Can You Lose Weight too Quickly?

When you’re continually told that being fat is bad for your health, it is not surprising that you can find yourself turning to various fad diets which claim you will lose huge amounts of weight quickly. It’s hard work losing weight, anyway, and so anything that helps speed up the process is obviously going to appeal to people. Unfortunately, the body is not really designed to facilitate weight loss and so you have to be patient to achieve long-lasting results. This might mean you only lose a pound or two a week, but it also increases your chances of reaching your goal weight and staying there.

It might be possible to lose large amounts of weight at the beginning of a diet, because your body is shocked into losing weight. After eating all you want, your body is suddenly being deprived of calories and the inevitable result is weight loss. Fad diets certainly shake things up, but it’s worth realising that the majority of fad diets might focus solely on drastic calorie reduction, but the implication of not getting enough calories is that you could end up jeopardising your health as well. If you’re told you can only eat certain food groups in order to lose weight, the chances are you will miss out on vital nutrients.

Patience can be hard to find when you’re trying to lose weight, because you’re very much aware of where you are and where you would prefer to be. When you have a substantial amount of weight to lose, you visualise losing the weight within a matter of weeks, so that you can soon go back to eating normally. However, it was probably your normal way of eating that caused the problem in the first place. Fad diets do nothing to get you thinking about long-term weight management, which you can only do through watching your calorie intake and balancing it out against your calorie expenditure.

Ideally, then, you should take this approach to weight loss from the start. You may be able to lose weight quickly on a fad diet, but some of that weight will be the result of water and muscle loss, and you can only stick to such a diet for so long, because it is usually restrictive, which can be bad for your health. It can also become rather soul-destroying, having to eat the same thing day in, day out, and ultimately your motivation levels will decline.

VLCDs might seem like a good idea, as well, as you will lose weight even faster than with other diets, and they’re nutritionally-balanced, but there is also the danger of developing gallstones and of being left with saggy skin. Plus, so many people who go on these diets end up just as heavy, if not heavier, once they stop drinking the calorie-controlled shakes and start eating proper food again.

Clearly, if you’re extremely overweight, losing a significant amount of weight will benefit your health, but it’s also worth bearing in mind that you can lose weight too quickly. If you do lose a large amount of weight extremely quickly, there is a good chance you will just gain it all back, which will mean you have wasted your time for no reason.