Losing weight is a common concern among our generation nowadays as the lifestyle has become very inactive. Daily life routines, eating habits, and sedentary lifestyles lead to unnecessary weight gain. It is normal to wish to lose weight quickly, but to have long-lasting effects, you need to take it slow. A lot of people try to change that by trying to lose weight. Maintaining a healthy weight is important, but the majority of the people who want to start losing weight, want rapid and fast results. It is important to understand that losing weight is not just about losing some pounds, but to lose extra body fat. It is about maintaining a healthy proportion of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Losing weight is not as tough as maintaining it afterward.
Is it ok to starve?
Studies have proven that losing 1-2 pounds a week is a healthy way to do it, anyone losing more than this is putting his health at stake. On the other hand, what people do is start doing crash diets, and extreme workouts and then hope to get immediate results in a short time. There are plenty of diet plans available that promise to let you lose weight rapidly by cutting off an entire food group e.g. carbohydrates. In the initial phase, the weight loss is faster and little effort can help you shed a few pounds quite easily, but this is actually water weight. This is why people usually see a rapid drop in weight during the early weight-loss phase. People also start to starve themselves completely or take very few calories per day that are way less than their maintenance calories. Due to this, the body is deprived of certain vital nutrients and minerals essential for the body to function properly.
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Rapid weight loss v/s slow weight loss
Rapid weight loss is a very unhealthy practice and has short-term results. Your body needs to process these things at a slow pace. You can never achieve long-term effects by losing weight quickly. You will most likely regain the weight as soon as you stop the diet or workout plan. Slow weight loss improves overall health and maintains healthy eating habits by administering a balanced diet that includes more green vegetables, and fruits and cutting off excessive sugar intake.
Associated risks:
Losing weight rapidly can cause many side effects in the body such as:
- Reduced bone density.
Bone density is affected a lot in younger adults who are trying to lose weight rapidly. But suddenly depriving the body of essential nutrients such as vitamin D or calcium may lead to reduced bone density.
- Constipation.
A diet plan that is not balanced causes a lot of distress in the gut too. No fibers and not having enough liquids leads to digestion problems. It hinders the peristaltic movements of the GI tract.
- Dehydration.
Sudden changes in the diet and loss of carbohydrates lead to loss of water-weight from the body. Not having enough water intake in combination with this will lead to dehydration.
- Nausea.
People who are not used to following diet plans will eventually feel nauseous and unwell due to abrupt changes in food intake and digestion. The GI tract can react to these changes and because of staying hungry for longer periods, the person may experience nausea.
- Loss of muscle mass.
Most of the weight lost by these crash diets is from water and muscle. Due to this, muscle mass is decreased rapidly, which results in weight loss.
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- Gallstones.
Losing excessive water from the body results in the disruption of the digestive system. It can show multiple side effects including gallstones. The gallbladder release juice to aid digestion, but when there is not enough food to digest, the gallbladder won’t release enough juice resulting in the formation of gallstones in the gall bladder. On the opening of the gallbladder, these gallstones get stuck causing a gallstone attack. These gallstones can be very painful and irritating.
- Fatigue.
Due to the deficiency of essential minerals and vitamins in the body, the cells face an extreme lack of energy resulting in overall fatigue of the body. Body aches, lethargy, and fatigue are common side effects. These effects usually occur due to a deficiency of vitamin B12, iron, folate, etc.
- Hair loss.
Eating low-calorie food also results in diminished nutrients required for the health of hair and nails. It results in brittle nails and hair. There are not enough nutrients there to support hair growth hence resulting in extreme hair fall.
- Altered metabolic system.
Metabolic functioning is a very main factor that is affected by rapid weight loss. Metabolism slows down at a very fast rate when there is sudden weight loss. Slower metabolism lowers all of the functioning of the body by decreasing calorie usage. The thyroid hormone is usually affected by rapid weight loss causing the metabolism to hinder overall the body. These metabolic changes stay there for a long time even after maintaining the weight back. It takes a lot of time and effort to finally normalize these changes back to normal in the body.
- Poor immune functioning.
The immune system is the protector of the body from foreign organisms. When the body doesn’t even have enough calories for basic needs, the immune system also gets weak and can’t protect the body from infections and viral diseases.
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Summary:
Rapid weight loss is a common practice nowadays in the young generation because of excessive weight gain problems caused by the smartphone era and a sedentary lifestyle with little to no physical activity. The high prevalence of fast food has also contributed to this cause. Maintaining a healthy weight through a healthy diet plan is an effective way of staying fit. Taking it slow and staying active is all you need. Losing 1-2 pounds a week is considered normal. Crash diets and extreme workouts are unhealthy ways of losing weight. The rapid weight loss is due to water weight and muscle mass loss. It affects a lot of body functioning including bones, muscles, digestion, etc. the body is deprived of essential nutrients and minerals required for proper functioning. Hence, rapid weight loss should be avoided and the weight should be managed in a healthy manner that is long-lasting too.
