is 2.3 pounds a week too much?

yoga105
yoga105 Posts: 12 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
The diet & exercise routine i’ve been following has me losing around 2.3 pounds a week roughly. My starting stats were 148 & 5’6. I have stretch marks & no loose skin but i’m afraid that this pace will give me loose skin. I only am planning on loosing 28 pounds total. (my pre pregnancy weight was 120 which is where my dietian recommends i get to!) I am eating 1500 calories a day and exercising for about 1-1.5 hours a day! Is this okay? Thank you!
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Replies

  • riffraff2112
    riffraff2112 Posts: 1,757 Member
    How long have you been on this plan?
  • New_Heavens_Earth
    New_Heavens_Earth Posts: 610 Member
    The dietitian gave you those numbers? How fast did they say you should be losing? Did they factor in activity?
  • Blythmag
    Blythmag Posts: 252 Member
    What's the rush
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    1500 calories is low if you are working out 1.5 hours a day and logging accurately. We also don't know your activity outside workouts, so if that's not sedentary, 1500 definitely too low if you are logging properly.

    If you're just starting, 2.3 pounds has a good deal of water weight, but if this continues, it's highly recommended you increase your calories. Loose skin is the least of your concerns when you undereat.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    yoga105 wrote: »
    The diet & exercise routine i’ve been following has me losing around 2.3 pounds a week roughly. My starting stats were 148 & 5’6. I have stretch marks & no loose skin but i’m afraid that this pace will give me loose skin. I only am planning on loosing 28 pounds total. (my pre pregnancy weight was 120 which is where my dietian recommends i get to!) I am eating 1500 calories a day and exercising for about 1-1.5 hours a day! Is this okay? Thank you!

    How long have you been losing at that rate?

    Netting at least 1500 cals would help - so eat back your exercise calories.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,546 Member
    How long postpartum?
  • 1BlueAurora
    1BlueAurora Posts: 439 Member
    It sounds like you are eating 1500 calories a day and not eating back the calories you've earned through exercise. Let's say you run for 20 minutes and burn 600 calories. Your calorie allowance is now 1500 + 600 = 2100. I used to eat back about 50% to 75% of my earned calories to account for any logging errors. Here's what happened to me when I was losing 1 to 2 pounds per week: I lost some muscle mass despite doing some light weight lifting, and I started losing my hair. The rate of loss was too aggressive for me: I'm also 5' 6" and started at 170 pounds and rapidly lost 30 pounds. Big mistake. If I were you, I would input your current weight and goal into MFP, with a rate of loss at 0.5 to 1 pound per week. Slow and steady, etc. etc.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
    How long have you been dieting and whatnot? It is not unusual to lose a lot in the first couple of weeks due to a decrease in water and glycogen and less food in your system. If this is over weeks and months, yeah...2.3 Lbs is too fast for your current stats and the amount of weight you have to lose. The general rule of thumb is no more than 1% of your body weight, and even that can end up being really aggressive.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    matrosov65 wrote: »
    Let me play a devils advocate here. It all depends on your activity level your calorie intake and how you feel. When I am physically loaded I am perfectly fine with one meal a day, I don't like exercising with anything in my stomach and I don't feel like eating after I exercised. So a munch on some nuts a banana and apple here and there and a meal in the evening is all I need. So technically I meet my 1500 calorie goal more or less and whatever I exercise extra I don't get back and I don't feel adverse effects of it. Other people might be more sensitive to this and they do need to get back whatever they overspent. Also depends on what you eat a 360 calorie steak is not as filling as 150 calories bowl of buckwheat. I can eat a bowl of it in the morning and feel full well into the evening. I eat steak and I am hungry by lunch.

    Everything is fine until it's not. MFP is littered with posters where everything was fine until suddenly hair started falling out, loss of menstrual cycle, etc.

    Calories are energy...your body needs energy to function properly...like just basic functions like being alive and stuff.

    If the profile gender matches, he's even in a worse situation since he is eating the minimum for a man and exercises on top of that.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
    So your dietitian recommends a goal weight, but not a rate of loss, no calorie goal, no logging plan, etc. At 148 you are already within a healthy BMI range for your height and 120 puts you at the low end. It is best to target 1 lb per week for about 10 weeks, then .5 per week after that. This assumes you are NOT breastfeeding.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,546 Member
    edited April 2019
    matrosov65 wrote: »
    It is person specific. Look at the military, some units would run 5K calorie deficit a day in training I am not even going to say what it might be during deployment, now that's stressful.

    I am at give or take 500 deficit plus exercise according to fitbit of 800 every other day and 300 hundred on my run days which in my opinion is highly overstated and realistically is 400ish and 200ish so that puts me at 900 to 700 deficit,. And I don't feel I'm pushing myself to the limit, I'm just slightly outside comfort zone. I mean according to mayo clinic 1-2 pounds a week is a realistic goal to aim for. Which translates to anywhere between 500-1000 calories in deficit. My experience I haven't suffered serious side effects of loosing at this rate due to increased physical load in years prior. Your mileage could be dramatically different and you absolutely should listen to your body and adjust.

    https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/weight-loss/art-20047752

    The reality is that it depends on your fat reserve levels, on the size of your deficit, and on the length of the deficit.

    If you try to apply more than a 20% deficit (25% while obese in terms of fat levels) for a long enough period of time your risk of side effects increases. Some people can smoke till they're 90 without getting lung cancer. Many people who try to smoke till they're 90 will get lung cancer. YMMV.
  • matrosov65
    matrosov65 Posts: 25 Member
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    matrosov65 wrote: »
    Let me play a devils advocate here. It all depends on your activity level your calorie intake and how you feel. When I am physically loaded I am perfectly fine with one meal a day, I don't like exercising with anything in my stomach and I don't feel like eating after I exercised. So a munch on some nuts a banana and apple here and there and a meal in the evening is all I need. So technically I meet my 1500 calorie goal more or less and whatever I exercise extra I don't get back and I don't feel adverse effects of it. Other people might be more sensitive to this and they do need to get back whatever they overspent. Also depends on what you eat a 360 calorie steak is not as filling as 150 calories bowl of buckwheat. I can eat a bowl of it in the morning and feel full well into the evening. I eat steak and I am hungry by lunch.

    Feeling fine is not a good enough reason to undereat, because consistent undereating doesn't show effects until it's too late. You're much more likely to get gallstones, more likely to have hormonal issues, more likely to lose muscle mass and bone density, more prone to illness, nutrient deficiencies (some of which can cause irreversible damage), and uncontrollable rebound overeating when you've abused your body long enough.

    We are not talking here about severe under eating on a consistent basis. We are talking about relatively short amount of time. In terms of calories we are talking about 500 vs a 1000 deficit which is within a safety range. I mean if I have 10 pounds to loose I might safely go for a upper number in that range vs If I had 100 pounds to loose I'd probably stick to the lower number in the range.
  • matrosov65
    matrosov65 Posts: 25 Member
    edited April 2019
    PAV8888 wrote: »


    The reality is that it depends on your fat reserve levels, on the size of your deficit, and on the length of the deficit.

    If you try to apply more than a 20% deficit (25% while obese in terms of fat levels) for a long enough period of time your risk of side effects increases. Some people can smoke till they're 90 without getting lung cancer. Many people who try to smoke till they're 90 will get lung cancer. YMMV.
    [/quote]
    Absolutely agree that's why we can't just look at rate of loss but how long we expect that rate of loss to last. In the case of OP who is only planning on a 14 week stretch 28 pounds divided by two we can't just say it's unhealthy because it's 2 pounds per week, it falls within medical guidelines let's assume she eats balanced diets of fats proteins etc etc, and it lasts relatively short amount of time.

    Also let's not forget about habits. If you are on a generally healthy balanced diet and by diet I mean food you eat every day as a matter of course and your mild-moderate weight gain is due to the lack of exercise it is much easier to pickup on exercise while not changing your diet at all vs changing two variables. And when it comes time to maintain weight you'll pick up couple extra snacks to maintain healthy weight.


  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    matrosov65 wrote: »
    It is person specific. Look at the military, some units would run 5K calorie deficit a day in training I am not even going to say what it might be during deployment, now that's stressful.

    I am at give or take 500 deficit plus exercise according to fitbit of 800 every other day and 300 hundred on my run days which in my opinion is highly overstated and realistically is 400ish and 200ish so that puts me at 900 to 700 deficit,. And I don't feel I'm pushing myself to the limit, I'm just slightly outside comfort zone. I mean according to mayo clinic 1-2 pounds a week is a realistic goal to aim for. Which translates to anywhere between 500-1000 calories in deficit. My experience I haven't suffered serious side effects of loosing at this rate due to increased physical load in years prior. Your mileage could be dramatically different and you absolutely should listen to your body and adjust.



    https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/weight-loss/art-20047752


    The fact of the matter is that OP is barely overweight and losing at such an aggressive pace makes her far more likely to suffer repercussions. Why would you feel the need to tell a stranger on the internet that you have defied the odds so maybe they can too? What if she doesn't defy the odds and starts losing her hair or stops menstruating? As others have said, listening to your body is a faulty premise, because under-eating isn't an immediate cause and effect. There is also nothing to "feel" when your body is using some muscle tissue for fuel when it can't burn fat fast enough to keep up with your weight loss. It's usually when people reach goal weight that they complain they look "skinny fat" or they look gaunt and they have thin hair and brittle nails all of a sudden and they don't know why. Once the consequences appear, it can take months and years to fix them.

    Mayo Clinic and other organizations give a "safe weight loss" spread of 1-2 lbs as a generality. They don't say that anyone can lose up to 2 lbs, and no one should lose more. It's an average. Those with a lot of weight to lose can lose more, those with less should go slower.

    I will add that it is IMHO even more dangerous for already lean women. An overweight man has a ton of calories to work with, not to mention more muscle mass to start out with. A female already in the healthy weight range will struggle to eat adequate nutrition on the small amount of calories a 2+lb rate will require, and already has lower muscle mass to start with. And aggressive weight loss can screw up her menstrual cycle, causing hormone imbalances and possible fertility issues. Not really something to be cavalier about with an internet stranger.

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