Whether you want to lose weight for a special occasion or but better your health, weight loss is a common goal.

To set realistic expectations, you may desire to know what a good for you weight loss rate is.

This article explains the factors that touch how long information technology may accept you to lose weight.

Weight loss occurs when yous consistently consume fewer calories than you lot burn down each day.

Conversely, weight gain happens when you consistently consume more than calories than you burn.

Any nutrient or beverage you eat that has calories counts toward your overall calorie intake.

That said, the number of calories you lot burn each solar day, which is known equally energy or calorie expenditure, is a bit more complicated.

Calorie expenditure is composed of the following three major components (i):

  • Resting metabolic rate (RMR). This is the number of calories your body needs to maintain normal bodily functions, such as breathing and pumping claret.
  • Thermic issue of food (TEF). This refers to the calories used to digest, absorb, and metabolize nutrient.
  • Thermic result of activity (TEA). These are the calories you lot apply during do. TEA can too include non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), which accounts for the calories used for activities similar k work and fidgeting.

If the number of calories you consume equals the number of calories y'all burn down, you maintain your body weight.

If you desire to lose weight, yous must create a negative calorie balance by consuming fewer calories than you burn or burning more calories through increased action.

SUMMARY:

Weight loss occurs when yous consistently swallow fewer calories than you lot burn each day.

Several factors touch the rate at which you lose weight. Many of them are out of your command.

Gender

Your fat-to-muscle ratio greatly affects your ability to lose weight.

Because women typically have a greater fat-to-muscle ratio than men, they have a five–10% lower RMR than men of the same acme (ii).

This means that women generally fire 5–10% fewer calories than men at rest. Thus, men tend to lose weight quicker than women following a diet equal in calories.

For example, an 8-week report including over ii,000 participants on an 800-calorie diet found that men lost 16% more than weight than women, with relative weight loss of 11.8% in men and 10.three% in women (iii).

Nevertheless, while men tended to lose weight quicker than women, the study didn't analyze gender-based differences in the ability to maintain weight loss.

Age

Ane of the many bodily changes that occur with aging is alterations in body limerick — fatty mass increases and muscle mass decreases.

This change, forth with other factors similar the failing calorie needs of your major organs, contributes to a lower RMR (4, 5).

In fact, adults over age 70 tin accept RMRs that are 20–25% lower than those of younger adults (2, 6).

This subtract in RMR tin can make weight loss increasingly difficult with age.

Starting point

Your initial body mass and composition may also affect how rapidly yous can expect to lose weight.

Information technology's of import to understand that unlike absolute weight losses (in pounds) tin can correspond to the aforementioned relative (%) weight loss in unlike individuals. Ultimately, weight loss is a complex process.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Body Weight Planner is a useful guide to how much yous can lose based on your initial weight, age, sexual activity, and how many calories you take in and expend (seven).

Although a heavier person may lose double the amount of weight, a person with less weight may lose an equal percentage of their body weight (10/250 = 4% versus five/125 = four%).

For example, a person weighing 300 pounds (136 kg) may lose 10 pounds (4.5 kg) afterward reducing their daily intake by 1,000 calories and increasing physical activity for two weeks.

Calorie deficit

Y'all must create a negative calorie balance to lose weight. The extent of this calorie deficit affects how quickly you lose weight.

For example, consuming 500 fewer calories per day for 8 weeks will probable event in greater weight loss than eating 200 fewer calories per day.

However, be sure not to make your calorie deficit as well large.

Doing so would not merely be unsustainable only also put you lot at risk for nutrient deficiencies. What'due south more, it might make you more than likely to lose weight in the form of muscle mass rather than fat mass.

Sleep

Sleep tends to be an overlooked yet crucial component of weight loss.

Chronic sleep loss can significantly hinder weight loss and the speed at which you shed pounds.

Merely one nighttime of sleep impecuniousness has been shown to increase your desire for high-calorie, nutrient-poor foods, such as cookies, cakes, sugary beverages, and chips (8, 9).

One ii-calendar week study randomized participants on a calorie-restricted diet to sleep either 5.five or eight.5 hours each night.

Those who slept five.5 hours lost 55% less body fat and 60% more lean body mass than those who slept viii.five hours per night (ten).

Consequently, chronic sleep deprivation is strongly linked to type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and certain cancers (11, 12, 13).

Other factors

Several other factors can bear upon your weight loss rate, including:

  • Medications. Many medications, such as antidepressants and other antipsychotics, can promote weight gain or hinder weight loss (fourteen).
  • Medical conditions. Illnesses, including low and hypothyroidism, a status in which your thyroid gland produces also few metabolism-regulating hormones, tin can slow weight loss and encourage weight gain (7, 15).
  • Family history and genes. There is a well-established genetic component associated with people who have overweight or obesity, and it may affect weight loss (xvi. 17).
  • Yo-yo dieting. This pattern of losing and regaining weight tin can brand weight loss increasingly difficult with each attempt, due to a decrease in RMR (18).
SUMMARY:

Age, gender, and sleep are just a few of the many factors that affect weight loss. Others include some medical weather, your genetics, and the apply of certain medications.

With innumerable weight loss diets bachelor — all promising impressive and quick results — it tin can exist disruptive to know which ane is best.

Nevertheless, though creators and proponents deem their programs superior to the rest, there'due south no single best weight loss diet (19, 20).

For example, low-carb diets similar keto may help you lose more weight initially, just studies find no meaning differences in weight loss in the long term (21, 22, 23).

What matters most is your power to stick to a healthy, reduced-calorie eating pattern (24, 25).

Nonetheless, following a very low calorie nutrition for long periods is difficult for many people and the reason why most diets fail (26).

To increment your chances of success, simply moderately reduce your calorie intake, individualize your diet co-ordinate to your preferences and wellness or work with a registered dietitian.

Combine nutrition with exercise, including both aerobic and resistance training, to maximize fatty loss and forestall or minimize muscle loss (27).

By eliminating highly processed foods and incorporating more healthy, whole foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, salubrious fats, and proteins, you can farther promote weight loss and your overall health.

SUMMARY:

Adhering to a weight loss diet is difficult for most people. Regardless of your goals, choose a dietary blueprint based on your individual preferences and wellness status.

While almost people hope for fast, rapid weight loss, it'southward important that you don't lose too much weight likewise speedily.

Rapid weight loss tin can increase your hazard of gallstones, dehydration, and malnutrition (28).

Other side effects of rapid weight loss include (29, thirty):

  • headaches
  • irritability
  • fatigue
  • constipation
  • hair loss
  • menstrual irregularities
  • muscle loss

Though weight loss may occur faster at the showtime of a program, experts recommend a weight loss of 1–3 pounds (0.45–1.36 kg) per week, or almost 1% of your body weight (31).

Also, keep in heed that weight loss is non a linear procedure. Some weeks you may lose more, while other weeks you may lose less or none at all (32, 33).

And so don't be discouraged if your weight loss slows or plateaus for a few days.

Using a food diary, as well as weighing yourself regularly, may help y'all stay on rails.

Inquiry shows that people who apply self-monitoring techniques, such as recording your dietary intake and weight, are more successful at losing weight and keeping it off than those who don't (34).

SUMMARY:

Losing weight besides quickly can pb to problems like gallstones, musculus loss, and extreme fatigue. Experts recommend a moderate weight loss of 1–three pounds (0.45–1.36 kg) per calendar week, or most 1% of your body weight.

Weight loss occurs when you consume fewer calories than y'all burn.

Many factors bear on your weight loss rate, including your gender, age, starting weight, sleep, and the extent of your calorie deficit.

Aiming to lose 1–3 pounds (0.45–1.36 kg) per calendar week is a safety and sustainable manner to reach your goals.