Ep. 66 How Much Weight Should a Teen Lose in a Month?

In this episode of Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens, I’m answering one of the most common questions I hear: “How much weight can I lose in a week or in a month?”

The answer might surprise you! I’m breaking down what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for healthy weight loss in teens, why fast weight loss can actually hurt your metabolism, and how small, consistent changes can lead to long-term success. I’ll also share why having the right kind of support can make all the difference.

🎯 Safe, sustainable, and realistic—that’s what we’re aiming for!

📩 Want support on your journey? Join the waitlist when I open my program for enrolment: 

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 🎁 And don’t forget to grab your FREE resources to get started!

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Transcript

Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle and Weight  Loss For Teens podcast. This is Dr. Jenny Gourgari and today's episode I'm gonna answer a question that I've been asked a lot, and the question is, how much weight can I lose in a month, or how much weight can I lose in a week? Now this question does not have a straightforward answer because all teenagers do not have the same starting weight.

 So somebody that is significantly overweight has, let's say 50 pounds above their ideal weight compared to somebody who has 10 pounds above their ideal weight. Those two teenagers are not the same. And what that means is that even if they consume the same amount of food that gives them the recommended amount of carbohydrates, proteins, and fat that they need, they may not have the same result because they don't have the same starting point. And the reason I say that is because I don't want teenagers to be disappointed because their friend followed the same dietary plan or did the same type of activity, and all of a sudden they lost 10 pounds in a month and this teenager only lost four pounds in a month. There are many factors that play a role into how much weight is expected into different teenagers. 

American Academy of Pediatrics does give a recommendation of what is considered overall healthy weight loss in teenagers, and that is that they should not exceed one to two pounds of weight loss every week.

Okay, so on average that gives you four pounds to eight pounds per month would be an absolutely amazing result to get. Now what happens if teenagers have more weight loss than that? Is this a bad thing and can that have negative consequences? We have compare what are their starting points and what methods do they use in order to get to that effect? We know that a lot of times when teenagers try to have excessive weight loss that is way above the numbers, let's say way above two pounds per week usually they try to achieve this by excessive food restriction. Sometimes they do restrict also the fluids or they get into unhealthy habits like causing vomiting or getting laxatives and all those things which are really very unhealthy behaviors.

We know that it's not only how much weight you can lose in one month, but what can you do to have sustainable weight loss? Have weight loss in a way that feels more like a healthy lifestyle? And when you lose the weight, it doesn't feel restrictive. It doesn't feel like  I'll do my best to get to this healthy weight. And then once this period of one month or two months, or three months is over and you lose all that weight, then you're like, Ooh, great. Now I'm gonna go back. And you start overeating because you feel so deprived, so exhausted from the diet, and then all the weight comes back. So be careful when you are aiming for weight loss that is in excess of one to two pounds per week.

What methods you're using? Because if you are using any of those unhealthy patterns, restrictive diets, it's very likely that even though you may get that effect, that's not gonna be sustainable. And then after a few months, you'll end up on 0.0 where you started. which will make you feel even more frustrated, even more sad, and you wasted a lot of energy and building up a lot of unhealthy behaviors for nothing. 

 The second thing that excessive weight loss can do is it can actually mess up your metabolism because your body does not know what's going on. if you're following restrictive patterns of eating, your body may get into what the body believes to be a starvation mode. You may slow down your metabolism because your body feels there's not enough food around. your body stops breaking down fat because your body wants to preserve whatever fat is in your body in order to maintain your energy.

So Having excessive caloric restriction, actually hurts your metabolism, your body slow down your metabolism with excessive caloric restriction compared to having normal caloric requirements. So the goal is not to have significantly low caloric requirements than what your body needs. your goal is to have your ideal requirements, don't have excess calories. So that's why it's important to have a healthier lifestyle that will give you a balanced diet and build healthy habits that will not lead to immediate weight loss and weight gain, but rather a steady, gradual weight loss that then you can maintain without effort because it feels natural.

So my approach is to create small, consistent habits. This has been shown from multiple studies that lifestyle modification compared to restrictive diets is what works for sustainable weight loss in teenagers

, what can make your chances of getting that healthy weight loss even better? What increases your chances is to have a team, to have a support, to have an accountability partner that you can create weekly goals and make sure you're meeting those goals and then readjust your schedule as you talk back and forth. What went well, what didn't go well, research has shown that teenagers need at least 26 hours of support over several months to get to that result. It's not gonna happen overnight.

And think about this, when it took you two years, three years, four years, 10 years to get where you are today don't expect that you will get your ideal weight within three months, or even within six months, or even within a year. Give yourself enough time through sustainable, healthy habits, through sustainable support from professionals and that will get you to your ideal weight. And then you don't have to yo-yo up and down and go back to where you started.

So that's all I had for you to today. So now you have a number that you can target. You don't need to get into excessive restrictive diets because that can actually hurt your metabolism. 

If you like this today, go to lifestyle.com and click on free resources to learn more how to jumpstart your Journey. And if you're interested to learn more about my program, you can also sign up at lifestyleforteens.com/wait there's no commitment. You just get on the wait list for whenever I open my program for enrollment.

Talk to you next week.