The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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We are at about 16 lbs of weight loss today, making for a current average of about 2lbs of weight-melt a week. I was hoping for 3lbs/week, but if I eat any less, I'm concerned it will eat into muscle instead of fat. I've begun adding some small amounts of weight training to hopefully stave that fear off.
Intend on weaning off of semaglutide soon, to see if I can maintain the new diet, curious about how that will go. With christmas and other holidays rolling around, I am going to be bombarded with so much sugar that I don't think it would be wise to fully get off semaglutide.
We will see.
2 lbs a week is fine if you're obese, probably too fast if you're overweight.
I'll keep that in mind. It's only been 2lbs/week for the last month, and I've been on sema for two, so I expect it to naturally taper. I'm still eating 3 meals a day, the portions and sugar content is mostly what's dropped.
I'll provide a counter-opinion, that 2 lbs a week is probably fine even if you're just overweight, not obese. I lost an average of 10 lbs per month, so a little less than 2.5 lbs per week, for 4 months straight back when I was going from a BMI of around 30 to around 24, and the vast majority of that was when I was in the overweight bracket, not the obese bracket. By the time my BMI was around 25-26, it did taper off and I was losing only around 1 lbs a week for a while, and I'm guessing that trying to maintain 2 lbs a week loss at that point might have been too aggressive. But I didn't suffer any ill effects from that 4 month period of 40 lbs weight loss (again, all but the very beginning of that was when I was overweight, not obese). I was also fairly physically active at the time, running around 2-3 miles 5-6 times a week, running at a pace in-line with my typical pace (8-9 minutes/mile); this isn't elite or even high level amateur athlete levels, but certainly the high calorie deficit wasn't having meaningfully negative impact on my energy.
That was over a decade ago, and I've yet to go back into the overweight range, much less obese, and so there also wasn't any rubber-band effect from the relatively quick loss of weight. I was also in my low 20s at that time, which is definitely a factor, but I don't think it's that big of a factor when it comes to the healthiness of losing 2 lbs/week. My opinion is that the general recommendation to limit oneself to 1 lbs/week loss if you're merely in the overweight range is mostly optimized around providing a number threshold that is both not too difficult to achieve and provides the person with satisfaction of having accomplished meaningful progress, rather than actual health effects. Someone who feels like they maximized the weight loss they can healthily take on at 1 lbs/week might be more encouraged to keep it up for long periods of time than someone who feels like they're falling behind what they realistically could healthily achieve. But if the ability to control that caloric deficit isn't a factor, I don't think 2 lbs/week for someone who's overweight is much of a concern.
Now, what about 3 lbs/week or 30 lbs/week? Clearly at some point the rate becomes much higher than is healthy (or biologically possible short of amputation). I'd personally guess it varies based on person, but that for most overweight but not obese people, 3-4 lbs/week is probably quite fine, presuming that they're eating a nutritious 500 Calories or whatever they're limiting themselves each day. You can't maintain that kind of weight loss very long while staying within the overweight bracket, anyway.
Thanks, that definitely tempers it.
A quick google had said 1-2lbs a week was healthy for people to lose weight. I'm sure it will level off as it keeps going, so not worried. Human caloric intake used to fluctuate incredibly wildly in the ancestral environment, so it would be extremely strange if a fluctuation of 2+ pounds was unhealthy, especially for humans that have a considerable body fat %.
At any rate, the target is to be able to easily maintain the new diet and weight for once I wean off semaglutide. Under the practical lens, 3+ lbs just isn't something I want to put the effort into achieving. I was perhaps a bit too hopeful about my chances naturally getting it, considering others' stories of loss of diet. I did consider adding adding quite a bit of cardio to the mix. But, since the goal is to be able to maintain homeostasis with the base routine, and not lose muscle mass, I plan to stick with the most basic low-intensity training for the time being.
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