How do you determine how quickly/slowly to lose?

xLyric
xLyric Posts: 840 Member
edited January 2016 in Health and Weight Loss
I need to lose 70lbs now and recently I feel that the 2lbs/week rate is a bit restrictive. When do you decide to move it to a slower setting?

Edit: To clarify, if I'm feeling too restricted I'm going to change it no matter what's said here, I was just wondering personally, when do you typically change yours?

Also, there are posts where people want to lose 10lbs at a 2/wk rate and are told it's too fast, so that's why I was wondering where people were getting their "too fast" cutoff numbers from.

Replies

  • BuddhaB0y
    BuddhaB0y Posts: 199 Member
    Whenever you want.... The rate at which you want to be Losing weight is personal.

    Just change your settings to 1lb a week
  • grinning_chick
    grinning_chick Posts: 765 Member
    edited January 2016
    When trying to lose two pounds per week failed. Multiple times. On multiple diets/plans/ways of eating/whatever you prefer to call it. (:

    Oh, yeah. And when I realized it didn't matter how long it took for the weight to come off, just as long as it actually came off at a whole number rate that was likely to be consistently measurable. A pound per a week fit that model.
  • xLyric
    xLyric Posts: 840 Member
    BuddhaB0y wrote: »
    Whenever you want.... The rate at which you want to be Losing weight is personal.

    Just change your settings to 1lb a week

    Right, I realize that I'm in full control of how quickly I decide to lose. I was just wondering if there was anything like a guideline for when to switch, since, for example, if someone wants to lose 10lbs and goes for 2/wk, they're told they're going too fast. Where's the cutoff for too fast?

    At the end of the day if it's too restrictive I'm going to change it no matter what's said here, haha, I was just curious.
  • grinning_chick
    grinning_chick Posts: 765 Member
    edited January 2016
    xLyric wrote: »
    I was just wondering if there was anything like a guideline for when to switch, since, for example, if someone wants to lose 10lbs and goes for 2/wk, they're told they're going too fast. Where's the cutoff for too fast?

    This is a completely different scenario.

    When it's only ten pounds, two pounds a week is not realistic. When so close to goal, a body is usually eating at a far lower caloric intake rate than s/he was 50+ pounds above said goal. Trying to eat at a - what is it? - 1,000 calories/day deficit (IIRC) ends up dropping his/her total daily calorie intake to a level that is highly unlikely to be satiating. And when a way of eating is not satisfying? Here be dragons like binge eating waiting in the dark.

    Therefore the commonly cited recommendation is to shoot for 0.5 pounds per week. So instead of a 1K deficit, it's only a 250 calorie daily deficit that has to be adhered to. This will keep everyone but the shortest, lightest, people on the face of the planet still consuming a daily calorie amount likely to be satisfying. More often than not, anyways. If not, then increase calories and shoot for, say, 0.25 pounds per week instead.

    Or something like that. Like, say, kitten juggling.

    XD



  • xLyric
    xLyric Posts: 840 Member
    edited January 2016
    grinning_chick wrote: »
    xLyric wrote: »
    I was just wondering if there was anything like a guideline for when to switch, since, for example, if someone wants to lose 10lbs and goes for 2/wk, they're told they're going too fast. Where's the cutoff for too fast?

    This is a completely different scenario.

    When it's only ten pounds, two pounds a week is not realistic. When so close to goal, a body is usually eating at a far lower caloric intake rate than s/he was 50+ pounds above said goal. Trying to eat at a - what is it? - 1,000 calories/day deficit (IIRC) ends up dropping his/her total daily calorie intake to a level that is highly unlikely to be satiating. And when a way of eating is not satisfying, here there be dragons like binge eating waiting in the dark.

    Therefore the commonly cited recommendation is to shoot for 0.5 pounds per week. So instead of a 1K deficit, it's only a 250 calorie daily deficit that has to be adhered to.

    Or something like that.

    That's true.

    Maybe it's a signal when MFP keeps telling me 1200 calories, even though I've lost weight (not adjusting downwards after you lose so many pounds like it normally does). Clearly to truly lose 2/wk I'd have to eat less, it just doesn't want me to. Which means I'm not really losing at 2/wk anyway, so I might as well move up so I get a more accurate projection.
  • richardgavel
    richardgavel Posts: 1,001 Member
    I reduced the pace because as my weight got lower, so did the calorie count I needed to maintain the original deficit. It just got too low for my tastes.
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,486 Member
    The general recommendation is:
    0-2lb to lose .5lb a week
    25-50lb to lose 1 lb
    50-70lb to lose 1.5lb
    100+ to lose 2 lb a week
    Or 1% of body weight weekly.
    There are of course overlaps in these numbers but they work as a general guideline. There are also outliers. Some obese people can lose saftly at a higher rate for a short time.

    A person with 50 lb to lose can lose 20lb faster than somebody with only 20lb to lose because they have more fat available.

    If you are finding your deficit too high find a number that works for you. You will be so much happier.

    Cheers, h.
  • PinkPixiexox
    PinkPixiexox Posts: 4,142 Member
    Lose at a rate you are comfortable with :)
    The people of MFP can offer advice and opinions (very good ones at that!) but ultimately it's down to you.

    I was only around 20 lbs overweight when I started so 'technically' I should have been losing at 0.5 - 1lb a week. I made the choice to lose 2lb a week right down to the last 5-10lbs. I'm now at a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slow 0.5 or LESS a month - anything more for me now would certainly be restrictive and I'd be even more a grump! ;)

    Best of luck!
  • allyphoe
    allyphoe Posts: 618 Member
    I lost 70 pounds about 9 years ago. For the first 25 pounds, I didn't log; math says my average deficit was ~790 calories per day or 1.58 pounds per week. For the next 40 pounds, I did log, and math says my average deficit was ~890 calories per day, or 1.78 pounds per week. I had a pretty consistent month-by-month deficit that whole time, so never really slowed down. Then 3 pounds in 30 days (~600 calories a day), then the last 2 pounds in 2 months (~100 calories a day) as I moved to maintenance.

    Then I found all of those pounds again, because I am excellent at losing weight and excellent at gaining weight and not at all excellent at maintaining. So I have been losing very slowly for a long time, in an attempt to get better at eating an appropriate number of calories without the reward of scale movement. Over the last 535 days, I have lost 44.5 pounds, for an average deficit of ~290 calories per day and 0.58 pounds per week. I'm about 5 pounds from goal (my current goal is a BMI of 24.9, and 25 pounds heavier than my earlier stopping point), and it'll probably be 3 months before I'm consistently in that range.

    Math says my maintenance calories drop by 2-3 calories a day for each pound I lose. So losing 50 pounds would mean I'd get to eat 100-150 calories less a day at the end than at the beginning to see the same results. It's not the case that I'd be able to lose 2 pounds a week at the beginning but would be maintaining on those calories at the end - more like I'd lose 2 pounds a week at the beginning but only 1.7-1.8 a week at the end.

    FWIW, I am an eyeballer with a relatively high goal (~1,950 calories a day, and I'm shortish, oldish, and sedentary), and keep myself on track with a big ugly spreadsheet that tells me if I'm actually losing weight. That system works well for me, but is not for everyone. Because I have a small deficit, random weight variance makes it hard for me to determine weight loss by scale alone, because one outlier low weight can mean it's more than 2 months before I see a lower weight on the scale. Without a good way of determining whether you're actually eating at a deficit, it's easy to overeat or to get discouraged.
  • Ninkyou
    Ninkyou Posts: 6,666 Member
    middlehaitch wrote: »
    The general recommendation is:
    0-2lb to lose .5lb a week
    25-50lb to lose 1 lb
    50-70lb to lose 1.5lb
    100+ to lose 2 lb a week
    Or 1% of body weight weekly.

    This is a good general rule of thumb to follow.
  • lyttlewon
    lyttlewon Posts: 1,118 Member
    I based it off of how much I was able to eat. I took a higher calorie limit at a lower loss rate. At first I could take a bigger cut, like 20%, because my weight was high. Towards the end I think I was only at a 10% cut. I didn't lose weight in a linear fashion most of the time. I didn't really lose .5lb a week, I would usually lose it in a big whoosh.
  • ilovesweeties
    ilovesweeties Posts: 84 Member
    I aimed for 1500 kcal/day intake for the majority of my loss. This was the lowest intake at which I could still feel satiated while enjoying my daily Kit Kat or peanut butter cups.

    This level of intake started off as a 1000 kcal/day deficit for a sedentary overweight person and ended up as a 1000 kcal/day deficit for an active normal weight person. Basically, I made up for my lower non-exercise burn with more exercise. I lost at a rate of about 1.85 lbs/week, so it's obvious I didn't always manage to stick to a 1000 deficit, but I was more than happy with that rate.

    Towards the end, I was much looser with logging and keeping to a deficit and loss slowed to about 1 lb/week. I wish I had approached maintenance in a more structured manner though- reintroducing 100 extra calories/day/week. I think it would have made maintenance easier to deal with mentally!
  • SingRunTing
    SingRunTing Posts: 2,604 Member
    Found a calorie amount that I could live with and used that. The rate is a little slower than I would have liked (not anymore, but when I started), but being able to stick with it long term is more important than losing quickly short term and then quitting.

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