How do I get out of the mentality of wanting to lose 5lb a week

Change your parameters on MFP diary and just enjoy the extra calories

Hang on... I'm confused now after what Josh wrote and re-read your post.
The thread title is kind of incongruent with your actual post. Do you think 2lb a week is too fast a loss for you?? In that case do what Josh says and simply reduce it to 1.5 or 1lb a week.
If (how I interpreted your title) you want to lose a lot more than 2lb a week, you need to have a look at how realistic and sustainable your expectations are. What is seen a lot here is that people starve themselves and then can't sustain it and pile it all back on. I assume you want to lose weight and keep it off.

Just keep in mind you didn't gain at 5lb a week, so losing at that is not sustainable.

You've got a little one, think about what they've learned from you, without you even trying to teach them. Then remember that they are learning from you constantly, and when you do something extreme, or dangerous or unsustainable, they're there, watching you, and learning that what you're doing is what they should do, because mum's always right in their eyes.

Losing weight can be a wonderful thing for your health. Losing weight unhealthily can be devastating not just for your body, but for those who watch you do it and might grow up and do the same things.

But, but, but people-- I *swear* I put weight on that quickly. Every time I hear that saying I shudder!!!

I've been guilty of wanting the weight to fall off faster as well. I think we've all wished for it at some point. As other posters said, it didn't all come on five pounds at a time, and it's not gonna come off that quickly. Not in any sustainable way, anyhow

One thing that has motivated me from trying to drop more than 2 pounds a week is the fear of baggy, stretch-marked skin. I've definitely noticed a difference in how I looked after fad diets where I lost very quickly and how I looked after losing the same amount over a longer stretch.

It is hard to break out of the 'I want to magically be slim right now' mindset, but it's worth it. I've been doing this for almost a year and have only got about 15 lbs left to go, and some days I still want to snap my fingers and be at my goal weight. It's easy to get fed up with the sustained effort it takes to change your habits, your body and your life, but it is so, so worth it. Something that always resonates with me is the phrase which is popular here, 'time will pass by regardless of how you spend it' - in a year's time, you could be where you are now, you could be bigger, or you could be somewhere amazing! It's all down to the little choices you make all day every day. Most weeks I've only lost half a pound, and some weeks nothing at all, but you know what? Those half pounds add up over the months and the years. Good luck!

GeexJai14 wrote: »

Thanks guys! I do know what is healthy I honestly do but I just want it all to happen over night. I'm still new to all of this and learning everyday I make bad choices and feel terrible but I am trying my hardest to change my mind set . Hopefully I will get there.

IT WONT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT..cos you didn't put on the weight over night ! time to change your thinking.

I am struggling with the impatience as well. I remember being able to drop weight very quickly in my early 20's, while eating anything I wanted, drinking, smoking, etc. Fast forward 20 yrs and I eat well, live a healthy lifestyle and curse at the scale every few days! Frustrating, I know, but slower is better....

For me, it's because I want this to be sustainable. I want long-term results and I've seen too many people drop weight fast and pile it back on even faster. For some inspiration - check out Oprah's yo-yoing story lol. That really inspired me to stick to slow and steady. This is the last time in my life I ever want to be this big.

We all "want" to lose weight that quickly! You need to educate yourself about what is safe, healthy, reasonable, achievable, and sustainable. That is your 5 year old self talking. Put on your big girl panties and deal with reality. I don't mean that harshly, just thinking maybe you need a little jolt!

GeexJai14 wrote: »

i know that a healthy loss is 2lbs a week but I can't get out of the mentality that I need to lose so much so fast aha!

Just focus on staying consistent and realizing that it isn't going to happen overnight. If you have it set to lose 5-lbs. a week you are most definitely going to binge and lose almost all progress.

Change your goals. Forget the bathroom scale but gravitate to and use your food scale. Your new goal is to stay within calorie limits each day and get about 30 mins of exercise. They weight will come off, not overnight of course but you will be pleasantly surprise how changing your goal to not be the weight loss, helps change your mindset with food.

You may 'want' to lose that fast. I 'want' to earn money at a rate of a million dollars per week. I just have to accept the fact that it won't happen, and keep working my day job anyway.

Usually we want change because we hope that something good, or at the very least better, will come with change.
So, what exactly is going to happen when you get to your "goal" weight?

Are you are going to start eating all the things you weren't eating while you were "dieting"?
Are you are going to start exercising and moving less than you were while you were "dieting"?
What will happen to your weight then?

What will happen if you start eating the level of calories you would be allotted if you were at your goal weight today and use the next couple of years to perfect a way of eating, moving, and exercising that is sustainable... because by the time you are 24 and at your goal weight you will be well practiced, and aware that you will be changing nothing when you get there!

SonyaCele wrote: »

5 pounds a week is the equivalent of a 2500 a day calorie deficit. Even if you didn't eat anything all week and jogged an a couple hours a day, you probably wouldn't have that kinda deficit.

But if you are currently 500 pounds, you can safely lose 1% of your body weight a week which would be 5 pounds. Are you 500 pounds?

To my way of thinking, this is the most compelling argument against the "five pounds a week" mindset. It's borderline-impossible for anyone who isn't get-their-own-Discovery-Channel-Special size to to lose 5 lbs of fat a week- that much fat is worth more calories than a lot of people burn TOTAL, before you even account for the fact that you really cannot go entirely without food for that long. Simple physiology says this is a non-starter.

Can you somehow reduce your reading on the scale by 5 lbs a week in some weeks? Sure, early on, when you're blasting through water and glycogen stores, and when you're suddenly holding less total volume of waste from reduced intake. Will that all be fat? Heck no.

If you somehow starve yourself enough to consistently see multi-pound losses per week over many weeks, will *that* all be fat? Also no. It will, like someone upthread mentioned, include lean tissue (the stuff that keeps you strong, resilient, firm, and with a functioning metabolism). It will also leave you nutritionally deprived, so your skin and hair and nails look like crap. And as soon as you start eating and drinking life-sustaining amounts again (which you'll have to, or die), you'll put back on all those pounds on the scale (since most of them were water and glycogen anyway), plus replace some of that lean tissue you destroyed with more fat. So you'll weigh the same or more than before, plus be squishier and weaker.

A good way to get out of the mindset of wanting to lose 5 lbs a week is to remember that what you want is not to burn "pounds" but "pounds *of fat*" and that burning 5 lbs of fat in a week is not actually "unhealthy" so much as it is a total impossibility, and the things you could do to temporarily convince yourself that you were achieving that impossible rate would actually be making you in even worse shape, along with miserable the whole time.

Know that up to 2 pounds (but let's be realistic here- for smallish women who don't have hundreds of pounds to lose, more like 0.5-1 pounds) a week is a potentially appropriate goal, and anything over that is either a pipe dream or actually damaging, and that should help shake the impulse. It's just... not a thing.