Is Losing 4 Pounds in a Month a Pathetic Amount of Weight Loss?

How do you know if you’re losing weight quickly enough?

This is the question I’m going to answer in this blog post.

Unrealistic Expectations

In my experience most people have unrealistic expectations of how quickly they should lose weight.

There are SO MANY diets that promise results like “lose 10 pounds in 10 days” that eventually, you start to believe it.

But how realistic is this?

What Affects Speed of Weight Loss?

How fast you lose weight depends on many factors, but the two most important are

– Gender

– Age

Men lose weight faster than women (because of more muscle mass)

Younger people lose weight faster than older people (because of faster metabolisms – partly related to more muscle mass too).

(This makes it seem like women over 40 have a big disadvantage when it comes to losing weight, but later I’ll tell you why the opposite is the case.)

The Reality of Big Claims

This explains why some people are able to achieve extraordinarily quick weight loss which is not possible for others.

Comparing the response of a 20 year old male and a 50 year old female, you can see that the male will lose weight much, much faster.

So when you get told to expect to lose 10 pounds in 10 days, you need to think about how realistic this is for you.

4 Pounds of Weight Loss

So if a 48 year old woman loses 4 pounds in a month, is this good or bad? Are they on the right track or doomed?

Frankly for a 48 year old woman, losing 4 pounds in a month is EXCELLENT!

Over 6 months that would work out to 24 pounds, which is almost 2 stone.

In fact, even 3 pounds a month will add up to amazing results over a few months.

We’re Focusing on the Wrong Thing

But with all this talk about the speed of weight loss, we’re actually focusing on the wrong thing.

“It’s not whether it’s fast, it’s whether it lasts”

Losing a lot of weight quickly might feel good, but if it all comes back a few weeks later, then you have actually achieved nothing.

The key to never needing to go on another diet again, is to lose weight sustainably.

You need to lose weight in a way that you’re willing to stick to it for the rest of your life.

The Advantage of Youth is Actually a Disadvantage

Earlier I said it was much easier to lose weight quickly if you were younger.

This is true.

But is this actually an advantage?

I’ve honestly come to realise that it’s a HUGE DISADVANTAGE.

Why?

The Allure of the Quick Fix

Because when you CAN lose weight quickly, that’s all people ever want to do.

They don’t have the patience for thinking about the long-term. They just want results now.

So they go on drastic diets, to lose weight in time for a deadline and then gain it all back a few days later.

No Alternatives

But after 40, these crash diets don’t deliver quick weight loss anymore.

So they lose their allure.

If you can’t lose weight quickly, it makes you start to consider how to fix this problem for the long-term.

And that’s great news!

What Does This Mean For You?

Depending on how old you are, you need to adjust your expectations for how fast you can expect to lose weight.

Don’t get discouraged and give up just because you had completely unrealistic expectations.

And more importantly, take the emphasis off from speed of weight loss and think about how to lose weight and NEVER have it come back.