Does it depend on your current weight?

I want to cut my calories down to my BMR and netting pretty much exactly at it, and exercise as much as possible (counting that in my daily cal totals using myfitnesspal)

I *want* to aim for 5lbs a week with hard work and dedication. (I feel like "high metabolism" is a myth and yet I was really thin for years without trying until this year when I became a little inactive.)

Is this possible healthily?

5lbs a week can't ever happen except for your first week losing weight and you'd have to be much heavier than your weight. And most of it is water weight, not real weightloss.

How did you plan to lose these 5lbs a week? There is no healthy way to do it even if your body ever cooperated. You can't starve yourself and you couldn't exercise it off.

I don't mean to discourage you, I just don't want you to hurt yourself.

You might lose 5 lbs the 1st week, but don't count on that happening very often. Even with hard work you body won't get rid of 5lbs in a week. You can try juicing or one of those lemonade diet, but we all know how long that will last.

If you lose 2lbs a week after the 1st week, consider yourself lucky and blessed

For your height and weight, I think 5 pounds would be unrealistic and most likely unattainable unless done in a very unhealthy way. Aside from perhaps that initial 1st week whoosh from water weight, sustaining a 5 pound a week loss even for an obese person isn't likely, or healthy for that matter.

It's okay! I already decided I just want to make SURE I lose 1-2 pounds a week, but more, if possible, is ideal. I've been cutting my calories down to 1350, and exercising, and picking up extra shifts at work (I'm a server/bartender... can't eat at work and constantly moving/on my feet)

If I can just do 1-2 pounds a week I'll be good. I just wasn't sure if there's possibly a healthy way to get up to 5 in a week.

Thanks for the replies, you guys.

So the ideal weekly healthy loss is around 2lbs a week?

I could never do a juice or lemonade diet.

I could probably do a water fast one day or so a week.

I know, with fasts we can argue about how healthy they are or aren't for hours... but I don't plan on doing them anyway! I have done fasts in the past and got the absolute worst headaches of my life by the end of the first day and/or the second day. The only way I've ever been able to was to pop a pain pill, which defeats the detox part of the fast, which pretty much makes it pointless. (I did them for detoxing the nastiness from my body, not weight loss at the time since I was 118lbs.)

Hi, I wouldn't want to go more than 1lb at your size. You want to lose fat, not muscle mass too. It's slow going when you aren't big to begin with.

I started losing in December 2012 @ 150lbs and it's now April, I'm at 131lbs. That is FAST at this size (and I am nursing so that helps). This is probably the fastest realistic rate for someone at a 5'5 150ish lbs stat. The more lean muscle mass you retain, the better you will look at your goal.

I was 118lbs before my kids too. It's hard being in the 150's when you've been 118 at 5'5 (which IMO really was the perfect size). But it takes time. You want to be a fit 120, not an unfit 120.

With how little weight you have left to lose, 1-2 pounds a week is probably a good goal to have, of course keeping in mind that the mean scale sometimes doesn't cooperate.

More than 2 lbs isn't ideal because your body tries to be efficient and your muscle burns calories. If you are heavily restricting calories, then your body will start to shed a higher percentage of muscle and try to hold onto its fat.

Honestly, at your weight, I'd focus on 1 lb/week but you might have weeks where you lose a little more as weight loss isn't linear.

I think that is not a realistic number. Honestly 1 pound a week is more ideal but still that may be hard to do. I would focus more on the entire month and see if you can meet that goal. Just do things as healthy as you can and see where that leads you.

I wish there was a way to lose 5 lbs a week at all, never mind healthily! Having said that, I started out heavier than you (220 lbs) and I have lost 40 lbs since January last year. In that time I once lost 5 lbs in one week - I can remember this particularly as it won me Slimmer of the Week at the weight loss club I was in at the time

I have never achieved that before or since, and generally the Slimmer of the Week award went to people losing 2.5 lbs a week and that was considered a considerable achievement! Usually, I would advise you to aim high, but I know how discouraging the weight loss journey can be. For that reason, to avoid burning out or, worse, putting on weight because you are so discouraged, I think you need to adjust your expectations. 2 lbs a week should be your maximum aim, with a realistic expectation that you will lose half-1 lb per week. I'm sorry to dampen your enthusiasm, but I think it is better in the long run and certainly healthier. I can't imagine what side effects would come with continuously losing 5 lbs a week, sorry

How much does the typical contestant on "The Biggest Loser" lose per week? Those people train pretty hard and are put on a strict diet.

But I agree with the others who have said that it is not realistic to expect to lose that much per week. You'd have to kill yourself to do it, if it is even possible.

There is! Its called the stomach flu! I just had it and will probably wind up losing 5 pounds or more this week because of it! Its a dieter's best friend!

This might not be exactly what you wanted to hear, but I have just recently realized that if I want to really change my lifestyle forever, become thin and remain healthy, I can not PLAN how much I will lose over certain period of time. The reason being that the actual amount I lose in a week, or in a month, is out of my hands. What I can influnce is my food choices, my excercise plan, and lifestyle, my attitude - but whether the scale moves down by 2 pounds a week or 1 pound a week (or occassionally does not move down at all), I can not influence that.

Of course, I can go stricter if the weight loss is too slow for my liking, but even that does not guarantee the result I aim for. So I am currently in process of changing my mind, leaving my "two pounds a week" plan and replacing it with "as healthy as possible, forever" plan, hoping this will bring the weight loss as a nice and welcome side effect...