How Much Fat Can You Lose In One Month?

How much fat can you lose safely in one month? 

(In case you don’t want to watch the video)

Now I love this question because it may not be a month for you, it may be three months for you. But regardless, this kind of sets the stage for what kind of timeline you’re looking at for fat loss.

What we tend to do here at Fitness Revolution is operate by a little bit of a guideline. The human body can safely lose half of a percent to one percent of its body weight each week. So, that kind of gives you some numbers to play around with.

Basic guideline

If you are two hundred-fifty pounds or up, you can lose anywhere from about a pound and a half or three pounds a week. You’re around two hundred pounds, about one or two pounds a week.

If you’re a hundred and fifty pounds, you’re looking at about three-quarters of a pound to a pound and a quarter a week, and if you’re less than that, you’re looking at about half a pound to maybe one pound a week. This kind of sets a timeline up.

Now first off, for people who are wanting to drop fat, does this mean you are guaranteed to lose a half percent or one percent each week? No. It does not. What we also have to remember is fat loss is not linear. Meaning that you will not lose the exact same amount of fat each week.

There will be some weeks you may drop two pounds, one week you may only drop half a pound, and even some weeks that you may not lose any pounds at all. It does happen. It’s not a bad thing.

We came up with this formula because this is the trend we have seen when we have helped people lose body fat over the course of three to four month period. This is what they tend to average on a good safe timeline– about a half of a percent to one percent a week.

Can you lose it faster safely?

The reason I put in ‘safely’ is to remove the context of the crash diets of lose twenty pounds in twenty days, and thirty pounds in thirty days. There are realistically about two kinds of people that I can see losing a little faster than that, safely.

First one is people that are really significantly overweight, or have a very high level of body fat. Men tend to be twenty-five percent and up, women that are carrying a little bit of over thirty percent body fat, they can lose a little faster because they have a little bit more to lose.

The other type of individual is an ex athlete. Someone who spends, let’s say ten years of their life being active, they got injured, set on the sideline, have been inactive for the past maybe one or two years, and their getting back into the scheme of things. You will see those individuals lose a little quicker too.

Now, for those that are on the other end of the spectrum, the people that are actually a little leaner (let’s say men eight percent and below, and women that are below fourteen percent). In these cases, it’s going to be a little slower at that point in time because you don’t have that much fat to lose, and if you’re trying to get any leaner, you’re going to have to use a little bit more science and manipulation.

But again guys, this is the timeline we operate. So, realistically and safely the human body can lose anywhere from a half percent to one percent of its weight each week.

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