How Quick Weight Loss Could Be Harmful To Your Overall Health
If you are hoping to lose weight for an upcoming event, it can be tempting to try and do so as quickly as possible. However, there are things that you need to know about quick weight loss and why it may not be the best solution for your needs. Finding out what the dangers are, what a safe rate of weight loss is and how to accomplish it are all valuable tools that you can use to take pounds off and keep them off without hurting your health in the process.
You may wonder why some people seem to be naturally slender and have lower body weights than others. A lot of this has to do with our metabolism. Some have efficient metabolisms that can consume a lot of the calories from the food they eat. Others have inefficient or slow metabolisms. This means that the calories in the food they eat are often converted into fat. If we eat a lot of excess calories, we end up storing a lot of it as fat and can end up gaining weight that we do not want.
Although it may seem possible at first glance to simply reduce body weight by cutting back severely on the amount of calories that they consume, the fact is that there are a number of drawbacks to this method. Trying to drop weight by starving your body is actually the worst way you can go about dropping weight in a hurry. Here are some of the main reasons why this is the case.
The first reason why it is a bad idea is that a sudden and drastic reduction in caloric intake makes our bodies think we are in danger of starving. Our metabolism is capable of slowing down substantially when our body thinks that there is no food available. Every calorie we take in is hoarded and much of it is stored in our fat cells. This can end up causing us to stop losing weight and retain more of it when we begin to eat normally again.
We also tend to shed water weight first when we go on a speed diet. This effect is enhanced when we take many of the fat loss pills that are on the market today. As we dry out, we lose pounds and inches but it is not a real result because we are not losing fat. We can become quite weak if we become dehydrated and the situation can become dangerous if it is allowed to go on too long.
Other health problems can come as a result of severe dieting. You may find that your energy levels are extremely low and you may end up permanently lowering the rate at which you burn energy. This is more common with people who go on repeated crash diets and cause them to have trouble losing weight in the future. You can permanently damage your health at the same time you are trying to achieve a quick reduction in your body weight.
If you do want to lose weight quickly and stay as healthy as possible, you need to be realistic about your time frame. By increasing the number of calories you burn daily through exercise and reducing the amount of calories you take in, you can safely lose about two pounds per week. You can reduce calories by watching portion sizes and eating more fruits and vegetables. This will give you the nutrients and energy you need to stay healthy.
In order to stay healthy, fast weight loss may simply not be possible. We are all better off setting longer term goals and working toward a gradual and sustainable fat burning that will have us looking and feeling great. You will often find that if you do, the weight has a better chance of staying off longer than it would if you simply drop weight by starving yourself.
Published July 26th, 2010
Filed in Health
