Question

Sally is on a diet to lose some weight. She is losing weight at a rate of 2 pounds

per week. After 6 weeks, her weight is 204 pounds. Write and solve a linear
equation to find how many weeks it will take Sally to reach her target weight of 180
pounds.

Answer 1

204-2w=180 (where w is the amount of weeks)

w=12

(If you need the total amount, including the 6 weeks, add 6 to 12 to get 18)

Explanation:

Sally is technically starting at 204 pounds and losing 2 per week. Therefore, that can be modeled as 204-2w because if she loses 2 per week you subtract that from the starting weight. You want to then set it equal to 180 and solve for w.

`204-2w=180\\-2w=-24\\w=12`