How long will you lose a lb a week?

[bogboxoffrogs]

I am losing weight at about a lb a week and all the time that happens I will just carry on.
But how long will I lose a lb a week? Surely this won’t be continuous or I’d end up one stone.
Will there be a point where I just stay the same and not lose any more? Or will I keep losing until I am underweight?
I keep trying to calculate how much I’ll lose by certain dates at a rate of a lb a week but I’m not sure how long I’ll be losing at that rate.
What happens to signal the end of weight loss and how do you know when you are there?

Well the more weight you lose, the fewer calories your body needs to maintain the weight you are, so at some point your basal calorific requirements will become equal to your food intake and you’ll stop losing as you won’t be in a calorie deficit any more.

You will keep losing until you stabilise at a point where your intake equals your output.

I've had that thought too! I've been on Mounjaro for just over a year and lost weight quickly at first, and am now losing at the rate of 1lb a week. It's lovely and steady and has been this way for the past 5 - 6 months. If I don't lost 1lb in a week, I'll usually maintain and then lose 2lbs the following week. I have 2 x stone to go, so in effect, 28 weeks if this keeps going, which I hope it will!

Recently I was on holiday abroad for 3 weeks and in that time, ate a bit more, drank a bit more and had a few more treats - some crisps most days - nothing outrageous and didn't go bonkers, but when I came home I hadn't lost any weight - so basically had practiced maintenance for 3 weeks! So I thought that's what I'll do when I get to my goal weight - just increase portion sizes slightly and allow a few treats - not go crazy, but add a few hundred calories into my eating each week and hopefully that will keep me at maintenance without putting weight on.

That's the theory, anyway...! 😀

I mean theoretically if you remain in enough of a calorie deficit you'll keep losing weight forever, until eventually you go into organ failure and die (apologies for being graphic but people suffering from anorexia and famine victims do die in this way).

In reality in the western world with food readily available and if you are not suffering from a serious mental or physical illness, what actually happens is you either keep eating the same amount of food but weight loss slows down and then stops (due to thermodynamic / metabolic changes) because your body is now smaller, what was previously a caloric deficit is now the amount your body needs to maintain weight. Or you'll deliberately start eating more, because you don't want to lose more weight, or even if you are still trying to eat in a deficit you will start feeling extremely hungry and weak, and will be unable to prevent yourself eating more. Your body is in general pretty good at surviving so even if you are altering it with hormones/WLDs, it still usually instinctively won't allow you to lose more weight than is healthy, just like how you usually can't hold your breath until you pass out...