As the saying goes, you can’t eat a fat person in one bite. Likewise, it is certainly unrealistic to try to lose weight lightning-fast in a few days. Most experts agree that losing 0.5-1 kg per week is the best way to maintain a healthy weight over the long term and that losing weight too fast will result in rebounding or even heavier weight.
However, for people who are desperate to lose weight, losing just one to two pounds per week is too slow. As a result, many people risk ruining their bodies by going on long-term diets or trying various weight loss products.
These unhealthy ways of losing weight may make you lose weight too fast in the short term, but your body can’t keep up with your weight loss, which will inevitably lead to some noticeable symptoms such as anxiety, hair loss, insomnia, etc. In the long run, it will also seriously affect your physical and mental health.
5 Serious Consequences of Losing Weight Too Fast
Muscle Loss
Dieting or eating diet pills may make a significant drop in weight in a short period, but the loss is often not body fat, but a large amount of water, and can even lead to muscle loss.
If you eat a low-calorie diet for a long time to lose weight, your body will be unable to get enough calories from food to maintain normal metabolism and gain energy through the breakdown of muscle.
Girls in particular have naturally less muscle mass than boys, and improper weight loss will accelerate the loss of muscle tissue, adversely affecting the metabolism and possibly leading to fatigue, weakness, cold hands and feet, and other discomforts.
Malnutrition & Electrolyte Imbalance
The low-calorie diets that lead to rapid weight loss are generally very mono-nutritional, and following this diet for a long time will inevitably lead to malnutrition and electrolyte imbalance in the body.
Most of the body’s physiological functions require nutrients to be regulated to work correctly. For example, vitamin D regulates calcium and phosphate levels in the body, thus maintaining healthy bones.
Any imbalance in the ratio of these nutrients can be potentially dangerous, especially because electrolytes are critical to cell function and integrity. Electrolyte imbalances can lead to conditions such as seizures and arrhythmias (heart rhythm disturbances).
Most people who follow a ketogenic diet have experienced the “keto flu”. The main cause of keto flu is an electrolyte imbalance in the body, which can lead to headaches, palpitations, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and other uncomfortable symptoms.
Metabolism slows down
One thing that many people may not realize is that losing weight too fast can slow down your metabolism. If you keep eating a low-calorie diet, your body will go into starvation mode due to a lack of calorie supply and turn on its self-protection mechanism. At this point, your metabolism slows down to conserve energy expenditure. At the same time, the body begins to store extra fat for emergencies.
And when you eat a little more, your body acts like a sponge, soaking up as many calories as possible. This is why many people who try to lose weight by dieting usually end up regaining weight or even gaining more weight than before.
Endocrine disorders
Losing a lot of weight in a short period often leads to endocrine disorders, such as the overproduction of adrenaline, or underproduction of female hormones. Symptoms of endocrine disorders include abnormal female physiological or menopausal periods, hair loss, sores, and rough skin.
If you diet to lose weight but do not exercise properly, you can easily become bloated and have a normal weight but excess body fat.
A 2014 study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology found that people with normal body mass index (BMI) and high body fat percentage were at higher risk for metabolic syndrome, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes compared to those with normal BMI and body fat percentage.
Mental illness
Weight loss requires strong self-control, and maintaining a healthy weight should be a long-term goal. Many people diet to lose weight quickly and eat very little food every day, but so few calories are simply not enough to meet the body’s basic needs.
Dieters often feel hunger, regret, and regret once they can’t control their appetite to eat more food. So often they resort to more extreme ways to reduce caloric intake, such as vomiting or taking laxatives.
This negative emotion often recurs with increasing stress, creating a vicious cycle of high expectations and disappointment. Over time, it can easily develop into depression and anxiety, or even binge eating or anorexia.
How To Lose Weight By Eating Healthy Without Dieting
Eat less refined carbohydrates
Foods such as bread, cakes, and cookies contain a lot of refined carbohydrates, almost no dietary fiber, and very low nutritional value. Eating such foods regularly can easily lead to a spike in blood sugar, which over time can lead to insulin resistance. And insulin resistance is a trigger for a variety of health problems, including diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
Our daily diet should prioritize foods that contain complex carbohydrates, such as whole-grain bread, rye, oats, potatoes, corn, and beans. These foods are rich in fiber and other nutrients, digest slowly in the body, do not cause blood sugar spikes, and prolong satiety.
Eat enough protein
Protein is an important nutrient for weight loss and improving physical appearance. Eating plenty of protein can maintain muscle mass even when calorie intake is low.
Eating more protein not only increases satiety and reduces appetite, but it also changes the levels of several weight-regulating hormones, such as gallbladder contraction hormone and hunger hormone (Ghrelin). In addition, the food “thermic effect” (TEF) of protein can reach 20-30%, far exceeding the levels of fat (5%) and carbohydrates (5-15%).
TEF is the extra energy required by the body to digest food. The best sources of protein include eggs, grass-fed beef, chicken breasts, fish, seafood, beans, rye, and seeds.
Eat more food rich in dietary fiber
Dietary fibers contain almost no calories and are not easily digested. They increase the volume of food, making it expand like a sponge in the stomach, which both prolongs satiety and helps suppress appetite and control weight.
Eating more foods with dietary fiber can also improve metabolism, promote intestinal health, and keep blood sugar stable. For example, most fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains are rich in fiber.
Light fasting
Many studies have found that proper fasting can help improve insulin sensitivity, lower blood sugar, control weight, and also reduce inflammation in the body to fight disease and slow aging.
In addition, light fasting allows you to reduce your caloric intake throughout the day, reducing body fat while maintaining muscle mass. There are many methods of light fasting, the most common include. 16/8 fasting, 5:2 fasting, every other day fasting, and one meal a day.
During non-fasting periods, nutrient-rich foods should be the mainstay. For better weight loss results, it is best to supplement with a low-carb diet or a ketogenic diet, which will induce the body into a state of ketosis, speed up fat burning, and help reduce hunger, making fasting easier.
Conclusion
Unhealthy weight loss methods can be very damaging to the body and mind, and the result is a loss of weight not brought on by disease that is more than worth the cost. The best approach is to change your diet and lifestyle, get enough sleep, exercise properly, and reduce stress to maintain a normal mindset. These will not only help you maintain a healthy body in the long run but also make you energetic and look younger.
