Huge weight losses in Week One or Two. Surely not sustainable?

[erebus]

I must quickly say I really hope they are for the people to whom they've happened, but I cannot believe that say an 11lb weight loss in 2 weeks can possibly stay off! Or can it?

I am thinking about a moderately overweight person, who has maybe 2-3 stone to lose rather than a morbidly obese person whose weight loss would occur very differently, but, to my mind, weight that's taken a few years to go on can't possibly be gone for ever in a couple of weeks- or can it?

I would have thought you'd risk your metabolism going into starvation mode with sudden, big weight losses (obviously brought on by a sudden cessation of high food intake)..

IS it that modern, scientifically researched diets will allow such losses without 'payback'? Which would be good news indeed! I'd always assumed that you more or less had to lose weight at the rate of 1-2 lbs a week in order to fool your body that all was well, no need to panic!

What do you think?

I lost 10lbs in the first two weeks when I joined slimming world years ago, I went on to lose a total of 3st over a period of about 9 months. It was sustainable in that those 10lbs never went back on again but it isn't a sustainable rate in that you can't expect to keep losing weight at that rate.

Initially I was losing 3-5lbs a week and as I got slimmer I was losing 1-2lbs each week, the final 4-5lbs were the hardest to shift.

Most of the weight from big losses comes from water that you're holding onto. Also if you're eating a lot of calories (which you would be in order to maintain your size) then to drop suddenly to around 1500 is probably going to see a big loss at first, but it won't carry on the next weeks you'll just lose 2 or so.

Your body won't go into starvation mode because you're eating 1500 or 1200 calories a day. Your body won't go into starvation mode until you're a lot under you're ideal weight and then if you're actually starving or eating very low amount of calories. An overweight person is very unlikely to go into starvation mode.

By the way when I'm using 'you' here, I don't actually mean YOU just generally

Also you will put it back on if you eat more food the next week. But if you carry on with the 1500 or whatever calories it will stay off and continue to come off.

Yes I think that can happen & stay off IF the person continues on the diet, although the lost in subsequent weeks may well be a lot less. I lost 1/2 stone in first 2 weeks but then lost 2lbs each week for several weeks after that.

As others have said the initial loss is water you are holding and it can be significant. And no body will not go into starvation mode whilst overweight otherwise VLCD wouldn't work (and they do if you stick to them).

Of course if the person stops dieting the weight will immediately go back on - because it wasn't fat stores that were lost it was just water.