Two pounds a week? Really?
 

Okay, this is my second go around with losing weight/working out/dieting hardcore to meet goals and such. My main question/comment is this: what is with the 2 pound a week "limit" I see everywhere? Now, don't get confused, i'm not saying that I don't want to lose weight the healthy way and keep it off. I'm also not looking for scientific/biological reasoning as to why only losing .5-2 pounds a week is optimal. But let's face it, at over 200 pounds, if I work out even slightly, i'm loosing more than 2 pounds a week... and if I don't, something is seriously wrong here. About two years ago, I dieted for three months straight and was loosing anywhere from 3-5 pounds a week. I wasn't starving myself or anything, and the weight came off easily. I'm not sure if I should try and limit my weight loss to 2 pounds a week, because then I feel like i'm working as hard as I can... thoughts?

If I had to venture a guess, I would say it is because the caloric deficit required for the slow, steady weight loss is easier to maintain than a radical lifestyle change that may lead to more rapid weight loss. You bring up a good point which is the more weight you have to lose, the faster you lose it but of course this slows down as you get closer to a "normal weight". Maybe the best way to think about it is in terms of your long term average weekly weight loss. It should take you about 44 weeks to get to your goal. So you lose 4,5,6 lbs the first week and 1/2 the last week. It will all average out to about 2 lbs/week, right? What you don't want is to lose it all in 3 or 4 months and then go "off your diet" because you didn't feel like you had really made valid lifestyle changes.

I have been around here quite awhile and have never heard of a 2 pounds a week limit. I have heard that two pounds a week is about average and healthy. Many people lose more than that , especially in the beginning of a diet. I have sometimes lost more than two pounds a week and sometomes less, but on average would be about 2 pounds a week.

The general idea is that you should lose at max 1% of your body weight per week. The reason I've read is that your body really does not want to let go of fat and will fight to keep it. If you are losing more than 1%, the chances are greater that you are losing muscle.

Now I wouldn't say you should try to limit yourself to that 1% number because if you are exercising and eating healthy then go with it but a lot of people have unrealistic expectations and think they should lose 5 lbs every single week until they hit goal and that simply is not a reality.

There's very little weight loss advice that is "set in stone." Guidelines are just that.

I used to lose tremendous amounts of weight, fairly easily. Now, I would consider myself very lucky to lose 2 lbs a week.

The best lesson to take from this is that you're not doing it "wrong" if you're not losing at least 2 lbs a week, and that faster doesn't always mean better.

Slower probably also doesn't ALWAYS mean better, but there are far fewer people supporting slow loss than fast loss (that's just now starting to change).