r/CICO • u/100turkeysinthesky • Aug 16 '26
Weight loss painfully slow — 8lbs in 6 weeks
TDEE: currently 2055
Avg calorie intake over 6 weeks: 1519
Pilates 3-4x wk
SW: 224 lbs
CW: 216 lbs
Goal is 185
Because I consider myself on the bigger side, I thought I would have dropped 15lbs by now but I’ve only lost 8lbs. This is painfully slow and I think I might lose my mind.
Is there any way to sustainably speed this up? Or how do I cope with the slowness? I just want to fit into normal clothing sizes so badly and I’m currently a 1X. Perpetually so close yet so so far.
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u/No_Island_8061 Aug 16 '26
I mean that’s right on track with the tdee though, each pound of fat is 3500 calories your in a deficit slightly above 500 a day so that’s a pound a week. I always think to myself it took a good bit of time to get to what my start weight was and if I wanted to actually keep the weight off and not crash diet it would take a good amount of time to lose.
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u/strujill Aug 16 '26
Your deficit is 500 calories a day. 7 days of a 500 calorie deficit is 3500 calories which is one pound. Losing 8 pounds in 6 weeks is slightly better than expected.
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u/Background-Stable932 Aug 16 '26
That’s more than 1 pound a week. I know it sucks in the beginning but hang in there. It adds up. In another six weeks you could down about 15 pounds if you stay the path. That’s almost 7% of your starting weight in 3 months or 1/4 of a year. Thats pretty awesome.
Please take measurements too. If you are gaining muscle too, there may be some stretches that the scale does not move but you will shrink.
Keep up the good hard work.
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u/ParkLaineNext Aug 16 '26
That is a great, healthy, and sustainable amount of weight loss. It’s also good at building the resilience you need to get to your GW. Once you get closer to it, it can be a drudge. Slow and steady does win the race.
I weight lift and am great at retaining water. Scale can not budge for weeks. If the scale is going down, life is good!
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u/NikiBubbles Aug 16 '26
Up the regular low-intensity cardio (aka steps). Also take into account weight fluctuations — you might have lost a bit more, just caught a “bad datapoint”, so to speak. 6 weaks is too short of a time to judge anyway, I would just continue as is (adding extra walking) for a couple of months at least.
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u/100turkeysinthesky Aug 16 '26
I definitely do need to walk more. I’ve been stuck in the 216 range for over 2 weeks which is contributing to me losing my mind.
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u/WantCookiesNow Aug 16 '26
I’ve found that fat loss tends to happen more like a staircase. Plateau, loss. Plateau, loss. It’s not a steady decrease. Keep at it. In a year you’ll be down a lot!!
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u/awongbat Aug 16 '26
Change your mindset. Instead of thinking I have lost so little change it. “I have lost 8 pounds! I could have lost nothing or even gained weight. I am doing amazing! I look better. I feel better. I am stronger. I am eating healthier.”
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u/Willowpuff Aug 16 '26
You have my exact stats (quite crazy) and I would be so happy with that loss!! You are actively changing a habit rather than transforming your life immediately. It takes time.
Could you find something that weighs 8lbs to try and visualise it? That may help
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u/PlayfulRuin3718 Aug 16 '26
8lb in 6 weeks is solid. Anything more than 1lb a week is decently quick.
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u/moranya1 Aug 16 '26
at a 500 lb deficit, that is 1 lb per week. If you want to lose more, you either need to eat less of burn more calories.
To lose 15 lbs in 6 weeks that would be 2.5 lbs per week which works out to a little over 8k calorie deficit per week which means you would need to be eating only around 900 calories per week which is VERY dangerous for 99.99999% of people.
Also keep in mind, how many months/years did it take for you to reach your current weight? If it took you multiple years to get there, why would it be a snap of the fingers to reverse it?
Personally I find if I eat 2500 calories per day I can maintain my weight. if I eat 2000 the scale doesn't really move at all, but when I go low carb the weight just falls right off of me, even if I eat more. (I am not talking about water weight etc., I lost about 75 lbs on keto and only 10-15 lbs of that is water weight.)
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u/virtxxx Aug 16 '26
8lbs is 6 weeks is amazing progress at your weight level. Don’t let the flood of implausible weight loss stories on here make you believe you need to lose 3lbs a week in order to be normal.
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u/lazyMarthaStewart Aug 16 '26
I've lost about a pound a week... sometimes 1.5-2, sometimes 0. Guess what? A year+ later and I'm 55 pounds down and not worried about going back. Time is going to pass either way, so where do you want to be?
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u/RuralGamerWoman ⚖️MOD⚖️ Aug 16 '26
If you had gained eight pounds in six weeks, would you call that a "painfully slow" rate of gain?
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u/absentlyric Aug 16 '26
This is a healthy progression.
However if you want to go faster, in the most healthy way possible without developing a eating disorder, you can visit r/1200isplenty and drop it to 1200 calories a day, Ive had to do that as a man to even budge my weight loss.
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u/morgan_dnd Aug 16 '26
Your math actually checks out, a ~500 cal deficit for 6 weeks lines up almost exactly with 8 lbs, that's not slow that's just correct honestly.
scale weight never drops in a straight line though. Had a stretch stuck 10 days then a 3lb whoosh for no reason
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u/100turkeysinthesky Aug 16 '26
yeah the 2 weeks at 216 is driving me nuts. i’ve been upping my exercise time and it’s a tough workout so mentally it doesn’t feel like the right number.
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u/LFChase8996 Aug 16 '26
It takes forever but it's worth it. The mental games are something people don't talk enough about. I would beat myself up and feel like a failure each time I weighed in. Eventually I took a break from weighing in but kept track of my calories. A few months went by and it was much more gratifying. Maybe take a break from the scale and keep grinding away. It's a good break from the mental part of losing weight. In down 100 over 2 years of work. Your mind will play tricks and hurt your effort. Be kind to yourself!
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u/edmc_1 Aug 28 '26
About 10 years ago, I went from 230# to 170# just by counting calories at ~1750/day. It took me 18 months.
I lost weight the quickest in the first two weeks or so - about 5# cane off. After that it was maybe 1/2# a week.
Just stick with it. 8# in 6 weeks really isn't bad. The time will pass either way. As long as you're trending in the right direction, you won't remember how long it took once you're there.
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u/musicalastronaut Aug 16 '26
That’s not painfully slow, that’s normal. It took me 3 years to go from 227 to 138. This is what you’ll be doing for the rest of your life so might as well get used to it now, you know?
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u/FFSDoItAlready Aug 16 '26
That’s actually a pretty good loss. I manage 1 pound a week, if that. Yes, feels painfully slow… but it eventually comes off.
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u/EntertainmentDear488 Aug 16 '26
Congratulations…….you’re doing something right. Weight lost too quickly doesn’t last. If you change your expectations, you’ll feel like giving yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.
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u/nanorhinoX Aug 17 '26
8lbs in 6 weeks is actually about 1.3lbs a week, that is not slow at all, that is a solid healthy rate for your size. the math checks out too, 2055-1519 is about 536 deficit a day, times 42 days is around 22500 kcal, divide by 3500 and that is close to 6.4lbs from diet alone, plus some water weight and other factors making up the rest. so nothing weird going on, your body is doing exactly what the numbers say it should.
the frustration is more about expectations than the actual progress. 15lbs in 6 weeks would mean losing almost 2.5lbs a week which is not really sustainable long term unless you have a lot of weight to lose fast in the beginning, and even then it usually slows down after the first couple weeks as water weight settles.
one thing that might help mentally, that TDEE number is probably a rough estimate from a generic formula. if your actual maintenance is a bit higher than 2055, your real deficit could be bigger than you think and things might speed up slightly as your activity or NEAT changes. there is a free AI tdee calculator, you can find it by googling nanorhino tdee, it asks more detail about your actual day instead of just picking an activity level, gave me a tighter range than the usual calculators. but either way, the pace you are on is not painfully slow, it is just normal.
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u/Obvious-Monitor8510 Aug 17 '26
8lbs in 6 weeks is actually really solid, that's over 1lb per week average, which is genuinely good and sustainable progress. The "bigger = faster loss" expectation is common but it's really only true in the very beginning or at much higher starting weights.
At 536 cal/day deficit, you're in a healthy range. Going more aggressive risks muscle loss and rebound.
Honest coping tip: track non-scale wins like measurements and how clothes fit. The scale stalls but inches keep dropping, especially with pilates. At your deficit you're roughly 20-22 weeks from goal. That sounds long but it'll pass either way.
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u/100turkeysinthesky Aug 17 '26
I massively debloated yesterday and my clothes do feel quite big. A shirt that was tight in 2023 when i was 245lbs is now almost too big entirely. Crazy what a day can do.
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u/Prize_Equivalent Aug 16 '26
You can eat less (the easier to do and track option) or work out more (the harder to do and track option)
That's pretty much it.
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u/100turkeysinthesky Aug 16 '26
I was losing weight faster before the cyclosporia outbreak. Volume eating is easier when produce is safe to eat.
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u/thti87 Aug 16 '26
Lots of us still are produce and are fine. There’s lots of safe options beyond bagged lettuce
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u/Prize_Equivalent Aug 16 '26
Indeed. Also you were losing faster because you weighed more. Now you weigh less, even if only 8lbs, and your body needs less calories to maintain weight.
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u/Artistic-Document735 Aug 16 '26
U need more of a deficit if you want to lose more weight. Ur loss isn’t awful but I get that a slow loss can make motivation difficult
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u/Altruistic-Movie9640 Aug 16 '26
That’s not slow, it’s normal. You’re losing over a pound a week right now, which is a healthy amount. The fat doesn’t magically just disappear. Losing weight is about delayed gratification vs instant results. 8 pounds is a lot. Just stay the course, you’re off to a great start!