How much weight is it safe to lose each week?

Question

I have some weight issues and have started to walk each night for about 45 min or so. I have also added some pole to pole sprints in the mix every few days to help change it up. I have also done the whole cut back on eating thing. I am only worried now that I may lose too much too fast because it can be hard on the body to shead weight too fast. But how much is too much when trying to lose weight?

Answer 1

First, for all of the "quick and easy" weight loss diet pill suggestions, remember, if something sounds too good to be true... it probably is, particularly if you have to pay for it.


On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common questions amount to "How do I lose weight," or more specifically, "How do I lose abdominal fat?" I have gotten very positive responses from my answers when I paused to reply (and now beginning to get "It works!" emails that are very gratifying. I like helping people)... so have recently decided to put a good solid answer on my Yahoo!360 Blog (September 10) that I can point people to. These are my thoughts as a physician and athlete.

Don't target losing more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you work them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

The rule of thumb is you can lose two or three pounds a week safely. Having said that, however, I can tell you from personal experience that you can lose a lot more than that within the first month without suffering any ill effects. When I began my weight loss regimen I lost over 20 pounds in the first month and I was in GREAT shape -- eating right, strength training, and cardio will do that for you.

P.S.: Cutting back on eating isn't necessarily a bad thing, but don't cut back too far. DO NOT, under any circumstances, eat less than 1,500 calories a day. Anything less than that and you risk going into starvation mode. When that happens, your body greedily hangs on to every last bit of fat you have and starts burning the tissue that takes the most energy to maintain -- MUSCLE. Not good. Be careful and good luck!

Answer 3

It was awhile ago, but the American Dietetic Association used to recommend losing (or gaining) 1 pound per week. Under a doctor's supervision you might be able to do more. There are all kinds of wild claims on TV about how much weight people have lost but if you can lose it over time you are probably making the necessary changes to your life to remain at your target weight. Crash programs are seldom healthy and often result in yo-yo'ing.

Answer 4

Congrats on starting a workout regimen! Doctors say it is healthy to lose 1 to 2 lbs a week. Anymorp eand you are losing weight too quickly. Make sure you tweak your eating habits, eating healthier, smaller portions, possibly more times a day (I personally do 5 to 6 small meals a day). :) You will get there!

Answer 5

I would say 2 or maybe 3 pounds is the safest. You are not supposed to lose more than 10 pounds a month and be safe.

Answer 6

You can also lose one pound a week



The majority of fitness professionals advise slow weight loss as the safest and most helpful approach. A sensible weight-loss program allows you to lose weight slowly -- about one-half to one pound per week. Slow weight loss promotes long-term loss of body fat, not just water weight that can be rapidly regained.

Most people need around 15 calories per pound to maintain their weight. A person of 150 pound would not eat food that contains calories more than 2250 per day in order to maintain his/her weight.

In order to burn one pound, a person need to burn 3500 calories more than they are used. For example, dropping calories by 300 per day and increasing daily movement to burn off an extra 200 calories should result in a weight loss of one pound a week.

Answer 7

I've lost 5 kilos in my first week. It's my 10th day and I have included salad with some protein (eg. egg/ lean chicken) as you suggested. After 4 years of trying, the fat is finally coming off. It truly feels like magic!

Get started today!

Answer 8

well 2 to 3 pounds is all you should try to loose a week safely

Answer 9

invest in a standing desk like the ergotron workfit s 379 ergotron com or get crafty and raise your monitor and keyboard with books

Answer 10

swing a lasso over your head 375 times

Answer 11

slather on lip balm 765 times