Don't Be A Big Loser - The Truth About Quick Weight Loss

Patience. It’s the one thing you never seem to have when you’ve got a body fat problem. You want the fat gone and you want it gone now! And why not? It seems so do-able. Everywhere you look, you read and hear promises of quick weight loss and you even see people losing weight quickly. We have reality TV shows that actually encourage people to attempt “extreme” body makeovers or see who can lose weight the fastest, and the winners (or shall we say, the losers), are rewarded generously with fortune and fame. nnLet’s face it. Everyone wants to get the fat off as quickly as possible - and having that desire is not wrong – it’s simply human nature. However, you must become aware of some serious problems that can occur if you try to force it and lose weight too quickly. The faster you lose weight, the more muscle you will lose with the fat, and that can really mess up your metabolism. An even bigger problem with fast weight loss is that the loss just won’t last. The faster you lose, the more likely you are to gain it back. Think about it: We don’t have a weight loss problem today, we have a “keeping the weight off” problem. nnWeight loss will be the healthiest, safest and most likely to be permanent if you set your goal for about two pounds per week (and even if you lose only a single pound each week, that is healthy progress). This is the recommendation of almost every legitimate and respected dietician, nutritionist, exercise physiologist and personal trainer, as well as exercise organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Dietetic Association. nnAre there any exceptions to this rule? Is it ever okay to lose more than two pounds per week? The answer is yes. It may be ok to lose slightly more than two pounds per week if you have a lot of weight to lose because the rate of weight loss tends to be relative to your total starting body weight. Generally the rule is that it’s safe to lose up to 1% of your total body weight per week, so if you weigh 300 lbs to start, then 3 lbs a week is a reasonable goal.nnBut there IS a catch.nnWhat really matters is not how much weight you lose, but how much FAT you lose. Where did your weight loss come from? Did you lose body fat or lean body mass?nn"Weight" is not the same as "fat." Weight includes muscle, bone, internal organs as well as lots and lots of water. What you really want is fat loss, not weight loss. If you only wanted weight loss, I could show you an easy way to lose 20 or 25 pounds in about 5 minutes. Just come over to my house. I have a really sharp hacksaw in my garage, and we’ll just slice off one of your legs, after all it’s just extra “weight” right?nnLet’s look at an example with some numbers so you can really grasp this concept of weight versus fat and then you can see, clearly illustrated, what will happen when you lose weight too quickly (because I know you probably don’t believe me and you STILL want to lose weight as fast as possible… read on and it will all become clear to you).nnAs an example, let’s take a 260 pound man who has a lot of body fat to lose - let’s call it 32%. With 32% fat, a 260 pounder has 83.2 pounds of body fat and 176.8 pounds of lean mass. Using this example, let’s look at a few possible scenarios with losses ranging from two to four pounds per week.nnWeight Loss Scenario 1:nnSuppose our 260 pound subject loses four full pounds instead of the recommended two pounds per week. Is this bad? Well, let’s see:nnIf he loses a half a percent of body fat, here are his body composition results:nn256 lbsn31.5% body fatn80.6 lbs fatn175.4 lbs lean body massnnOut of the four pounds lost, 2.8 pounds were fat and 1.2 were lean mass. Not a disaster, but not good either. Thirty percent of the weight lost was lean tissue.nnWeight Loss Scenario 2:nnIf he loses a half a percent of body fat and only three pounds, here are his results:nn257 lbsn31.5% body fatn80.9 lbs fatn176.1 lbs lean body massnnThese results are better. Although he lost less body weight than scenario one, in this instance, 2.3 pounds of fat and only 0.7 lbs of lean mass were lost.nnWeight Loss Scenario 3:nnWhat if he only lost two pounds? Here are the results:nn258 lbsn31.5% body fatn81.2 lbs fatn176.8 lbs lean body massnnThese results are perfect. Even though our subject has only lost two pounds, which seems slow, 100% of the two pound weight loss came from fat.nnWeight Loss Scenario 4:nnNow let’s suppose he loses three pounds but he loses more body fat: .8% nn257 lbsn31.2% body fatn80.2 lbs fatn176.8 lbs lean body massnnnThese are the best results of all. When the weekly fat loss is .8%, 100% of the three pounds lost is fat. nnSo the answer to the question is yes - it’s safe to lose more than two pounds per week… but only if the weight is all fat or at least mostly fat with minimal lean mass losses. nnIf you take example one – with thirty percent lean tissue loss and compound that over a few months, you’re talking about a massive muscle tissue loss which can dramatically slow down your metabolism and turn you into nothing more than a “skinny fat person” (a person with low body weight because they lost all their muscle, but still holding stubborn body fat because they shut down their metabolism).nnOne thing you should know is that water weight losses sometimes distort the numbers, especially when you first begin a new nutrition and training program. It’s very common to lose 3 - 5 pounds in the first week on nearly any diet and exercise program and often more on low carb diets. Just remember, its NOT all fat - It’s water!nnThe best advice you will EVER get is to focus on losing fat, not losing weight. If you lose three to five pounds per week, and you know it’s all fat, and not lean tissue, then more power to you! nnOf course the only way to know this is with body composition testing. For home self-testing, I recommend the Accu measure as first choice. I suggest using the Tanita bio-electric impedance analysis scale only as second choice behind calipers for home self testing because this device gives some funky readings sometimes.nnEven better, get a professional caliper test from an experienced tester at a health club, or even a water (hydrostatic) or air (bod pod) displacement test.nnFrom literally hundreds of client case studies, I can confirm that it’s rare to lose more than 1.5 - 2.0 lbs of weight per week without losing some muscle along with it. If you exceed 2.0 to 3.0 pound per week, the probability of losing muscle is extremely high. If you lose muscle, you are damaging your metabolism and this will lead to a plateau and ultimately to relapse.nnLack of patience is one of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to losing weight. If you want your weight loss to be PERMANENT, you have to take off the pounds slowly.nnThis is one of the toughest lessons that overweight men and women have to learn - and they can be very hard learners. They fight kicking and screaming, insisting that they CAN and they MUST lose it faster.nnThen you have these TV shows that encourage the masses that rapid, crash weight loss is okay. I say to the producers of these shows SHAME ON YOU! To the personal trainers, registered dieticians and medical doctors who are associated with these programs, I say DOUBLE SHAME ON YOU, because you should know better. nnThe rapid weight loss being promoted by the media for the sake of ratings and by the weight loss companies for the sake of profits today makes it even harder for those of us who are legitimate fitness and nutrition professionals because our clients say, “But look at so and so on TV - he lost 26 pounds in a week!”nnSure, but 26 pounds of WHAT - and do you have any idea what the long term consequences are? nnShort term thinking, folks… foolish. There are hundreds of ways to lose weight quickly, but only one way to lose fat and keep it off in the long term.nnDo it the right way - the healthy and sensible way. Take off the pounds slowly with an intelligent nutrition and exercise program – make this a new lifestyle, not a race, and you will never have to take the pounds off again because they will be gone forever the first time. No more yo-yoing.nnIf you’re interested in the healthy, sensible way to take off the fat, while keeping all your muscle and actually increasing your metabolism in the process, then my Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle program can teach you how. No gimmicks or false promises. Just the truth - you have to work at it and you have to be patient. For more information, visit www.BurnTheFat.com n