Updated September 2026 How long your goal will take at a rate that keeps your muscle — and the deficit it requires
How this projection works
Most timeline calculators divide the weight you want to lose by a fixed weekly figure and print a date. That answer is always too optimistic, for a reason worth understanding: your rate of loss is not constant.
Losing 0.7 percent of bodyweight per week means 0.64 kg at 92 kg and 0.55 kg at 78 kg. As you get lighter, the same percentage is fewer kilograms, and the required deficit falls with your TDEE. This calculator steps week by week, recalculating the rate from your current weight each time, which is why it returns a slightly longer and considerably more honest timeline than the naive division.
Then: current weight = current weight − loss
Repeat until the goal is reached
Choosing your rate
The right rate is a percentage of bodyweight, not a fixed number of pounds. “Two pounds a week” is a sensible target for a 110 kg person and an aggressive one for a 60 kg person — same figure, completely different levels of stress.
| Body fat | Sustainable weekly rate | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Men over 25% / women over 35% | 0.8–1.2% | Plenty of fuel available; the body is under little pressure to spare it |
| Men 18–25% / women 28–35% | 0.6–0.9% | The comfortable middle for most people starting a diet |
| Men 12–18% / women 22–28% | 0.5–0.7% | Muscle retention becomes the limiting concern |
| Men under 12% / women under 22% | 0.3–0.5% | Your body defends remaining fat hard; go slowly |
The evidence for going slowly is reasonably direct. Garthe and colleagues compared athletes losing at 0.7 percent of bodyweight per week against those losing at 1.4 percent: both groups lost similar amounts of fat, but the slower group gained lean mass while the faster group lost it. Same fat outcome, opposite muscle outcome. The full argument is in how fast you should lose weight.
Turning a rate into calories
One kilogram of body fat stores roughly 7,700 calories; one pound about 3,500.
Two guardrails matter more than the arithmetic. Keep the deficit between 15 and 25 percent of your TDEE even if the target rate asks for more — if it does, the rate is wrong, not the arithmetic. And respect an absolute floor: for most adults, intake below roughly 1,200 calories for women or 1,500 for men makes adequate protein and micronutrition genuinely difficult. If your projection pushes you there, raise activity rather than cutting further.
What the date does and does not mean
Treat the projected date as a planning tool, not a promise. Three things will move it:
- Water weight obscures the early weeks. The first week often shows two to three kilograms of loss, most of it glycogen and the water bound to it. The rate then appears to collapse. Neither reading is the real trend — judge on three-week averages.
- Your TDEE falls as you shrink. A smaller body burns less, at rest and in motion. Recalculate every 5 kg or the deficit you set at the start quietly disappears — the most common cause of an apparent plateau.
- Spontaneous movement declines. NEAT drops in a deficit without any conscious decision, and can close a third of your deficit while your training log looks identical. A daily step floor is the best defence.
A worked example
A 92 kg person aiming for 78 kg at 0.7 percent per week, with a TDEE of 2,700.
Required deficit: (0.64 × 7,700) ÷ 7 = 708 kcal/day
That is 26% of TDEE — above the 25% guideline
Better: cut 25% (675 kcal) and accept a slightly longer timeline
That second line is the useful output of this whole exercise. The calculator will happily project a date, but if hitting it requires a deficit larger than a quarter of your maintenance, the honest response is to lengthen the timeline rather than deepen the cut.
Plan the ending too
Most diets do not fail during the diet — they fail in the fortnight afterwards, when the structure disappears and appetite is still elevated. Before you start, decide what happens on the day you hit the goal. Our guide to coming off a cut covers the week-by-week protocol, and the short version is: recalculate maintenance at your new weight, climb toward it at 50 to 100 calories a week, and stay there for at least eight weeks before considering anything else.
Weight loss timeline — FAQ
Because we recalculate your rate each week from your current weight rather than applying a fixed weekly loss. Losing 0.7 percent of bodyweight means fewer kilograms as you get lighter, so the honest projection is longer than a simple division suggests.
0.5 to 1.0 percent of bodyweight per week, with the upper end reserved for people carrying substantial body fat and the lower end for those already lean. For a 90 kg person that is roughly 0.45 to 0.9 kg a week.
Glycogen and the water bound to it. Each gram of stored glycogen holds roughly three grams of water, so cutting calories or carbohydrate produces a fast initial drop that is mostly fluid. Expect the rate to fall sharply in week two — that is normal.
Yes. Recalculate your TDEE every time your weight changes by about 5 kg. A smaller body burns less both at rest and in motion, so a target set at your starting weight represents a shrinking deficit over time.
Then the rate is too aggressive for your size. Keep the deficit between 15 and 25 percent of your TDEE and accept a longer timeline — a smaller deficit you sustain for four months beats a larger one you abandon in five weeks.