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Take your average guy or gal that decides theyre committed to finally losing that extra weight thats crept on over the years. Theyre going to eat healthy (primally, of course), start working out, and stop all the nonsense they know to be unhealthy. This might be you.

A few days go by, then a week. The scale is budging, but barely. This is going to take forever! How long is this going to take? We all want instant results, right? Well, what is realistic? What is safe? What is effective? And what can you expect when you attempt to lose excess body fat and reach your ideal body composition?

Everyone knows that slow, gradual weight loss produces the best long-term results and fast weight loss is unsafe and unhealthy. People you know have probably clucked Oh, youre losing weight fast now with that low-carb fad diet, but just wait a few weeks and itll all come rushing back! And when you go somewhere like the CDCs weight loss page, they pat your head for want[ing] to lose it very quickly and reassure you thatpeople who lose weight gradually and steadily are more successful at keeping it off. Its become an article of faith that slow and steady weight loss wins the race.

But is it actually true?

I searchedthe literature for support of this widely-accepted weight loss truth. If folks like the Center for Disease Control were saying it, there had to be some evidence for it. Right?

I came up empty. What little evidence Icould find seemed to support the opposite contention: that rapidinitial weight loss is associated with better long term weight maintenance than slower weight loss. Just look:

Across most of the available literature, slow and steadydid not win the race. The hareusually beat the tortoise. This actually makes sense. Why is the ancestral health community so strong? Why does this site attract so many readers? In part, because of the ease, simplicity, and early efficacy of this way of eating. Right off the bat (or in just 21 days), you lose weight, feel better, and regain lost energy. Why wouldnt you keep doing it?Youre more likely to stick with a diet if youre wildly successful right away.

Okay, okay. But is rapid weight losssafe?

It depends on who you are.

If youre obese, rapid weight loss is safe, sinceas much as 87% of the total weight you losewill be body fat. And just as dietary fat is an excellent fuel source that burns cleanly, the animal fat hanging off your body is good to burn. Thats why rapid weight loss in the obese is consistently associated with improved health markers. Insulin sensitivity increases and belly fat decreases. Blood lipids normalize. Testosterone increases and sexual function is restored. Oxidative stress biomarkers are reduced. All sorts of wonderful things happen when youre overweight or obese and start losing weight.

If youre lean, rapid weight loss looks a little different. The leaner you are, the more muscle mass youll lose during weight loss and the more negative effects youll accrue. An extreme example of this is the bodybuilder preparing for competition. Hes reducing calories. Hes exercising. Hes doing everything he can to drop weight as quickly as possible. And in dropping from 14.8% body fat to 4.5%, he loses strength, his testosterone plummets, and his mood worsens the opposite of what happens to the obese when they drop weight fast.

Another population for whom rapid weight loss might be contraindicated is the elderly.If youre elderly, rapid weight loss is usually associated with illness and accelerated muscle loss, and its a frequent complication of Alzheimers disease. Slower weight loss using a diet rich in protein (to stave off muscle loss) and regular physical activity is a better option for older people.

It also depends on how you do it. Lets look at some of the methodsused to cause rapid weight loss.

Athletes who need to make weight to qualify for competition, like MMA fightersor bodybuilders, often do so by quickly dropping water weight. Theyll go jogging in full black sweatsuits. Theyll sit in saunas. Theyll remove all salt from their diet (since sodium helps us retain water). Theyll go super low-carb (since stored glycogen brings water along for the ride). Theyll take hot baths and stop drinking water altogether on the day of the weigh-in. Thats how a fighter who normally walks around at 195 pounds can qualify for the 170 pound division by dehydrating himself.

Verdict: Not safe. Dehydration impairs physical performance, cognitive function, and connective tissue elasticity. Plus, its literally just water weight that will come screaming back once you start eating carbs, salt, and drinking water again.

This might be the most common method people employ to achieve fast weight loss: eat barely anything. And there are studies supporting the efficacy of very low-calorie dieting (VLCD), but when your average person with weight to lose hears that and just stops eating (usually supplemented with lots of cardio), its disastrous. ClinicalVLCDshave very specific guidelines. Beforepatients are selected, they undergo a physical and go over their medical history. Once on the diet, they receive counseling, supplements, premade food (often liquid), and regular checkups to identifynutrient deficiencies and side effects. Theyremeant for the obese, not someone who wants to lose a few stubborn inches off their belly.

Verdict: Safe, but youd better know what youre doing. Professional supervision is probably a good idea if you intend on making this work long-term.

Protein-sparing modified fasts (PSMFs) are a type of very low-calorie diet, but calories arent the express focus; getting enough protein and then stoppingis the focus. You eat as much protein, preferably from animal sources, as you require to curb loss of lean mass and maximize fat loss, then add heaps of low-carb vegetables.PSMFs are high-protein, low-carb, and low-fat diets. A PSMF might look this:

In the fitness/weight loss community, people willtypically maintain this for 1-2 weeks, then do a refeedand hop back on it, or resume a more normal diet. Clinical use of the PSMF in severely obese people usually lasts longer than one or two weeks and is quite effective:

Every study I could find on PSMFs found they worked and were safe, with some caveats:

In obese teens, a 3-month long PSMF supplemented with potassium, calcium, and magnesium resulted in weight loss and maintenance of normal serum concentrations of the supplemented minerals. But when researchers looked at red blood cell levels of the minerals which offers a more accurate glimpse of mineral status than serum level they found that RBC magnesium had plummeted. Its likely that other micronutrient-related biomarkers could also suffer.

Verdict: Safe and effective, provided you dont remain on the diet for too long. Extended PSMFs are more likely to cause harm and nutrient deficiencies (that may not show up in standard serum tests) than shorter PSMF bursts. Obese people in clinical settings with professional support can probably safely benefit from longer PSMFs, but the average Primal reader just trying to lean out a bit or get over a plateau should stick to 1-2 weeks.

In the population most inneed of safe, effective weight loss the millions of insulin-resistant obese and overweight individuals who do not participate in clinical weight loss trials helmed by doctors and technicians and supported by supplements and formulated diets a basic low-carb, high-fat diet is the simplest and most effective method. Comparisons between ad libitum (where you eat until sated) low-carb diets and calorie-restricted (where you weigh and measure) diets find that the former result in faster weight loss.

Low-carb, high-fat approaches also sidestep another potential downside to rapid fatloss in general: therisk of gallstone formation. Research shows thatadding some fat in the diet to promote gallbladder emptyingtakes care of the gallstone problem.One study found that 4 of 6 subjects on a 520 calorie liquid low-fat diet developed gallstones, while none of the 7 subjects on a 900 calorie liquid diet with 30 grams of fat developed them, even though both diets resulted in the same amount of weight loss.

One potential downside of rapid weight loss are elevations in liver enzymes. The rise is usually transient, resolving shortly after cessation of the diet, and it seems to happen more often in women than men. But the macronutrient ratio is perhaps the biggest determinant. When these very low-calorie diets are high in carbohydrates, liver enzymes are higher. When the diet is carb-restricted, theliver enzymes are lower.

Verdict: Safe and effective.

If theres a neat and tidy answer (and there never is in a topic as complex as human physiology), its this: rapid weight loss is safe as long as youre losing (mostly) fat and not lean muscle mass. If youre dropping weight quickly (or slowly!) but you feel good, your physical performance is improving or staying the same, and youre losing inches from the waist, your weight loss is probably mostly fat. If youre dropping weight quickly but troublesome side effects occur, your weight loss may be drawing on more lean mass than youd like, and you should probably slow down. Weight loss should feel good.

Theres another commonality among all the crash diets that end up leading to long term maintenance:they combine rapid weight lossand education. It shouldnt just change what you put in your mouth, but how you think about what you put in your mouth. Without learning about food and how it affects you and how to eat long term in the real world, the weights just going to come roaring back.

With the Primal Blueprint, Ive tried to paireducation with results for a sustainable way of eating and living. There are other ways to get there, as Ive mentioned above, but this one seems to work well for nearly everyone I know thats tried it.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Im curious about your thoughts on rapid weight loss.

Prefer listening to reading? Get an audio recording of this blog post, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast on iTunes for instant access to all past, present and future episodes here.

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How Quickly Can You Lose Weight? | Mark's Daily Apple

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Home » How to lose weight quickly » How Quickly Can You Lose Weight? | Mark’s Daily Apple