We all want fast results…but are fast results always a good thing?
Unfortunately, they can actually be dangerous to your health!
In most cases, consistently losing over 2% of your body weight a week should raise concern and can become dangerous.
Rapid weight loss can lead to many side effects
Some examples provided from Healthline and Web MD would be :
•Hormonal issues
•Muscle loss
•Decreased energy
•Decreased metabolism
•Extreme Fatigue
•Compromised immune system
•Headaches
•Irritability
•Hair loss
•Dizziness
•Constipation
•Malnutrition
As you can see, this list is pretty lengthy. Getting your dream body quickly is not worth all these side effects that could keep you from enjoying your dream body.
Along with that long list, I’d like to add rebounding or “yo-yo dieting”. This happens when you start a diet that’s too restrictive and you don’t stick to it very long and rebound back to your old habits of eating and gain all the weight back, sometimes even more. Extremely restrictive/Low-calorie diets or “crash diets” are not built for longevity. They should only be used if prescribed by a doctor for a particular reason. Otherwise your weight loss should be slow and more gradual.
The goal with weight loss and being in a calorie deficit is to be able to eat as much as you can while still being in a deficit. This will set you up for long-term success and lower your chances of quitting.
So what should your goal be?
I usually have my clients shooting for losing around 1 pound a week, depending on their goal and starting position. NASM recommends .5%-1% of your body weight.
So, if you were 200 pounds that would be losing 1-2 pounds a week.
This will be different for everybody because we have to put weight, muscle, height, age, & gender into account. Typically, the more muscle you have, the more conservative you want to be with your weight loss to retain as much muscle as possible.
So, stay consistent in your slower weight loss and I promise you the results will be easier to achieve, more maintainable, and you will feel much better doing it!