This is my first post here, so I hope I'm posting this correctly.

This is my first ever attempt at losing weight the "healthy way", and I was just looking for support on making sure I am in fact doing this the right way this time. A little backstory: I'm in my early 20s, and used to maintain around the mid-130s (I'm 5'7"). However, I fell into a cycle a couple years ago when I did an extremely controversial diet that lead me to my lowest weight ever, 121. Soon after I reached that I began binging after I had a moment where I thought I was going to die due to the terrible diet I developed that lead me to 121. Within a short amount of time I went to my highest weight ever, 194. It killed my confidence that I had been working so hard to restore. So once I reached 194 I kept extreme dieting in hopes to get back down to 121, but of course after I'd lose a few pounds I'd immediately put it back on from binging.

Today, I'm now at 166 (I'm around that number anyway--my scale is terrible and varies from 163-171 depending on how I stand on it! Frustrating!). I feel like I'd start to feel confident again at 129, and my ultimate goal weight is 120.

With that said, I have about 37 lbs to lose. I've struggled with disordered eating thoughts since I was 3 years old. I'm sick and tired of these extreme diets I got sucked into that destroyed my self-esteem. I want my confidence back again, and I want to do it the healthy way. The "healthy way" of dieting is such foreign territory to me though, so I thought I'd go to this forum for help.

I know all about what kinds of healthy foods to eat--that's not the problem. I am also pretty active in the gym. What I'm struggling with is figuring out how much weight loss per week for me is healthy for my current BMI (26) and age (early 20s female). If I aim for 4-5 lbs per week, is that too much?

Thanks in advance. I'm looking forward to being part of this supportive community!

--edit--
tl;dr: So what I'm basically wondering is what is everyone's average weight loss per week lol. If you can also include your cw and/or bmi it would help!

4-5 lbs is far too much Average, healthy, maintainable weight loss is 1-2lbs per week over the course of time. The lower your weight the less you will lose weekly. The higher your weight the more you will (probably) lose weekly. Everyone is different though - especially if you've got a sluggish metabolism from extreme dieting OR you dieted off a lot of muscle tissue (extreme diets do that!). If you start eating like a normal human again, your body will replace that lost muscle it requires to keep you alive.

My stats? Long story. Right now I'm once again at the upside. I'm also a "recovering" personal trainer and figure competitor. I dieted for 4 years. More than that if you can't the time I spent actually losing weight to get to my "healthy" weight. So, I've got some experience with this up and down crap & the mess it plays with the mind, self esteem etc - not only for myself, but my former clients. The story repeats itself over and over for most of us unfortunately.

When I trained for my competitions I averaged 1lb a week up until my final weight of 125-127lb. I'm 5'5.

The first time I lost a bunch of weight (before I messed up my metabolism with crazy low calorie diets) I was about your age. It took me 9 months to lose 72lbs. I started at 210lb. That's an average of 1.8lbs per week. I didn't lose that every week. Sometimes I lost more, less, none, or even gained.

Maybe not focus so much on scale but rather your body fat percentage & measurements, how clothes fit and your success with establishing the "healthy" habits needed to live fully at a healthy weight? I use a skin fold caliper to measure body fat percentage as I'm brilliant at gaining and losing water weight (as well as fat LOL) The scale can't tell the difference between fat, muscle, and water. Sometimes I won't lose any weight on the scale but my measurements will go down.

If you haven't already, I'd consider working with a wellness or life coach. Someone who can help you with the "head" game, the self esteem & confidence you deserve to experience, today. The reason I call myself a "recovering" personal trainer is because I realized that helping women change the way they looked in order to feel confident and worthy of self respect, is the EXACT reason so many of us struggle with self esteem, disordered eating, etc, etc.

I intended to help women but after a few years realized I was simply a part of the problem I'd intended to help women solve. There is zero reason, we shouldn't feel deserving of self confidence and self respect at ANY shape, size or weight. When we want to look a certain way in order to "measure up" to some externally defined image of "acceptable", many of us take extreme actions in order to get there - which as you well know, doesn't work long term!

Former disordered eater here. Stems from growing up in an alcoholic family where I used food as a comfort when the sh*t hit the fan...which was quite often.

Bad self esteem lead to a LIFETIME of disordered eating and a horrible relationship with food.

Fast forward to now...I'm 45 years old, and am at a healthy BMI of 20.8 for my height which is 5'6". I think you don't need to go as low as 120 lbs at 5'7". I'm small-framed (see avatar which is me currently), and look and feel fine at 130 lbs. Try to pay more attention to your body composition and not necessarily the scale. I know, easier said than done. Former scale addict here too.

Good luck.

DaleK: Thanks so much for sharing your story. 1-2 lbs per week seems so low. At one point during my extreme dieting I withheld from eating for days at a time and vigorously worked out during this starvation. If I didn't lose more than 1 lb overnight (after losing several pounds of water weight the first couple days) I would be devastated. I know that's obviously not healthy, so I think it's going to take me sometime to adjust to a 1-2 lb per week mindset. But I'm up for the challenge.
The part you mentioned about not losing weight on the scale, but going down on measurements--I've been going through that, too. Recently, actually. Just last night I gained 0.2 lbs, yet I cut a string that measures 29" and it seems to fit my waist more loosely now. I don't understand it! I never considered getting a skinfold caliper before though, so I will look into that. Again, thank you for sharing all that. This whole part right here really got to me: I really needed to hear that. I hope I can find a personal trainer and life coach like you that seems to understand my story and confidence issues so well!

Fitmom: I completely understand you, and I'm so sorry you had to go through all that growing up. I believe my disordered eating thoughts and habits have come from my mom and grandmother, whom the former has shamed my weight growing up (even when my bmi was healthy), and the latter always calling me ugly. I'm so happy to hear you're at a healthy bmi now, you look fantastic!! I've always been insecure about my looks and always figured I needed to be very thin in order to make up for that--which is why I chose 120 as my goal weight. The "disordered eating habits" girl in me wants so badly to be at 107 (I know, way too low). It took a while to learn I needed to up my goal to at least 120. Lol, never heard the term "scale addict" before, but I think I can relate! I weigh in around 3x per day, and I spend several minutes stepping on and off the scale several times for each weigh in. After browsing through this forum I think I still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to developing a new "healthy" diet/lifestyle. Hopefully I will be where you are someday.

Thank you guys!