Am I losing weight too quickly?

[sr02]

Hi all, I’m 6’3, 18 years old and my starting weight was 25 stone 7lbs (357lbs) and I’m 2 and a half weeks in to my journey and have lost 21 lbs, I’m eating around 1200-1600 calories a day and feel completely full on this diet, I’m doing about and hour of exercise 5/7 days of the week - am I losing weight too quickly? My goal weight is 252 lbs (for now) - or is this amount of weight loss this quickly normal for someone my starting size? I’m just trying my best to avoid loose skin and am aware that losing weight this quickly might result in exactly that.

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

[jkjacks]

what is your meal menu like daily?

[Heybales]

---

@sr02 wrote:

Hi all, I’m 6’3, 18 years old and my starting weight was 25 stone 7lbs (357lbs) and I’m 2 and a half weeks in to my journey and have lost 21 lbs, I’m eating around 1200-1600 calories a day and feel completely full on this diet, I’m doing about and hour of exercise 5/7 days of the week - am I losing weight too quickly? My goal weight is 252 lbs (for now) - or is this amount of weight loss this quickly normal for someone my starting size? I’m just trying my best to avoid loose skin and am aware that losing weight this quickly might result in exactly that.

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

---

Good question - because you feeling full, and your body being fully fed - are not the same thing.

I dare say the vast majority of people are here trying to lose weight because they listened to their body - problem is it speaks a foreign language to most people and so it's misread. Until you learn the language don't trust the interpretation.

21 lbs in 2.5 weeks not bad - 1st week always includes extra water weight, so that has no calories and doesn't count.

Recommend get a good weight logging for the 2nd week end to actually compare to for doing rate of loss.

If you were to keep that rate up yes you would have lose skin, but the rate should always go slower the less fat you have, or body will adapt to that stress.

You should be able to eat the recommended minimum for a male though - 1500, and still have a sizable deficit in place.

With 100 lbs to lose, your body likely could keep supporting over 2lb weekly loss until you have 80 lbs left - but you will have skin problems almost guaranteed if you attempt to keep it up.

If you feel you have to do that - I'd at least recommend taking a diet break week after you've lost 10 lbs, which is good idea anyway.

Eat at maintenance for a week, take advantage of that time to increase intensity of workout perhaps, if strength training is part of it especially (hopefully it is).

Then back to diet.

When you get to 50 lbs left to healthy weight, deficit to 750.

At 30 left - 500.

At 10 left - 250.

It may seem extreme to take a diet break week every 10 lbs lost - but frankly read the posts of people that plateau for 3-4 months at a time, 12-16 weeks, do the math and see it's actually a shorter time period if you don't have those aggravating stressful months.

Keep that food logging accuracy, right now you can be pretty sloppy and still see results, it'll have to get more accurate later on.

[PineyJim]

Congrats on beginning your journey sr02!!  You made the commitment which is GREAT!   Last year, I lost 155 Lbs over 15 Months - I can report that took no diet breaks. I'm 55 years old and started my journey at 327 Lbs.   I'm not a Doctor but got a lot of great input from several professionals.   Strict tracking of calorie intake and close monitoring of my daily workouts kept me loosing with no signifigant plateaus. From my research, everybody is different and loose skin is not "guaranteed" at 2 Lbs loss per week - especially at age 18 when skin is typically more elastic. 

Maybe Heybales is a medical professional and knows better? 

[Heybales]

No - just a long time member of several forums for years where there are many complaints about lose skin, and many more adding they dealt with it too.

Your report is the 3rd that has ever been made with a substantial weight loss saying no lose skin. Yours is fastest rate I've seen.

Obviously genetics matter big time on this. Congrats on picking good parents.

Also - 2 lbs a week is a far cry from 21 lbs in 2.5 wks - which is 8.4 lbs a week.

Throw out 5 lbs initial week water weight - 16 lbs in 1.5 wks - 10.6 lbs a week.

The problem is if you don't have the genetics to benefit you the result is lose skin attempting it too fast.

Which is the safe side if you'll have to chunk down the money for plastic surgery later?

[PineyJim]

Again,  I'm no doctor but I've spent some time on the Interwebs myself.   From my understanding, you can't really control loose skin after major weight loss. As stated, it's genetics and age. I'm not so sure the rate of loss (within reason) matters, but I'll leave that up to the medical professionals before advising. 

Regardless,  the key advice I will provide our friend sr02 is to loose in a healthy way (Whole foods, tons of water, daily movement and good sleep hygene) and at a healthy rate (with input from a Dr. if possible) and do everything possible to STAY MOTIVATED!   SR02 is a big, young dude. 1,200 calories seems low to me and maybe not healthy.  I'm 5'11" and learned through experience that my "magic" number was 1,300-1,400 calories, on average.  (More cals early on when I weighed 300+ Lbs) 

Managing my head was, still is, and will always be, the most important factor.  Much easier said than done.  Success stories from others whom have lost 100+ Lbs helped (and still help) keep me focused when I wanted to give up.   Check out "obese to beast" on YouTube - especially the early videos.   The guy is great and he has a lot to say about loose skin. Check him out. 

sr02:  You got this!   We are pulling for you!!!   It's sooo worth the effort - promise! 

[emili]

I think we all have some tale to tell of what is "normal" and what isn't. I was 44 when I decided to lose weight. I was 200 pounds in March and in June, I was 145. I had some loose skin, but not anything "noticeable" unless I was bent at a certain angle. I also have two kids and in your 40s skin isn't as elastic.. Over the course of the next 6 months I fine tuned myself to 130 pounds. That was 7 years ago. Today, I go between 132 and 134 which is "comfy" for me. I workout in some form 6 days a week. I eat low calorie high nutrition food at every meal Monday through Thursday. Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights only- I am a wild child. I increased my strength training over the past 2 years which has actually helped with the skin thing. I still shouldn't bend in some ways, but I think we can all say that to some degree. Only you know what is normal for you. There are for sure guidelines for healthy weight loss that should be followed and you can find hundreds of articles, videos and blogs that can help inform you. In the end, it is your normal. I remember some people would comment on how I was eating during weight loss and how much harm I was doing.. happy to report that I am more healthy now than I was in my 30s and 40s. No more high blood pressure, no more cholesterol concerns, lower RHR, improved stamina- the list is long.

[Glenda]

You should google this question.  I don't want to argue with Haybales.  But Google said it doesn't matter whether you lose fast or slow in regard to loose skin.  What matters is how obese the person was and for how long and how old they are.  Skin stretched lots for a long time isn't going to snap back.  It has been a while since I googled so I've forgotten the exact comments.  Best wishes.

[jkjacks]

Sometimes experience is the best teacher.  In general though, losing 1-2 pounds per week, especially if young, will allow your body to keep up with your new weight and reduces loose, flappy skin in certain areas.  The major concern with that loose skin though, is when you drop weight too fast for your body to keep up, or your body is older and takes even longer to correct back to optimal shape.  Either way, the same issue exists.  If you lose weight faster than your body can correct the amount your skin is stretched, you will have loose folds of skin just like if you gain weight too fast you will have stretch marks.  And just as stretch marks did not go away when rubbing vitamin E lotion on them, skin will not shrink when given vitamin E in excess either.  Here is the best part.  Given enough time, your body will catch up and your skin will be as tight as it needs to be for your current size.  If you happen to lose weight too fast to keep a nice tight skin suit, it is still easier to exercise with reduced weight + loose skin than it is for more body weight.

[Heybales]

It's very true there is no guarantee one way or another - like many things there are many variables at play, and therefore you might say some risks are more meaningful than others to each person.

It's not like there are studies on this testing one way or another - merely the results of weight loss studies which rarely comment on this aspect. Or biggest loser episodes which won't have time to follow people to an end goal weight usually if they had a lot to lose that much on the show. (of course followup on those people show a huge failure rate)

Sadly it's one of those things that when finished you discover you actually were a bad risk and now have to deal with it for who knows how many years.

Ditto's to a good strength training program at maintenance level eating seems to help many.

Young will help.

Reasonable diet will help - actually that's a benefit anyway for long term success for maintaining weight as you'll learn how to eat appropriately.

But around 8 lbs a week loss so far is not reasonable, but some people are experimenters, and enjoy the risks.

But your specific request and concern about that said to me - perhaps you were not and desired to avoid the risk.

[WilsonFitbit]

Hello everyone! 😊

It's very nice to read all these great inputs and experiences! 🙌🙌

See you around.