Weight loss is a frequent aim, whether you want to lose weight for a specific event or improve your health.
You may want to know a healthy weight loss rate to establish reasonable expectations.
This article discusses the elements influencing how long it takes to lose weight.
How weight loss occurs
Weight loss happens when you consume fewer calories per day than you burn.
Weight gain, on the other hand, occurs when you continually consume more calories than you burn.
Any calorie-containing meal or beverage counts toward your total calorie consumption.
However, the quantity of calories you burn each day, also known as energy or calorie expenditure, is a little more complicated.
Calorie expenditure is made up of three primary components (1):
- the metabolic rate during rest (RMR). The number of calories your body needs to function normally, such as breathing and pumping blood.
- Thermic effect of food (TEF). This refers to the calories expended in food digestion, absorption, and metabolization.
- Thermic effect of activity (TEA). These are the calories you burn when exercising. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), which accounts for calories needed for activities such as yard maintenance and fidgeting, is also included in TEA.
You maintain your body weight if the amount of calories you consume equals the number of calories you burn.
To lose weight, you must generate a negative calorie balance by ingesting fewer calories than you burn or increasing your activity level.
Factors affecting weight loss
Several variables influence how quickly you lose weight. Many of them are beyond your ability to control.
Gender
Your fat-to-muscle ratio has a significant impact on your capacity to lose weight.
Women have a lower RMR than males of the same height because they have a higher fat-to-muscle ratio than men (2).
This means that at rest, women often burn 5-10% fewer calories than males. As a result, males tend to lose weight faster than women while following a calorie-balanced diet.
For example, in 8-week research with nearly 2,000 participants on an 800-calorie diet, males dropped 16 percent more weight than women, with men losing 11.8 percent more weight than women (3).
However, while males lost weight faster than women, the study did not look at gender variations in the capacity to maintain weight loss.
Age
Changes in body composition are one of the many physical changes that occur with age – fat content increases and muscle mass decreases.
This alteration and other reasons like your primary organs’ reduced calorie demands add to a lower RMR (4, 5).
Persons over 70 may have RMRs that are 20 to 25% lower than those of younger adults (2, 6).
Weight reduction may become more complex when RMR declines with age.
Starting point
Your starting body mass and composition may also influence how quickly you lose weight.
It’s critical to realize that differing absolute weight decreases (in pounds) might equate to the same relative (percent) weight loss in different people. Finally, losing weight is a complicated procedure.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Body Weight Planner is a helpful tool for determining how much weight you can lose depending on your starting weight, age, gender, and how many calories you consume and burn (7).
Although a more prominent person can lose twice as much weight, a lighter person can lose an equivalent percentage of their body weight (10/250 = 4% vs. 5/125 = 4%).
For example, a person weighing 300 pounds (136 kg) may lose 10 pounds (4.5 kg) by cutting their daily diet by 1,000 calories and increasing physical activity for two weeks.
Calorie deficit
To lose weight, you must produce a negative calorie balance. The magnitude of your calorie deficit influences how quickly you lose weight.
Ingesting 500 fewer calories per day for eight weeks, for example, is likely to result in higher weight reduction than consuming 200 fewer calories per day.
However, avoid creating an excessive calorie deficit.
This is not only unsustainable but also puts you in danger of vitamin shortages. Furthermore, it may increase your chances of losing weight as muscle mass rather than fat mass.
Sleep
Sleep is an often-overlooked yet critical component of weight loss.
Chronic sleep deprivation might stymie weight loss and the rate at which you shed pounds.
One night of sleep deprivation has enhanced your craving for high-calorie, nutrient-deficient meals like cookies, cakes, sugary beverages, and chips (8, 9).
In one 2-week trial, individuals on a calorie-restricted diet were randomly assigned to sleep 5.5 or 8.5 hours each night.
Those who slept for 5.5 hours per night shed 55% less body fat and 60% more lean body mass than those who slept for 8.5 hours per night (10).
As a result, persistent sleep deprivation has been related to type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and several malignancies (11, 12, 13).
Other factors
Other factors that might influence your weight loss rate include:
- Medications. Many drugs, including antidepressants and various antipsychotics, can either stimulate or inhibit weight reduction (14).
- Medical problems. Illnesses such as depression and hypothyroidism, a disease in which your thyroid gland produces insufficient metabolism-regulating chemicals, can hinder and stimulate weight loss (7, 15).
- Genes and family history There is a well-established genetic component related to overweight or obese persons, and it may influence weight loss (16. 17).
- Yo-yo dieting. Due to a decline in RMR, this pattern of losing and regaining weight might make weight loss more difficult with each try (18).
The best diet for weight loss
With so many weight loss programs on the market promising remarkable and rapid results, it can be challenging to determine which is best.
Even though creators and supporters believe their programs are superior to others, there is no single best weight loss diet (19, 20).
Low-carb diets, such as keto, may help you lose weight faster at first, but studies show no meaningful changes in long-term weight loss (21, 22, 23).
Most important is your capacity to maintain a healthy, low-calorie eating plan (24, 25).
However, many people find it challenging to stick to a deficient calorie diet for lengthy periods, which is why most diets fail (26).
To improve your chances of success, cut your calorie consumption just moderately, personalize your diet based on your preferences and health, or work with a qualified dietitian.
To optimize fat reduction and avoid or minimize muscle loss, combine nutrition with exercise, including aerobic and resistance training (27).
You may improve weight loss and general health by avoiding overly processed meals and embracing more nutritious foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, healthy fats, and proteins.
Safe rates of weight loss
While most individuals desire rapid weight loss, you mustn’t lose too much weight too rapidly.
Rapid weight loss increases your chances of developing gallstones, dehydration, and starvation (28).
Other adverse consequences of fast weight reduction include the following (29, 30):
- headaches
- irritability
- fatigue
- constipation
- hair loss
- menstrual irregularities
- muscle loss
Though weight loss may be faster at the beginning of a program, doctors recommend a weekly weight loss of 1-3 pounds (0.45-1.36 kg) or roughly 1% of your body weight.
Also, keep in mind that losing weight is not a straight line. You may lose more some weeks than others or drop none at all (32, 33).
So, if your weight loss slows or plateaus for a few days, don’t become disheartened.
Keeping a food journal and weighing yourself regularly may help you remain on track.
According to research, persons who use self-monitoring tactics, such as tracking their nutritional intake and weight, are more likely to lose weight and keep it off than those who do not (34).
The bottom line
When you eat fewer calories than you burn, you lose weight.
Gender, age, beginning weight, sleep, and the degree of your calorie deficit are all factors that influence your weight loss pace.
Aiming for a weekly weight loss of 1-3 pounds (0.45-1.36 kg) is a healthy and sustainable strategy to achieve your goals.
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