How long do you think it will take me to lose this weight?

[Sandalison]

I am 73 kg (11 stone and a bit). My bmi is 24, so I am not technically overweight. But my clothes are tight and I feel uncomfortable.

I am now 36. Ten years ago I was 9 stone and looked healthy and great, but I had an active job that had me on my feet all day.
Now I am older, have a sedentary job, plus I am working from home now due to covid. I have been steadily piling on the pounds over the last 10 years.

I want to get down to 65Kg, so 8kg / 18lb to lose

I have tried several times in the past few years to “blast” it and lose the weight in a couple of months, but my new strict diet/exercise regime never last more than a fortnight tops, because I drop the water weight, then plateau, get demotivated and give up. Possibly I set my aims too high and it’s unrealistic?

Other times I have decided to “do it slowly so it will last” but because I’m not actually overweight at the moment, I wonder whether any small adjustments will actually result in any weight loss at all. I read it’s harder work to get the weight off within the normal bmi range?

I just don’t know what’s a realistic time frame for the loss I want to achieve. I want to set myself some goals that will mean I can keep the weight off, and also see progress and stay motivated.

Can anyone help me?

It is definitely harder to lose weight if you are closer to a healthy weight (which you are). You are right to not let it creep up though & tackle it in your 30s if needed vs in 40s when peri menopause can be a factor

Why not set goal as half that, and focus on losing 4-5 pounds at first which will make your clothes more comfortable? That would be doable in a ,month (maybe 2) and then you can consider what your next goal is?

Thank you for the encouragement. So about 1lb a week is doable? Thank you!

Yes, I would say so... I’d aim to track what you eat/need using my fitness pal, and create a deficit of 3,500 to 5,000 calories a week. 3500 calories is a pound, and that’s only a 500 difference a day which is really achievable

You can do this by:

• walking 10k steps a day which would get you using 3-400 calories a day (or you can do any exercise you like, I’m suggesting walking as it’s easy to fit into life)
• creating a calorie deficit of 3-500 calories a day .. in so many ways
• less booze/sugar/fatty foods etc, skim milk instead of semi, cutting your carb portions by a third., using less oil while cooking, having a bit more veg and a bit less everything else etc

TBH, I’d just think of some things that have worked for you on the past and repeat those as everyone’s body and lifestyle is different

Re being demotivated - I’ve just downloaded an app called ‘happy scale’ (recommended by another poster) which averages out your weekly loss & breaks goals down into small chunks ... it looks good to me!