How much weight loss is too fast?

[Anonymous]

My friends have been commenting I'm losing weight too fast.

Please don't lecture me on the following - I haven't been eating properly. Going through the heartbreak diet, I am struggling to face food. I am eating, but if I eat too much I just throw it back up. So yeah, please don't lecture me on the badness, I seriously am trying, I just can't stomach much at the moment.

I've lost 14 pounds (6kgs) in 2 and a half weeks now.

How much weight is ideal to lose and over what time period?

[whattothink]

Losing more than 2 lbs a week is not healthy. That is the maximum healthcare professionals want a person to lose unless it is at the beginning of a diet and exercise program and the person is obese. Losing too fast can have not too good consequences. If you aren't eating you can start to lose hair and grow body hair. Organs can be damaged if it goes on for too long. And the skin doesn't have time to shrink and you will be stuck with extra skin. I suggest perhaps things easy on the stomach and nutritious such as smoothies until you can stomach food. Also you might need to go speak to a professional to work through this. I have been through some rather horrid breakups and have never been able to not eat for more than a few days. If it's that bad you may need professional intervention.

[Anonymous]

1 pound of fat is 3500 calories which is WAY more than your body will use in a day. So unless you're doing HOURS of cardio, most of what you lost was water and muscle.

I tried alternate day fasting, where you fast every other day for a week and lost 2.2 pounds every day I fasted and gained back one pound on the non fast days. after a week I lost about one pound of fat the rest was just water.

My point is most of your weight loss was probably water and muscle (muscle weighs more than fat)

try a better diet like atkins where you'll lose fat and not muscle and water.

[HungryJones]

It's OK if you're going through something which is causing a loss of appetite. Try sticking to lighter foods like soups and salads so you're still getting the nutrients your body needs, it may be easier to keep it down too.

As for the weightloss it depends on your height to weight ratio...I mean if your 5' 200 lbs then 14 pounds in two weeks isn't something I'd worry about, but if you're like 5'7" 120 lbs then yes that's much too fast.

[Asker]

I'm 5ft 6 and about 190 pounds now. I've been trying to lose weight for a while, so I'm not freaking that it's falling off, my friend are.

[kheserthorpe]

Forget the week one weight loss, how was week 2? How's your energy level?

[Asker]

I lost 5 pounds in the second week. Getting the occasionally shakes, I get tired quickly and sleepy but I'm not sleeping very well and I get a touch bored at work!

[kheserthorpe]

What exactly are you eating?

[Asker]

Exactly? Umm, one slice of bread with some sort of meat in it for dinner.

And when I'm forced to, a bag of crisps at work (because it's vending machine food, that's all there is really). I try not to eat though.

[kheserthorpe]

Okay. That's stupid. Ironically I've probably gone almost as low as that calorie wise but you're eating the wrong things (apart from the meat).

You shouldn't crash diet etc etc. if you're determined to crash diet though send me a friend request and ill send you a link to an ebook on a fairly sensible way to do it.

[Asker]

I started eating the bread because I found I was keeping it down. I know my diet isn't awesome, the first week I didn't eat anything for 4 days straight, I just felt so sick. The next couple of days I was just throwing everything back up. And this has been my diet because it's the only thing I'm not vomitting! My stomach has shrunk to the point this is more than enough to fill me up.

[kheserthorpe]

It's not the amount it's the macronutrient profile.

[Anonymous]

That's really fine.

As long as you keep a healthy lifestyle, it doesn't matter how fast you lose weight.

[SamuelB]

More than a couple lbs a week is probably too much.

[Anonymous]

well it depends what your starting weigt is.