Why 2lb/week limit?
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Werk2Eat
Posts: 114 Member
Whats the reason for 2lb/week weight loss limit? If my BMR to maintain is 1500 and i eat 1500 a day and i exercise and burn and extra 2000/day, thats 4lb/week.
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Replies
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It would not be possible to burn an extra 2000 calories a day. Most people can manage no more than about a 500 deficit per day.0
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Food is energy and all you would be doing is hijacking your muscle mass. Eat the 1500 and eat back all your exercise calories.0
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But you don't eat 1500 cals per day while burning 2000 cals per day... consistently at least.
That would mean you are netting 500 cals per day. Over 7 days, this would mean you're only getting 3500 calories per week.
The average healthy person is netting more like 10,000 to 15,000 or more calories per week.0 -
Each pound of fat can only metabolize so much energy. I have found deficits greater than 1000 calories per day to be counter productive in the long term. Sure, you may have enough body fat to support that level of deficit, but the reduction in energy and alterations to mood are simply not worth the extra half pound per week loss (or whatever). Please note, if you are 100+ lbs overweight you can probably support greater than a 1000 calorie per day deficit without significant issues.0
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The best scientific guess is that a normal person (athletic individuals might violate this) can probably oxidize 31 calories per pound of body fat per day. Beyond that, you either need to get energy from carbohydrates, or amino acids, which could come from muscle / lean tissue wasting. So if you're on a 2,000 calorie deficit, you'd probably need over 65 pounds of pure body fat on top of the amount of body fat you'd need to be oxidizing for all the other calories you're burning but aren't part of a deficit.
It just generally isn't advised, and having a strong interest in losing that much weight sounds a little like a some level of eating disorder. To do it while not morbidly obese and meeting the recommended minimum calorie might border on hypergymnasia.0 -
SherryTeach wrote: »It would not be possible to burn an extra 2000 calories a day. Most people can manage no more than about a 500 deficit per day.
This makes no sense. I have no trouble with a 1000 caloric deficit per day. My body is accustom to the warrior diet which makes it very easy to stay in normal and extreme deficit's.
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SherryTeach wrote: »It would not be possible to burn an extra 2000 calories a day. Most people can manage no more than about a 500 deficit per day.
This makes no sense. I have no trouble with a 1000 caloric deficit per day. My body is accustom to the warrior diet which makes it very easy to stay in normal and extreme deficit's.
What's your BF%? Most athletes I know can't handle more than 500 cal deficit on average without it affecting their performance.0 -
SherryTeach wrote: »It would not be possible to burn an extra 2000 calories a day. Most people can manage no more than about a 500 deficit per day.
This makes no sense. I have no trouble with a 1000 caloric deficit per day. My body is accustom to the warrior diet which makes it very easy to stay in normal and extreme deficit's.
What is extreme and how do you know your body is accustom to it? Because you aren't dead?0 -
Of course you CAN lose more than 2 lbs a week. It just isn't recommended. We can all do the math
I remember being younger and losing 19 lbs in a month (and 11 the next) I basically starved myself, went for a 2 hr bike ride deprived myself of proper nutrition and got super skinny. Felt like crap and 3 months later I gained it all back when i obviously couldn't keep that 'diet' up.
Losing at a more reasonable rate (as suggested by MFP), eases you into it and makes it more likely that you will keep it off.
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SherryTeach wrote: »It would not be possible to burn an extra 2000 calories a day. Most people can manage no more than about a 500 deficit per day.
This makes no sense. I have no trouble with a 1000 caloric deficit per day. My body is accustom to the warrior diet which makes it very easy to stay in normal and extreme deficit's.
This is why you need to eat back most of your exercise calories:
(This has been a lesson for me, luckily before I went too far)Faithful_Chosen wrote: »Losinandmovin wrote: »Faithful_Chosen wrote: »Two weeks is not a lot, so be patient and keep at it... But just to be sure: do you weigh everything in grams? Do you eat back all you exercise calories? Weight loss is a simple equation: calories in vs calories out: eat at a deficit and you lose. People tend to underestimate what they eat (especially when weighing in cups and pieces) and overestimate their exercise burns (do not trust MFP or your device. Heart rate monitors for steady-state are the only things even close to accurate). Weigh and log all your food in grams on a digital scale up to your goal as set by MFP and eat back 50 to 75 percent of you exercise calories (75% for HRM) and you will lose. It's science.
What is HRM? WHY would one eat back their exercise calories? Wouldn't that deficit lead to weight loss? What are you reading and basing your advise on? I really want to lose this weight, but some of the advise I'm reading on MFP confuses me. I'm a registered nurse, and fairly intelligent, but some of the acronyms I see on here are foreign. Thank you.
Thanks, everyone, for the answers already
I am just going to add that MyFitnessPal calculates your projected loss (so, the amount you have set to lose a week) into the net goal you recieve. It assumes that if you want to eat more, you have to move more to stay in that deficit. Makes sense, right?
Now, especially newbies have a tendency to up the cardio and decrease the food to make a bigger deficit, assuming they will lose faster--and they might! I am not gonna sit here and say that you won't lose more. It's probably not going to show up on the scale due to water weight, but they will lose more. The question is: at what price? And what are they losing?
The MyFitnessPal method (built in deficit based on your numbers, especially plus purposeful exercise) is designed to steadily lose fat and preserving as much muscle as possible. You see, there is a (science proven) limit to how much fat a body can convert into usable energy during any period of time. If you go over that limit, it turns to muscle for fuel instead. You will always get a little bit of muscle tissue loss when eating at a deficit, but if you undereat and up the cardio (or even strength training!) like I see a lot of people on here do, you are forcing your body to canibalize its muscle tissue on top of the max level of fat it can burn. Not to mention that meeting your macro and micro nutrient goals with this method is virtually impossible, creating massive hormone imbalances (leptine, for example) and vitamins and mineral deficits.
The long term effects of crash dieting and deprivation dieting (which is basically what happens when you become one of the people who net in the low hundreds to negatives day after day for an extended period of time) can be really severe. Basically, you are systematically starving yourself, after all. The results tend to be this (one example, hypothetical you):
- your body burns fat, then muscle tissue to sustain itself. You become weaker and sore. You also start having cravings because your brain is sending out warning signs: 'I am starving! Feed me!'. So, you either binge and up your overall net a little, or you persevere and pat yourself on the back for a job well done! You wanted lots of fatty food, but you fed it a celery stick instead. Sadly, your whole timeline congratulates you on your willpower. You start to wonder, though, why your willpower is not being rewarded! The scale doesn't budge! You fail to realize it's because of water weight due to too much exercise and the body's inability to recover due to a lack of nurishment. The solution is often to eat even less and work out even more to get the scale to move.
- the body is further unable to sustain. It changed the body's chemistry to preserve all it can--after all, it needs to protect vital organs from becoming affected and keep you going so you can hunt and gather for food! At this stage, the body becomes its own worst enemy: it no longer tells you you are starving so you can make a last ditch effort to get food. You think you are fine on 1000 calories a day, burning 1200, because your body shows no signs of hunger anymore, but basically, the little neutrients you are providing your body with get sucked towards your vital organs, leaving nothing for the rest. You become more tired, and cranky, and your muscles no longer recover from all the stress you put them through working out. As a result, they break down even faster and hold on to even more water to prevent that breakdown from affecting your ability to throw a spear at a prey animal (hey, I can't help it your body still thinks we are living in caves!). The scale drops oh so slowly--if at all--but meanwhile you do see you are slimming down! Your measurements are less! MyFitnessPal celebrates! 'Hurray! The weight must come off in a 'woosh' soon now! Keep doing what you are doing!'. Note that (thankfully) many people drop out at this stage. The psychological burden becomes too great, they feel *kitten*, and life isn't fun anymore. They stop dieting, start binging, and gain even more weight. The jojo'ing has begun.
- you keep doing what you were doing. We are a few months in now. You develop headaches, fatigue, and you start finding more and more hair on your pillow in the morning. In fact, you start finding hair everywhere. You also get hungry again, not in a way that makes you binge but a sort of steady nagging: a gentle reminder that time is running out. Fail to meet it (MyFitnessPal people pat your back when you tell them you went to bed early instead of having more food) and slowly, your body gives up its protective hold on more systems. You can survive without full function to certain organs, so your body throws them to the wolves: nutrients go towards your brain, heart, and lungs. Pretty much all other organs start running at half capacity. You hold on to more toxins, which start chipping away at your system, and your ability to process food (get nutrients out of them) suffers greatly, so you are truly starving now. This is the point where the weight starts coming off, and pretty quickly, too, usually. A big whoosh! (MyFitnessPal people cheer in the distance). What you are really seeing is your body giving up on protecting muscle tissue completely: the water weight falls away, showing you that you actually did lose a lot of fat and muscle tissue. More cheering! It must be working! Keep at it! Work harder! Eat less!
- now you are in serious *kitten*! Your organs are not keeping up, your muscles are breaking down, and the body has to start looking elsewhere for fuel: your organs and the more vital muscles, including your heart. At this point, your nails will become brittle and start falling out. Your hair falls out. Your period stops. You experience bouts of nausea and muscle weakness. You might find yourself pulling into a run and suddenly blacking out. You still function, but on the inside you are shutting down.
From here on out, it all depends on if you start eating again and stop exercising or not. If you don't, you can end up killing yourself. If you do, it is a long road to recovery, sometimes lasting years and it sometimes includes permanent damage to the function of certain organs, especially the liver and kidneys. Worst of all, this entire crash diet hasn't taught you how to sustain weight loss, so as soon as you crash and burn, the weight flies back on! And trust me, it takes a fraction of the time it took to lose it to gain it back.
I am not saying this to frighten you (well, I am a little), but as a nurse, you should be aware of the ramifications of crash dieting. Those of us that do realize the effects therefor recommend you lose weight slowly, at a sustainable rate that gives you the best ratio of fat loss vs. muscle loss. Stick to your MyFitnessPal calculated net, take the time, eat back your true exercise calories (which is probably 50 to 75 percent of your machine or database given calories), and learn how to eat (and what to eat) for weight loss you can maintain for years to come. It might not go as fast, but you will be able to see it on the scale, and best of all, it will be safe. That is my very long winded answer to 'why' you should eat back exercise calories.
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What's your BF%? Most athletes I know can't handle more than 500 cal deficit on average without it affecting their performance.
I dont have access to a water displacement testing facility to give you an answer. I am about 20lbs heavier then when i was in shape and my BF was roughly 12% then. I put on some muscle and obviously fat and some water weight so if i had to guess i would say 20% BF but i suck at math so maybe i am off on my calculations.
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My understanding of the 2 pound limit is to preserve muscle mass and allow adequate nutrition.
Op have you ever burned 2000 calories in a day as purposeful exercise?0 -
The best scientific guess is that a normal person (athletic individuals might violate this) can probably oxidize 31 calories per pound of body fat per day. Beyond that, you either need to get energy from carbohydrates, or amino acids, which could come from muscle / lean tissue wasting. So if you're on a 2,000 calorie deficit, you'd probably need over 65 pounds of pure body fat on top of the amount of body fat you'd need to be oxidizing for all the other calories you're burning but aren't part of a deficit.
It just generally isn't advised, and having a strong interest in losing that much weight sounds a little like a some level of eating disorder. To do it while not morbidly obese and meeting the recommended minimum calorie might border on hypergymnasia.
I do have an eating disorder. I like to eat. So i burn that extra 800 calories on the treadmill so i can eat that BK dbl whopper w/cheese.
My Q in my original post is, why is there a 2lb limit per week. It seems that if i count my calories and calculate a 2lb per week loss, then burn that extra 500 calories per day, it would seem that 3lb's per week is not impossible. I just want to hear scientific reasons why this is/isn't possible.
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The best scientific guess is that a normal person (athletic individuals might violate this) can probably oxidize 31 calories per pound of body fat per day. Beyond that, you either need to get energy from carbohydrates, or amino acids, which could come from muscle / lean tissue wasting. So if you're on a 2,000 calorie deficit, you'd probably need over 65 pounds of pure body fat on top of the amount of body fat you'd need to be oxidizing for all the other calories you're burning but aren't part of a deficit.
It just generally isn't advised, and having a strong interest in losing that much weight sounds a little like a some level of eating disorder. To do it while not morbidly obese and meeting the recommended minimum calorie might border on hypergymnasia.
I do have an eating disorder. I like to eat. So i burn that extra 800 calories on the treadmill so i can eat that BK dbl whopper w/cheese.
My Q in my original post is, why is there a 2lb limit per week. It seems that if i count my calories and calculate a 2lb per week loss, then burn that extra 500 calories per day, it would seem that 3lb's per week is not impossible. I just want to hear scientific reasons why this is/isn't possible.
As far as I'm aware it is entirely possible to lose 2-5 pounds a week.
The issue isn't whether it's possible it's whether it's healthy or advisable.
As far as I am aware too large a deficit means inadequate nutrition for your size/activity levels. Which can lead to your body stripping muscle mass for fuel.
Did you gain the weight overnight? Let it come off slowly and healthily with a non aggressive deficit.
Slow and steady seems to teach better habits for the long term instead of seeing it as a 12 week fix, then going back to your old habits, and doing about 12 week fix in 12 months.
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2 lbs per week is a recommendation for health reasons. If you do manage to burn the 1,500 calories a day over what you eat, you will probably lose around 3 pounds. It's more a matter of what percent of the calories are going to come from burning some form of lean body mass versus some form of body fat. I don't know that anyone is saying it is some kind of biological impossibility to lose more than 2 pounds in a week. I can attest that it isn't.The best scientific guess is that a normal person (athletic individuals might violate this) can probably oxidize 31 calories per pound of body fat per day. Beyond that, you either need to get energy from carbohydrates, or amino acids, which could come from muscle / lean tissue wasting. So if you're on a 2,000 calorie deficit, you'd probably need over 65 pounds of pure body fat on top of the amount of body fat you'd need to be oxidizing for all the other calories you're burning but aren't part of a deficit.
It just generally isn't advised, and having a strong interest in losing that much weight sounds a little like a some level of eating disorder. To do it while not morbidly obese and meeting the recommended minimum calorie might border on hypergymnasia.
I do have an eating disorder. I like to eat. So i burn that extra 800 calories on the treadmill so i can eat that BK dbl whopper w/cheese.
My Q in my original post is, why is there a 2lb limit per week. It seems that if i count my calories and calculate a 2lb per week loss, then burn that extra 500 calories per day, it would seem that 3lb's per week is not impossible. I just want to hear scientific reasons why this is/isn't possible.
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It is totally possible
But health wise not good.
You will lose more muscle mass
And besides other medical issues that ac-cure over longer time ( some are non refer-sable...think about the fact your heart is a muscle too) you are unnecessary make it hard on your body.
A body that exercise/train hard needs nutrition's to keep it all up. So you will deny your body all the nutrition's you need
Now in the beginning you wont notice it...but the process has began, and at one point you will get medical issues. The most common one next to mal-nutrition is the hair loss, feeling tired/fatigue all the time, broken nails etc etc. The bad part...it takes a long longggg time to build your body back up again.
Some members here ( search for the posts) even 2 years.
But google it up. Lots of good examples and information about it.
The other major factor is, it is harder. You get hungrier at one point, your willpower is tested all the time.
So why make it difficult on your self?
But up to you.0 -
There is a big difference between "possible" and "sensible".0
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Alatariel75 wrote: »There is a big difference between "possible" and "sensible".
This.
A safe rate of loss is 1-2lbs per week.0 -
The best scientific guess is that a normal person (athletic individuals might violate this) can probably oxidize 31 calories per pound of body fat per day. Beyond that, you either need to get energy from carbohydrates, or amino acids, which could come from muscle / lean tissue wasting. So if you're on a 2,000 calorie deficit, you'd probably need over 65 pounds of pure body fat on top of the amount of body fat you'd need to be oxidizing for all the other calories you're burning but aren't part of a deficit.
It just generally isn't advised, and having a strong interest in losing that much weight sounds a little like a some level of eating disorder. To do it while not morbidly obese and meeting the recommended minimum calorie might border on hypergymnasia.
I do have an eating disorder. I like to eat. So i burn that extra 800 calories on the treadmill so i can eat that BK dbl whopper w/cheese.
My Q in my original post is, why is there a 2lb limit per week. It seems that if i count my calories and calculate a 2lb per week loss, then burn that extra 500 calories per day, it would seem that 3lb's per week is not impossible. I just want to hear scientific reasons why this is/isn't possible.
Of course it's *possible*, but it's not *sustainable*. When I went on Weight Watchers years ago I lost 6 pounds my first week, and 4 pounds the second week (I have my little weight tracker book in my desk which is why I can remember that, lol). I lost those large numbers because I was overweight by a lot and I cut out junk and started exercising. Those factors were pretty much guaranteed to cause me to lose weight. But that rate doesn't keep on like that. After awhile the rate will slow down, which is as it should be. I mean, we're telling ourselves that this is our new "way of eating" or our "new lifestyle". Not a "diet" which has an end point (at which point many of us gain it back). The idea of a 2 lb. or less per week loss rate is that it's not a deprivation diet and we can continue on that way (plus adding calories back in when we get to maintenance).
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Monklady123 wrote: »
Of course it's *possible*, but it's not *sustainable*. When I went on Weight Watchers years ago I lost 6 pounds my first week, and 4 pounds the second week (I have my little weight tracker book in my desk which is why I can remember that, lol). I lost those large numbers because I was overweight by a lot and I cut out junk and started exercising. Those factors were pretty much guaranteed to cause me to lose weight. But that rate doesn't keep on like that. After awhile the rate will slow down, which is as it should be. I mean, we're telling ourselves that this is our new "way of eating" or our "new lifestyle". Not a "diet" which has an end point (at which point many of us gain it back). The idea of a 2 lb. or less per week loss rate is that it's not a deprivation diet and we can continue on that way (plus adding calories back in when we get to maintenance).
This isnt my first rodeo so i know it gets harder to lose as you slim down, but i am usually happy with my weight by that point already so im not too concerned if i lost 1 or 3 lbs that week. I would still check the scale at least once a week but i never really kept a log of how many lbs per week i was losing, but i know from start to goal i was losing alot more then 10lbs a month.
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