Goal Weight Timeline Calculator
This calculator projects how long a goal weight takes at a chosen rate of loss. It expresses rate as a percentage of current body weight rather than a fixed number of pounds per week, and it recalculates week by week — which produces a slower and considerably more realistic answer than dividing the total by a fixed rate.
Your result
Fill in the fields on the left and your result appears here.
Why rate is a percentage, not a fixed amount
A fixed weekly loss is not sustainable across a whole journey, because the same absolute loss becomes a progressively larger share of a shrinking body. Losing a pound a week at 250 pounds is a very different proposition from losing a pound a week at 160.
Expressing the rate as a percentage of current weight keeps the physiological demand roughly constant. The consequence is that absolute weekly loss slows as you get lighter, which is what actually happens — and why timelines produced by simple division are consistently too optimistic.
The projection here steps forward one week at a time, applying the percentage to that week's weight, rather than dividing the total by an average.
- Around 0.5% of body weight per week is a commonly recommended moderate pace.
- Faster rates increase the share of loss coming from lean tissue, so speed has a composition cost.
- Slower rates are easier to sustain and easier to combine with training, which is most of what determines the outcome.
Track it, don't recalculate it.
Pep AI logs your weight, meals and protein alongside your schedule, so the numbers on this page turn into a trend instead of a one-off. Free on iOS and Android.
What the projection cannot know
This is arithmetic, not a prediction. Real weight loss is not smooth: plateaus lasting several weeks are normal, water fluctuations routinely obscure the trend, and energy expenditure falls as you get lighter, so maintaining the same rate requires ongoing adjustment.
The number is most useful as a reality check on expectations rather than a schedule to hold yourself to. A timeline measured in months rather than weeks is the normal answer for most goals, and that framing tends to be more valuable than the precise figure.
Frequently asked questions
This calculator is general information for healthy adults, not medical or dietary advice. It applies published population formulas and cannot account for your clinical situation. Where a clinician has set you a target, that target replaces this one.
Built by the Pep AI team.