It’s an amazing experience watching the number on your bathroom scale tick downward every day. Or every week. Or twice monthly.

There’s plenty of discussion about how often to hop on your scales. This is not that discussion.

This discussion is about the rate at which the number on your scale drops.

The rate of weight loss, just like the methods and tools you employ to lose weight, is highly personal. Although there is no magic number, most doctors and nutritionists recommend a weight-loss rate of 1-2 pounds per week.

That may seem slow and tedious, but remember that’s what wins the race.

Let’s go inside the numbers.

Per The Mayo Clinic, one pound of fat contains approximately 3,500 calories. So to lose one pound a week, you need to burn 500 more calories than you eat each day (500 calories x 7 days = 3,500 calories).

That’s a substantial amount of work on a human body. And the more you lose, the more work is necessary.

Also, if you lose a lot of weight very quickly, you may find that you’ve not lost as much fat as you would with a more modest rate of weight loss. Instead, you’ve likely lost primarily water weight or even lean tissue, since it’s hard to burn that many fat calories in a short period.

So there’s no reason to aim for a faster rate of loss?

Sometimes there may be.

Doctors may prescribe a strict low-calorie diet if severe obesity is resulting in an emergent issue. Likewise, some specialized diet plans – the Mayo Clinic Diet for example – begin with an initiation phase that can sometimes result in a loss of 6-10 pounds in one week.

In each of these cases, we would recommend being closely monitored by a doctor or diet center like Mediplan.

For a healthy diet plan that offers safe, measured weight loss, contact Mediplan Diet Center and allow us to craft a personalized strategy that will result in a feeling of success every time you step onto the scales!