Why Losing Weight Too Fast Should Never Be Your Goal

Did you know that losing weight too fast is a serious problem? Many of us would love to shed the unwanted pounds as quickly as possible. After all, dieting isn’t fun, and we’re always being told that being overweight is unhealthy.

Losing Weight Too Fast is a Mistake

There’s a difference between rapid weight loss and losing weight too fast. If you’re not sure about the difference between the two, it’s also a good idea to speak with your doctor before you start trying to burn fat. That way, you will make sure you’re only using techniques that are safe for your body.

After all, rapid fat burning means that it is happening quickly. That said, losing weight too fast means that it is occurring more quickly than is safe or healthy for you.  There are many reasons that this is the case.  It’s not that anyone is trying to make it slower or more difficult for you to achieve your goal on the bathroom scale.  Instead, it has to do with a number of processes that occur in the body that can make your weight management more challenging and can have impacts on other parts of your health as well.

Leptin Impact of Losing Weight Too Fast

You may wish to reach your weight loss goal as quickly as possible, but it’s important to find out why losing weight too fast is bad for you before you start your next crash diet. Fat typically builds onto the body over a long period of time. However, we want to lose it much faster. We over-exercise, starve ourselves or use other techniques in the hopes of watching pounds and inches melt away.

However, even though these techniques may lead to fast initial weight loss, it doesn’t continue. When you’re losing weight too fast, your body will switch gears to try to slow it down. This is where leptin becomes an issue. Leptin is a signaling hormone and our body fat levels are directly proportional to it. The hypothalamus part of your brain is responsible for monitoring leptin levels.

Leptin controls your metabolic rate, regulates your appetite and promotes fat burning. That said, if your fat levels drop quickly, as in the case of losing weight too fast, your hypothalamus will register a starvation situation and will respond appropriately for that circumstance.

“Starvation Mode”

Many dieters talk about the dreaded “starvation mode” and the negative impact it has on their ability to lose weight. This is another term for the body’s starvation response. It occurs when leptin drops rapidly fall.

Starvation response causes your body’s hunger to rise and your metabolism to slow. After all, your body is responding for a rapid loss of its fat stores. It is a survival feature programmed into the body and brain.  Your body can’t tell the difference between healthy dieting for the purpose of achieving a better body weight, and the risk of actual starvation due to a lack of food availability. The last thing you want to do is to trigger this response when the opposite is true.

Keeping your caloric and nutrition intake within a certain healthy range will allow you to lose the unwanted weight at a healthy rate without making it happen too fast.

Health Risks

Aside from starvation response, losing weight too fast is also bad for your health. It sets you up for yo-yoing weight and typically means you aren’t eating a nutritionally balanced diet. Moreover, this type of rapid weight loss will also often lead to psychological complications that will only make it harder to manage your weight in the future. Furthermore, people who crash diet are at a higher risk of anorexia, bulimia, and other disorders related to weight.