Losing more than a pound or two a week is not healthy. Rapid weight loss is bad for two main reasons.

Lose weight fast and you will lose muscle

First of all, if you lose weight quickly, you lose muscle along with fat. This is bad when it comes to losing weight.

Muscle burns more calories than fat. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, and this applies when you’re not doing anything strenuous. Therefore, losing muscle is not a good idea.

Lose weight fast and slow down your metabolism

Second, if you lose weight too fast, your body will slow down its metabolism.

When we skip meals or go on a crash diet, our body is programmed to think it is starving and slows down our metabolism to conserve energy.

What is conserved are our fat reserves; our weight loss comes from water and muscle.

A graphic example

For example, studies show that when we diet, the weight we lose is approximately 75 percent fat and 25 percent muscle.

Also, a relatively high percentage of this weight loss is likely to be water.

Keep in mind that water makes up about 70 percent of the average person’s total body weight, with muscle tissue containing about 75 percent water and body fat containing about 50 percent water.

Losing weight quickly is therefore very difficult since we are
simply losing water within the qualification period.

The dangers of fast diets

The crash diet refers to a method in which we lose weight simply by restricting the amount of calories consumed.

This method of losing weight quickly is considered unhealthy and it is rare that people who do it do not regain their weight.

They cannot adjust to these new unhealthy eating habits and then gain weight back.

Your goal should be long-term weight loss.

Consider this, if you only lost one pound a week it would be 52 pounds a year and that’s a lot of weight.

If you lose weight slowly, you will stay healthy and also have a good chance of keeping it off.

The maximum amount of body fat that a healthy person can lose is about 1 to 2 pounds per week.

The human body is simply not designed to lose weight quickly and this is a healthy amount of weight loss to aim for.

Reasons why losing weight quickly is difficult and unhealthy

Our bodies are programmed to help us survive in times of
starvation.

Our basic bodily reactions have been established since man first walked the earth, and in those days, food was not just a phone call or a short walk.

In times past, famine was the greatest threat to man’s survival and his body is programmed to protect him.

That is why you will never lose excessive amounts of fat in a short period of time; your body is programmed to conserve fat.

If you drastically reduce your calorie intake, you slow down your metabolism to conserve calories, as we discussed earlier.

This is one of the reasons we encounter rapid weight loss, as difficult as your body actively struggles to maintain weight, it is a survival reflex.

Side effects of losing weight quickly

In addition, losing weight quickly has serious side effects that can harm us.

Loose skin appearance

If you lose weight too quickly, your skin doesn’t have time to shrink to your body’s new dimensions.

The only effective treatment for this is to repair loose skin with surgery.

Gallstones

Studies have shown that people who lose weight quickly have a higher risk of developing gallstones.

Lack of energy and illness.

Depending on the diet, there are a number of other complications including lack of energy and nausea for those who eliminate carbohydrates and a general feeling of poor health and lack of energy by depriving their body of food.

Lose weight slowly

Don’t be fooled by quick fix weight loss, it is not possible to aim for long term weight loss.

You will lose weight, keep it off, and feel healthier and happier.