A couple of days ago someone told me suggested that its only healthy to lose 1lb per week. However when I discussed this with someone off line they told me that this is to low and WeightWatchers in the UK targets 2-3lb per week. So I have looking around there website and found a page where someone was described as losing 2-3lb per week.

WeightWatchers.co.uk: Success Stories - Before & After

So is it or is it not healthy to lose more than 1lb per week. If there is 14lb in a stone I aim to lose 2 stone so I would be delighted to lose 2-3lb per week.

I think you're referring to me who said that comment. I didn't say you have to lose 1 pounds per week. I was giving an example of it.

Let's say your MT calories is 2500. To lose 1 pounds per week, you go for 2000 calories, that's 3500 calories per week (or 1 pounds per week).

It's is perfectly fine to lose 2 pounds per week. As a matter of fact, first time weight lost will probably be in the area of 4-5 pounds per week, then slowly dropping down to a lost of 1-2 pounds.

You can lose much more than a pound a week, but you can only really lose 2 pounds of fat a week, you can lose more by losing muscle.

I know I've lost fat as my work shirts are getting baggy. I'm going to monitor by my waist, I want to lose about 4". At about 1mm a day lol, that would do nicely.

the more you lose the more likley it is that some of it is muscle. However, if you are very overweight, losing more than 1lbs a week won't really hurt you. If you're someone with a bit of muscle looking to cut to get defined, you got a whole different problem on your hands.

Im happy with my arms I just want to get abs. Getting abs sounds like a sin sometimes. First of all I want to lose weight because this will give me a real boost and it takes me 2 years to get muscle then so be it.

Getting well defined abs means first building up enough muscle by doing exercises, and then cutting down your total body fat percentage while preserving muscle. You don't want to lose too much weight too fast because you will also lose a lot of muscle.

The reason there is a rule of thumb about the average person (read: not hugely obese) losing 1-2 lbs a week is that losing more than that will be muscle and water loss, not fat. So, when you see someone who is the average overweight person, and they lose 3, 4, 5 lbs a week or whatever, you can bet on it that they lost muscle and water along with the fat they were trying to get rid of.

Impatience can screw up a good plan in a heartbeat.

Water loss is a big factor with people who say they've lost 4 or 5 pounds in a week, a change in diet can cause your bodys salt levels to drop and you then retain less water

Measuring weight loss or gain every week is pretty pointless anyway, I could go to the toilet right now and lose a couple of lbs. Weighing yourself once a month should easily be often enough

i once lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks. it didn't turn out well.

How? What happened to you? Have you managed to sort yourself since then?

i was put on a really terrible diet, i forget now what it was called, by a trainer i was working with at the time, and he also had me working out pretty intensely for the first few weeks. that was about 3 years ago though. im ok now, but it took several months of reconstruction to fix. and a new trainer.
i'd stick to the 2lbs a week ritual if i was trying to lose.

Do you go from being fat to thin?

i was fairly overweight at the time. just starting to get into fitness.