Friday, June 5, 2009

I want to lose two pounds a week

I am a 24 year old female who weighs 136. I want to lose 2 lbs a week. How much should I eat and how much should I workout? This week I've been burning 1000 calories a day and eating the minimum number of points for weight watchers. Help!!! -- Hannah L.

Hello Hannah,

You don't say how tall you are, but 136 pounds is not very overweight, no matter your height.
Unfortunately, especially at your relatively low weight, it's not going to be practical for you to lose two pounds a week. You say you've been burning 1000 calories a day; does this mean you are exercising and burning 1000 calories above your normal metabolism? If you can keep this up you could lose 2 pounds a week, but this means you've been exercising heavily for over 2 hours a day, and it's unlikely that a person could keep this up (if you can, that's great!)

I would encourage you to focus more on the changes you could make in your diet and exercise routine to get to a weight you want and stay there. I understand that we always want the weight off yesterday, but in reality, rushing to get it off by taking extreme measures in depriving ourselves of food, and forcing ourselves to over-exercise, isn't going to bring us anything in the long run.

Weight watchers is a sensible plan, so keep that up, as well as a reasonable amount of exercise as many days a week that is feasible for you. When you look back in 6 months (and again in 6 years) it'll all be totally worth the wait for the long term permanent changes!

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