So you’re dieting and losing weight. Eventually though, you run into the Goldilocks dilemma: Are you losing weight too fast? Too slow? Just right? In other words—how fast should you lose weight?

Well, let’s dive into it.

How Fast Should You Lose Weight?

Measuring Weight Loss

Before I talk about rates of weight loss, I should first address how to best measure it in the first place. Weight notoriously tends to fluctuate, and it can be rather difficult to evaluate true progress. These variations can be somewhat accounted for with three correcting factors: a standard baseline, averages, and longer duration.

It’s important to remember that your body is constantly in fluctuation, with varying levels of water, food, and tissue throughout the day. As such, you want to standardize your weighing as much as possible. The best time to weigh yourself tends to be first thing in the morning, after using the bathroom, but before you eat or drink anything. This gives you the most reliable baseline to measure from.

Next, you want to be cautious about putting too much stock into any one scale reading. Remember that the scale is essentially a snapshot of your bodyweight at a single point in time. If you’re looking to see where things are going, you will want to use averages to look at how your bodyweight is trending over time. Many apps will allow you to calculate a rolling average for your weight based on the last few days of weighing. This yields a much better approximation of what your average weight is.

Finally, it is much easier to see past all the weight fluctuations if you look at things over a longer timeframe. Weight can change a lot from day to day, and even week to week. It’s generally a better idea to evaluate progress over a 3-4 week period before determining whether changes need to be made to your diet or not.

The Stages of Dieting

There are roughly two different stages of a diet that most people will fall into. The early stages of dieting are what I call the first couple of weeks that you spend in a calorie deficit. After that period, you enter what I refer to as the later stages of dieting. This distinction is important because the two phases are associated with different rates of weight loss. You simply can’t compare the early stages of a diet to the later ones, for reasons I’ll cover below.

The differences between the two phases also form the basis for a lot of misconceptions about fat loss. If progress at either stage is interpreted incorrectly, it can cause you to think that a diet is working better than it is, or that the diet is ineffective.

Early Diet

The first couple of weeks of dieting are associated with relatively rapid changes on the scale. When your body enters a calorie deficit, a few different factors cause you to shed scale weight fairly quickly. 

First, the decrease in carbohydrate intake tends to cause water weight to fall off quickly. The body stores carbs as energy in the form of glycogen. Glycogen is stored in the muscles and liver and is made of carbs bound with water. When the stored carbs are used for energy, the water is released as well. This is particularly noticeable in steep calorie deficits or low-carb approaches.  

Sodium also plays a role in the initial rapid scale drop. Our body maintains a specific concentration range of sodium in the body, so the more sodium, the more water your body holds to compensate. When your food intake decreases, your sodium intake tends to drop as well. As a result, you carry less water weight.

Finally, food in of itself has mass, and thus weight. Digestion is a fairly slow process, and it takes a while for your meals to pass through your gut. Therefore, any food in transit through your system will add to your total body weight. Since you’re usually eating less food when dieting, there’s usually less food weight in your system.

It’s difficult to quantify exactly how much weight you’ll lose from these early factors. As such, I wouldn’t worry too much about trying to figure out exactly how much you’ll lose in this timeframe. The most important thing to note, however, is that this rate of weight loss does not continue forever. This early dieting phase usually evens out after the first couple of weeks. Past that point, changes on the scale become much more subtle, and gradual.

Now the real question becomes: how fast should you lose weight moving forward – and how do you know if you’re on track?

Later Diet

After the early phase, rates of weight loss become easier to interpret. While there is no one-size-fits-all rate for weight loss, you can look at some approximate ranges to estimate whether you’re on track or not. 

Many folks like to default to evaluating progress based on a certain static number of pounds lost per week or month. One such commonly touted value is a pound a week for weight loss. While it’s true that this rate works fine for many, it’s a bit too broad a stroke for my taste. Some people have a lot of body fat to lose and can safely do so at a faster rate. Conversely, individuals who are extremely lean may be looking to lose a couple of pounds a month at the most. 

I like to use percentages instead, since they can scale with overall bodyweight. As above, I still wouldn’t recommend using weekly rates of weight loss to really assess progress. So, with a reasonable calorie deficit, I’d say you can expect to lose approximately 2-5% of your bodyweight per month. For example, for a 180-pound person, that would come out to about 4-9 pounds per month. While this is a pretty wide range of results to pull from, it is due to factors such as differing lifestyles, activity levels, body sizes, body fat percentages, and caloric intakes. 

Conclusion

Overall, I want to stress that this is one of those things you probably shouldn’t agonize too much over, as tempting as it may be. Weight tends to fluctuate regardless of what you do. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to focus on the things that are more directly in your direct control: namely, your food intake and activity levels. As long as trends are headed in the right direction, at a reasonable pace, you’re doing just fine.