How fast should you lose weight, and when should you actually lower calories

How fast should you lose weight, and when should you actually lower calories? i saw a lot of people struggle with weight loss and calories during a cut on this subreddit.

A lot of people make fat loss harder than it needs to be because they assume faster = better.

For most people, a good target is roughly 0.5-1% of bodyweight per week.

If you’re already relatively lean and care about keeping as much muscle and strength as possible, I’d usually stay closer to 0.25-0.5% per week.

If you have more body fat to lose, 0.5-1% is generally more reasonable.

That’s why saying “everyone should lose 1 kg/week” doesn’t make much sense. 1 kg at 120 kg is very different from 1 kg at 65 kg.

I’d normally start with around a 10-20% calorie deficit from actual maintenance, not whatever a calculator says your maintenance is.

Then track your morning bodyweight and compare 7-day averages.

Don’t lower calories because the scale hasn’t moved for 3-4 days. Water, glycogen, sodium, food volume, stress, training and menstrual-cycle fluctuations can easily hide fat loss temporarily.

If your weekly average hasn’t moved for around 2-3 weeks despite actually being consistent, then make a small adjustment.

Usually 100-200 kcal is enough.

Protein is normally the last thing I’d reduce. For people lifting weights, around 1.6-2.2 g/kg/day is a solid range.

I’d also avoid pushing dietary fat extremely low. Somewhere around 0.6-0.8 g/kg is a practical lower range for many people.

After that, most of the remaining calories can come from carbs.

When I need to reduce calories further, I’ll usually remove some carbs, some fat, or a combination depending on the person.

For example:

25-40 g carbs = roughly 100-160 kcal

10-15 g fat = roughly 90-135 kcal

There’s no rule saying every adjustment has to come from carbs.

If someone trains much better with higher carbs, I’d rather keep more carbs and reduce a little fat. If they prefer higher-fat foods, I may do the opposite.

As you lose weight, your maintenance calories also gradually decrease. A lighter body costs less energy to maintain and move, and people often unconsciously move less during a diet too.

So eventually the calories that caused weight loss at the beginning may stop working as well.

That doesn’t mean your metabolism is “broken.” It usually just means your energy needs changed.

The biggest mistake is responding by slashing calories immediately.

More of a deficit can mean more hunger, worse training, poorer recovery, more fatigue and a greater risk of losing lean mass or simply giving up on the diet.

So the goal isn’t to eat as little as possible.

It’s to eat as much as possible while still losing weight at an appropriate rate.

If your weight is dropping at the target rate, change nothing.

If it genuinely stalls for 2-3 weeks, reduce calories slightly or increase activity slightly, then reassess.

That approach is usually much better for muscle retention, performance, recovery and actually sticking to the diet long enough to finish it.