Choosing a realistic rate of loss?

MFP seems to want to be a place that anyone can use to lose weight and/or get fit regardless of how they are doing it. But they do build in the bare minimum parameters to generally keep people from using it to hurt themselves - can't close your diary under a certain calorie level, can't choose more than 2 lbs per week.

I don't think it's MFP's responsibility to make sure people are doing anything safely, they are just trying to make sure they aren't encouraging anyone to do it unsafely. I don't have a problem with that, as how safe or unsafe something is depends on far too many variables.

So why do we tell people to lose slower here on the boards? IMHO...

1. Most of us who have been here for awhile and post a lot finally managed to lose weight and maintain successfully when we committed to logging here and losing at a manageable pace, so I think it's understandable that we believe/assume that it might be a key to success.
2. Losing too quickly does have dangers and risks. The problem is that "too quickly" isn't the same for everyone, and as we are sitting here at a keyboard with limited info and no medical history, we err on the side of caution.

Having said that, risks are exactly that - risks, not guarantees. Someone can lose weight aggressively fast, and luck out and not suffer any consequences. Also, as @AnnPT77 mentioned, there are certain situations and strategies that can mitigate some of that risk, but blindly guiding some random internet stranger through that minefield is a road most of us don't want to take. And if someone is morbidly obese, or has some other specific medical conditions, the risks of losing weight quickly are overshadowed by the risks of carrying the extra weight for any longer than necessary. Of course, making that decision and then guarding against those risks is best handled with the assistance of a medical professional.

I do wish MFP provided more guidance on how and why to choose a rate of loss, but I can understand if it is not cut and dry how to frame it so they choose to leave it vague. As we see here all the time, even with all the info laid out in front of them, many people will still choose to white knuckle a painful and stressful race to a possibly unrealistic goal anyway. Learning the hard way is a frustrating but common human trait