Lose slowly

Aim for about half a kilo to one kilo a week, which is roughly one to two pounds. That is the range most people can hold for months without feeling wrecked. A faster drop often includes water and muscle, not only fat, and the weight tends to return when the strict stretch ends.

The first week can look quicker than this. Starting a deficit often empties stored carbohydrate and the water that sits with it. That is not a new rate of fat loss. Judge the line after two or three weeks, not after the first Monday.

A crash cut makes training worse, sleep lighter, and the next meal louder. People then quit, eat back more than they cut, and call it a failed diet. The scale was never measuring willpower. It was measuring a plan that was too small to live on.

Muscle you lose on a hard deficit is harder to replace than the fat. Keeping the loss slow, and keeping some strength work in the week, is how the weight you drop is more likely to be fat.

If you are losing more than about 1 kg or 2 lb a week for more than a week or two, add food back. A larger dinner or a planned snack is enough. Do not “make up for it” with a weekend that erases the log. Change the daily target, then keep logging.

If the line is flat for three or four weeks and the diary is honest, the calorie estimate may be a little high for you. Trim a small amount, not another 500 kcal. A plateau of a week is normal and is not a reason to slash the day.

Someone else’s month is not your target. Taller people, heavier people, and people new to a deficit often drop faster at the start. The useful question is whether your own chart is drifting down at a pace you can still train, sleep, and eat with other people.

Use the same units you chose on your profile, metric or imperial. Switching units mid-month makes the slope look like a crisis when it is only a conversion.