level of activity on that aggressive a deficit relative to her stats? Would her body fat be what you're calculating?

  • Chrysalid2014
    Chrysalid2014 Posts: 1,038 Member
    Can I ask what might be a dumb question?

    Is there a reason caloric intake needed to create this theoretical maximum optimum weight loss per week is not being discussed?

    I'm thinking of the 100 pound woman and what her likely TDEE is and the idea that intake calculated on a 598.92 calorie deficit per day is being discussed as "safe" is blowing my mind.

    If she's an athlete, her TDEE would be quite high – say around 2250, or if she's just a 'very active' person who exercises daily it could be around 2000? So her calories even with the required deficit could still be well above the oft-quoted 1200 minimum.

    [p.s. I used an online calculator to get those numbers, if you're wondering.]

    And would she be able to sustain that level of activity on that aggressive a deficit relative to her stats? Would her body fat be what you're calculating?

    Yeah, the second calculation method is based on body fat.

    Whether she can sustain the activity comes down to a lot of factors, probably including is she getting maximum nutrition for her calories, have her micronutrient needs been supplemented if necessary, how much sleep is she getting, is training is her full time occupation or does she have to fit it round another job, what's her personal threshold for discomfort, how motivated is she, optimum meal timing... (I'm sure there are lots of others).
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
    The science supports 1-2 pounds per week OR 1.5% of weight for most people. Going onto tangents about hypothetical people using theoretical maximums does nobody in the real world any good.
  • Chrysalid2014
    Chrysalid2014 Posts: 1,038 Member
    MrM27 wrote: »

    So I guess you're hypothetical only works if you are moderatetely active or above.

    The first report (the one that referenced the 1.5%) was for athletes and active people, so I think the guidelines are assuming a relatively high calorie deficit through exercise for the already-lean.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    My question, are some people just looking for a justification to lose faster than the recommended safe guidelines of 1-2lb per week? That's kind of how it seems...