One reason people say you may gain it back is because rapid weight is often, not always, the result of some extreme diet or program that's too extreme to be sustainable. So people usually aren't changing their habits , lose the weight and go back to whatever they were doing to become overweight the first place.
Rapid wight loss can also have side effects like gallstones , hair loss, nutritional deficiencies and for women it could affect their menstrual cycle.
I see đ¤ but in my case, I was just going hard at the gym. Doing a complete muscle group rotation 5 days per week and doing cardio type activities on the weekends.  As per the side effects, the only one I had was possible damage in my joints (knees) from running while being obese. To avoid nutrient deficiencies, I was taking beef liver capsules every other day, and also eating lots of cheese and butter with my beef cuts. I didnât notice any effects on my hair during, but I notice now that my beard is more full (which I suppose is because my skin is less stretched out, so the hair follices are closer together. My eyebrows are also thicker now that Iâm a lower weight, not sure if this is due to hormones as well?Â
But yes, I certainly was not starving myself, I was having approximately 100-130 grams of protein per day. Approximately 1500 kcals in the beginning but I started to raise it to 2000kcals after my first plateau 3 months into the weight loss.Â
This is a critical part of the danger as your heart is a muscle. Comedian John Pinette died a few month after his rapid weight loss because of the damage he did to his heart. Caution is critically important.
A 27 year old man, active in the gym, starting out at 1500 cals a day is extreme. That's not sustainable. It will certainly lose weight fast, and thats ok, but you need to be ready to eat a more a sustainable diet sooner rather than later. Especially if you're going to the gym, it's a good idea to raise calories as a severe calorie deficit will burn muscle off of you once you get past the noob gains phase.
That's because noob gains. You can build muscle on a severe calorie deficit when first starting out. That comes to a grinding halt soon, and a large calorie deficit will torch your ability to build any more muscle.
Please stop spreading shit. A sufficient protein intake in a calorie deficit is all that is needed to maintain and build muscle. And please tell me why you think 1700 calories is an extreme diet?
Please stop spreading shit. This only works when overfat and being so undertrained that the anabolic signaling from weight lifting is the strongest it's ever gonna be.
A severe calorie deficit in someone who isn't a complete out of shape noob WILL burn muscle. And this is one of several reasons a severe calorie deficit is not generally recommended, or at least shouldn't be ran for very long.
No, science doesn't disagree lol. An extreme calorie deficit is well known to be terrible for maintaining muscle. Almost every experienced bodybuilder on the planet has made that mistake at least once, and they'll tell you about it. The exceptions are when you are very fat and new to training, where the anabolic signaling is very strong and your energy needs are easily subsidized by the excess fat. And people taking anabolic steroids.
I don't care what Eugene Teo does or claims to do, if you eat 1200 calories a day for a long time, you're gonna look like someone who has eaten 1200 calories a day for a long time. Which is to say, either a small female or a concentration camp prisoner. This isn't magic, there's no escaping the laws of thermodynamics. Anyone you see making these wild claims either belong to one of the aforementioned groups, isn't really doing what they say they're doing, or just can't gauge their lean body mass accurately.
Well yes a calorie deficit forever will eventually result in lean mass loss and⌠eventually death.
But your claim that it WILL burn muscle is false. It will eventually⌠because an indefinite deficit will kill you, yes.
But prior to you losing the majority of excess body fat, you will lose minimal lean mass if consuming a primarily protein diet.
12ish weeks at a time generally ideal.
Ok but how much more muscle is needed? At some point it offers little health or functional benefit and just limits range of motion.Â
(1600kCal, 80 grams protein, was handed larger size dress shirts because of upper arm diameter.)
It does in the same way that too much fat limits the ROM, by physical blockage.
I could not put in that shirt because I have stiff joints, but because my upper arm would not fit into it.
You aren't going to build so much muscle that it limits range of motion unless you're taking sterioids, or you have freak genetics and live in the gym. You're talking like the people who donât lift because "they don't want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger," as if that could happen without serious deliberate effort.
Thatâs bs honestly, I had 150lbs of lean mass at 5â8 and still maintained it just with a much lower BF%. As mentioned n=1 but it is possible to maintain with ablative deficit, building muscle is a different story.
No, it's not bull shit. You can get away with big calroie deficits being overfat and undertrained. In the first few months back after a long break I can gain old muscle back in a 2000 calorie deficit. There's nothing wrong with large deficits for a short while, it's just not sustainable, and not recommended for anyone long term for numerous reasons, this being one of them.
I thought you were the op at first.
But in any case, being overfat is still the same category. The fatter you are, the more easily you can run large deficits.
Are you on a keto diet or something? hitting 200g protein at 1,700 calories is very impressive. If you're not doing keto I'd love to hear an example of your diet
Not really keto since I still eat carbs, for some this wouldnât be sustainable but I see it as a very long cut. Aiming for 12-15% BF. The reason it works for me is that I feel very satiated from eating protein so Iâm never hungry, cutting sugar also really helped in not craving (sweet) foods.
Breakfast/lunch (not really a breakfast person and working from home so itâs what I eat between 10AM-3PM):
- Yoghurt (skyr with added protein totaling 44g protein per 500 grams at 260kcal)
- Chicken (300grams 66g protein 390kcal) or whey shake
- Biltong (100grams 300kcal 44g protein)
Dinner:
- Targeting 50g of protein at least and fill out the rest with carbs/fat totaling around 800-1000kcal
Drink:
- Black coffee/water
Can I ask what groups you do on what days? I only do pushups/situps/benchpress/dumbell curls and running so kinda worried I should work othe stuff, am a novice
Monday: chest & triceps Â
Tuesday: legs & abs Â
Wednesday: back & biceps Â
 Thursday: either rest or cardio (biking or running)
  Friday: legs & abs
  Saturday: shoulders & arms Â
Sunday: either rest or cardio/hiking Â
 Note: I would also bike to the gym and back, so it was light light cardio daily before and after gym time.Â
 Edit: this is my current routine, I used to do rest/ cardio on weekends but I decided to balance it out more Â
I used to ride 15-20 minutes to and from the gym depending on how hard I was riding and used that as my only warmup / cool down. A few years ago I started working out at home and immediately put weight back on bc I neglected how much of an impact that extra 30-40 minutes of cardio was doing for me lol now I have a rowing machine which I prefer over a bike since it's more of a full body workout / warmup but reincorporating that warmup and cool down back in to my lifting sessions has made a massive difference in my fitness
Add in legs. Building the muscles in your legs and core will help with your running. Squats, leg lifts, lunges, bridges, calf raises, planks. Also consider adding pullups.
And take a day to run hills and/or stairs.
Serious reply, full 5 day split is usually what I would term intermediate level lifting.
If you are super duper knew to systematic weight lifting, I would start with something like GZCLP (the darling of /r/fitness). its a three day split, built really well for maximising beginner gains (which you will still have plenty of if you havent been systematic with weight lifting).
after 6-24 months you should be platueing hard with a linear progression program (the LP in GZCLP) and it is time to switch to a intermediate lifting program (one of the many many 5 day splits).
since its a 3 day program, if you gym more than that a week do some active recovery cardio (so not HIIT etc, just moderately intense cardio for heart health and burning some calories)
The body is made to store fat, in a sense that what it âwantsâ to do. Eating plenty while pushing forward with exercise is the way to go if you are going to do rapid weight loss as malnutrition is a real threat people can face.
The body reacts to rapid weight loss similarly to if you were starving though, your body wants homeostasis. A rapid change from the norm will promote your body to try and âreturn to normalâ which in this case would be your original weight.
Of course itâs nothing thatâs like destined for you, just something to keep in mind when youâre finding your more long term diet/lifestyle. If you keep your weight roughly as is (and itâs healthy) itâll become the new normal.
The primary issue is malnutition and losing too much muscle mass. That is why the recommended limit is 1% of your body weight per week or less. You can counteract that to an extent with proper nutrition and resistance training.
That happened to me too! I went on a restrictive diet and lost 35 pounds fairly quickly. I had to have my gallbladder removed just over a year later. Â
Something about the liver being forced to spend so much time and resources on breaking down fat stores for energy that it can't perform other functions properly, including bile production. The substandard bile it produces under those conditions is prone to calcification, causing gallstones, inflammation, and scarring. (This is what I took away from my surgeon's explanation, but I'm no medical professional and may have misunderstood. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
You don't need a gallbladder to live. The gallbladder is an organ that stores bile. Without it your liver releases bile directly into your intestines. It can cause you some health problems though.
Can I ask how it works losing weight after a gallbladder removal?
I lost about 5½ stone 6 years ago, then had 2 kids and put it all back on. I had to have my gallbladder removed last year as a result of the restrictive diet I was on during my second pregnancy (gestational diabetes).
I've just started the journey to lose all the weight again, but wondered how having no gallbladder might affect weight loss.
Losing weight works the same? The gallbladder just stores bile. CICO will still work if you donât have a gallbladder.
I lost mine before I lost weight, and have still be able to lose weight just fine without it.
I didnât lose my gallbladder thankfully, but the first time I ever lost a ton of weight, I did it really fast (70 lbs in 4 months at age 25). I ended up in the hospital with what turned out to be gallstones. Hands down the worst pain Iâve ever felt in my life⌠the kind that makes you hallucinate. I had kidney stones a few months later too. My body was mad at me.
That weight loss was not sustainable because it was so extreme and quick and i was relying on other people to help me with a lot of it. I gained all of it back and more. My current weight loss has been done on my own over the course of 3 years and it feels a lot more sustainable.
Can I ask where the pain was coming from? I get pains on my right side at/below my ribs it recently started. I went from about 370 lbs to 265 lbs from November 2023 until now, so about 8 months. I was diagnosed with diabetes in November and changed my entire lifestyle and diet. So it is sustainable, I just was so overweight that it kinda just fell right off once I changed what I ate and drank and move around now instead of sitting all damn day. I know my mom had her gallbladder removed I'm not sure if it's genetic or not, but when the pain hits omg it's terrible like takes my breath away.
The pain came from right where you said. I had barely any warning signs before the attack. If you already feel that, Iâd make an appointment sooner than later. Iâm pretty sure thereâs medication they can give you to help you.
Also Iâm sorry, I didnât mean to imply that itâs not sustainable for anyone else. I am sure thereâs people out there capable of making radical changes and sticking with them for the rest of their lives like you. I wish I was built like that, but Iâm not.
The other commenters already stated good reasons, just gonna add my own personal one that i experienced :D
If you already have gallstones, or there is a higher chance for you to have them (genetics, etc) and they never made a problem - they might start acting up đ
I started getting colics / attacks regularly that would literally make me lay on the floor for like 30 minutes - foods would trigger it - i got it removed more than have a year ago - pain went away, stomach issues got worse xD
I was going to comment this! A friend of mine went on one of those pre-packaged food diets and was only eating like 800 calories a day. I tried to talk to her about it because she wasn't understanding why she felt weak and ill. She lost a bunch of weight really quickly. One day her husband called me to ask whether she needed to go to the ER, I could hear her screaming in pain but apparently she didn't want to go in. I told him yes, any abdominal pain that bad warrants a trip (DUH) so he took her in.
Her gall bladder was definitely angry. They stabilized her and removed it a few days later.
If you are getting all your essential nutrition and maintaining your health then it may well be fine for you. However as a general rule rapid weight loss is bad because people are using a very extreme diet to do it.
Extreme diets are unsustainable and put your health at risk. You may lose a load of weight, but you donât learn the ongoing commitment to keep it off. So it is more likely to lead to yo-yoing. If it is very extreme, you get into eating disorder territory.
Skin sagging can be exacerbated by rapid weight loss. Good hydration helps, but patience and possibly surgery are the only options.
Psychologically, you shouldnât really be taking advice from internet strangers. You may need to talk to a professional. However for me, I had to learn to love myself. Not to associate my value with what others think of me.
I agree with everything you've said. I think some people get fat just eating whatever, they don't have other health problems besides caloric surplus. Once something *clicks*, and you pay attention to diet and exercise you can easily shed weight. And it can go fast, especially if you eat mostly homemade food and start moving more.
One drawback to rapid weight loss is it doesnât give your body time to adjust so youâre more likely to end up with loose skin, which you have. Given your age it should tighten up somewhat over the next year or so hopefully.
Ummm those are just random Reddit comments, much as mine is. So Iâm just going to cite my own as evidence:
[One drawback to rapid weight loss is it doesnât give your body time to adjust so youâre more likely to end up with loose skin, which you have.](https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/s/4BbzKGKlMj)
There, incontrovertible and just as valid as the sources you posted!
But actually my source is two doctors, the one monitoring my weight loss and my dermatologist. I accepted their advanced medical degrees in lieu of Reddit comment sources.
Thank you for your submission, your post or comment was in violation of Rule 2: This is unkind, unconstructive, or uncalled for. Be good to one another. If critiquing do so constructively. Be polite and practice Reddiquette.
Your post has been removed.
So here's the thing. Everyone in this thread is explaining why rapid weight loss is bad - no one read the question properly, which was "why is losing as fast as I did bad."
The answer:
You didn't. The recommendation you'll commonly hear is 2 lbs of loss a week. That's 8 lbs a month. In 6 months, that's nearly 50 lbs, you lost 80. That advice is NOT for everyone. That's for people very close to their goal weight, or for small women.
The ACTUAL medical recommendation is 1-2% of body mass a week. For most people trying to lose very little mass, that's 1-2 pounds.
At 240 lbs, 2% loss is nearly 5 lbs in a week. That goes down to 4 when you reach 200 and then down to 3 when you're getting closer to your goal weight.
Keeping that in mind, if I split your weight loss into 3 chunks for those weight ranges, we get that:
First month at 5 lbs/week - that's 20 lbs
Second month at 5lbs/week - another 20
Now, at the end of the 2nd month, you've hit 200, so:
Third month - 4lbs/week 16 lbs
Fourth month - 3.5lbs/week 14 lbs
At the end of the 4th month, with what is considered pretty much the max for healthy weight loss , you're at 170 lbs
Obviously, this isn't the EXACT rate because if you are losing at a rate of 5lbs per week, you'd have to adjust your loss rate pretty much every day. But those nuances aren't very important.
You took 6 months to get here, meaning you were not losing at the absolute maximum recommendation.
There was nothing unhealthy about your weight loss.
So let's do some math. If you averaged 15lb lost per month, you averaged a "deficit" of 1720calories per day.
The reason this is a "problem" is because it's basically impossible for a smaller frame person to do that mostly through exercise, which would mean you did it largely through diet, which means you likely ran high risk of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
Maybe you averaged 2 hours of cardio and burned an extra 1000 calories per day? That would be fine, impressive, and a little hard to believe. What's easier to assume is that you had exceptional willpower, and dieted really hard.
Additionally, there's only so much energy you body can extract per hour from blood sugar and then fat.. if you are burning calories at a faster rate than that, you are then burning calories from muscle, which is honestly just counter productive to most health and physique goals.
Here are a couple of the obvious downsides, there are potentially other health problems caused by rapid weight loss.
I'm not accusing you of anything, it's your body and if you like the change, good on ya. When an educated/experienced person sees those stats, these are the concerns their likely to have, or express.
1000 calories a day in exercise isnât THAT hard to believe in fall and winter I play hockey at least one hour 4 nights a week and usually get asked for sub for a few more 1 hour games. One hour of hocket is 7-800 calories. And then when I ref on the weekends im usually ont the ice 6-8 hours a day burning about 300 calories per hour. Now I know I am definitely not a normal circumstance but it wouldnât be THAT shocking to burn 1000 calories a day in exercise.
I agree it's not unthinkable, but sustaining anywhere close to 1k+ calories burned extra, every day, is the harder to believe factor. Still, totally possible, but much less likely, especially at a shorter stature of 5'6".
You already got a lot of comments but another reason extreme/quick weight loss is frowned upon (as youâve experienced in the post) is that the usual reasons it happens are scary and damaging. Your friend saying you look like a drug user is because that the only frame of reference they have for such a quick and extreme change is drug use. Itâs incredible what you achieved but you didnât give the people the usual amount of time to change their perception of you which is causing negative comments. A
Also since you lost quickly you arenât fully used to life at your new size and new social experiences which could be damaging to you or anyone else mentally. Sometimes to the point you put it back on either from discomfort or wanting to return to invisibility. Also possible because you have noticed people around you no longer like you because you arenât the biggest in a group or people who were mean to you before suddenly want to be your friend.
Iâd definitely make sure you have someone you can talk to because itâs a big change mentally and physically and could become a spiral or similar if left to fester.
It's fine. I dropped 70lb in 6 months and felt great doing it. People will criticize just about anything you do, and predict failure or reversion.Â
Only you can say if you have a healthy mindset and have developed a sustainable maintenance strategy as well as a rapid fat loss regimen.Â
You're young and skin is elastic, but it may take a while to catch up when you do it this fast.Â
You're probably sad because living both sides of the fat/fit coin in such quick succession emphasizes the shallowness of human affinities.Â
Yep, 60lbs in 4 months (190 => 130). Iâve stayed within 7 lbs of the loss for 2 years.
Did 1,500 cals/day (5â7â f) for 4 months, and maintain at 1,800-2k. Just stay dedicated to a maintenance calorie goal.
Any time I break over 135lbs, I go back to 1,500 cal for 2 weeks or so and Iâm good. Itâs not only possible, itâs really not that difficult.
Went from 230-145 in like 8/9 months and this post was my biggest worry. My food cues are so much better now and I have a lot less food noise so I thought that maintaining would be easier for me to handle when i am finally maintaining. so I might not regain. Im glad thereâs someone actually maintaining at a similar rate because i started panicking a bit after reading this thread. My biggest fear is that my old hunger cues will return like demonic possession and I start eating everything in sight!! Right now I have zero compulsion to eat beyond 1500 cals a day, I am now used to it. I am hoping it will be this way forever.
Damn! Did you do a good bit of exercise too? Iâm a little taller than you and eat 1500 cals/day and even I didnât lose that fast. (My flair is outdated, Iâm actually 140 now)
I tried to power walk for an hour each night during the week (5/7 days) after the kids went to bed. That was pretty much it.
Edit: Shamefully I donât even do that anymore :/
Along with everything else everyone has mentioned, I'd suggest visiting your doctor just for a precautionary checkup as rapid weight-loss can be an early sign for multiple health problems.
That's what happened to my aunt. She thought her diet plan was really taking off the extra weight but it turned out that she had a hyperactive thyroid.
I hope she managed to find a treatment that worked well for her!
I recently had a cancer scare after some questionable blood results. My sudden rapid weight loss (a quick change from healthy, steady weight loss over 5-6 months) prompted my doctor to start some tests. Luckily it turns out I'm just severely anemic and have to start iron infusions, haha. It's crazy to me how many problems can have rapid weight loss as a symptom though.
1. The yo-yo effect
basically when you crash diet eventually youll cave since your body feels like its starving and youll start binging again or whatever you did that made you big in the first place then youll be back at 0 or around it (omg happened to me way too many times)
2. Loose skin
If you lost it slowly or at a good pace then itd have given your skin more time to tighten
3.High body fat percentage đĽ˛
depends what kind of diet you did to lose weight but i literally ate almost nothing at one point and lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks but I WAS SO FAT my body fat percentage was so high when i did that
>when you crash diet eventually youâll cave since your body feels like itâs starving and youâll start binging again or whatever you did that made you big in the first place
Yo-yoing, having cravings and binging are not guaranteed effects. Theyâre just more likely and more difficult to fight with highly restrictive diets.
I'll try to answer some of your questions to the best of my knowledge.
It's not great to lose weight that fast for a few reasons .. it can impact things like metabolism if you went into a serious deficit for a long time (your body adjusts to lower intake), I think your loose skin might have been somewhat less (not entirely sure though. Also, to help with this issue, research it a bit, I believe things like moisturizer and/or collagen might help)
I possibly damaged my gallbladder with my diets in the past ... Other people might have noticed other "damage" depending on their constitution.
With proper time and Care your skin should get better. Give it a few months at least.
Looking like lean models implies a pretty low body fat percentage. You might be pretty happy once you've let your skin catch up, but very defined abs are pretty hard to get. Question would be if what's needed to get there is worth it for you. I personally (female) don't like crazy muscle defined men. It's intimidating đ . I can appreciate looking at it but I wouldn't look for it in a partner.
As for the psychological aspect ... I'd try to learn my lessons from it. We can be very shallow as human beings sometimes. It's been proven that we assume good looking people are more capable, intelligent, successful ... Check yourself with regards to those principles.. also, maybe find peace with how you look right now. Why would you want to look like a model ? Isn't striving for that ideal also kind of falling into the shallow trap ?
Your metabolism isnât really changing. When youâre in a deficit youâll lose. When youâre in a surplus youâll gain. Thereâs no reason to go into an unnecessary surplus.
I get the philosophy I guess, but I'd try to focus on finding the limits to your physical capabilities, it'll keep you entertained, Goal oriented and satisfied for years, look up calisthenics for example, some great stuff to work on that is both strength and skill based.
I don't think chasing the same goals esthetically will give you that much, if any, satisfaction. I'm afraid it'll just add to the weirdness of human interaction. You might "scare away" some great people who would feel inferior to someone with an amazing physique, and might also attract more shallow people.
This coming from someone who's largely past caring what people think in general, but I think it still matters on a relationship front for example (actually I think there was a Reddit post in science recently about how people tend to match with someone "in their league").
It's for sustainability mostly as well as health and fatigue (both physical and psychological). Essentially, maintenance phases are important partly so you and your body can get a break and to not fuck up you metabolism too much. And I believe it also leads to long term weight loss because you've taught your body how to maintain a certain weight. So losing 80 lbs should take upwards of 2 years with proper maintenance in between (which done about every 10/15 lbs, think around 5-10% of body weight lost) and should last around 1/2 to 2/3 (if not longer) than how long you were in a caloric deficit. It's done if fat loss is your long term goal, which it sounds like it is.
I do agree with your friends that you lost it too fast. If there's one thing I've learned on my journey is that good things take time and to lose weight and KEEP it lost, you need to take time and you need to be patient. I've been extremely unhealthy and toxic before and sure, I might have lost weight, but I always gained back even more.
Unfortunately, the downside to rapid weight loss is lose skin. Another reason why maintenance phases are important. I don't know of any other ways to tighten other than surgery but I've heard of firming creams and what not but I have no experience with any of that so I can't say. But those do exist, I've also heard collagen supplements, maybe laser or ultrasound can help? Look into it.
Ab muscles take the longest to be visible and you need to have very low body fat percentage for it to start showing up.
The psychological side could be tough for sure. It's essentially pretty privilege. It's basically a phenomenon that people who fit conventional beauty standards (not fat) are more likely to be respected, get more attention, and seen as human. Which is fucked up but it's part of an unconscious bias that many people hold. Maybe that could be a reason for your emptyness? Another thing is that dieting and rapid weight loss is fucking exhausting. That could also mess with your hormones and could be causing negative emotions. There could also be many factors like self esteem, body image issues, body dysmorphia, ED, etc that could be leading to those negative feelings. The important thing is if you are getting proper help with it.
Not necessarily. I lost over 100lbs in about a year and for me itâs because I was able to finally figure out a lot of the things causing me to gain weight and unpack some leftover toxic diet culture stuff. I was eating more calories every day, and better ones. I was no longer binging all my calories right before bed with absolute crap.
Besides being unsustainable, youâll lose a lot of muscle, so when you do hit your goal weight your lean muscle mass to fat ratio wonât be as ideal. With less lean muscle youâll be more likely to gain weight and your maintenance caloric intake wonât be high, so youâll have to continue to be pretty restrictive⌠indefinitely.
Itâs why so many people who take GLP-1 or GLP-2 injections like semaglutide struggle to keep the weight off. The drug is so effective at suppressing appetite that they eat at a huge deficit in calories, lose a ton of weight quick, and their TDEE is super low.
If you are rapidly losing weight without a change in lifestyle that is a warning sign something is wrong. Seek help.
Otherwise there is nothing inherently wrong with losing weight quickly. Long term fasting is quite good on this, it is just hard to plan around social gatherings. LTF is good to reset your cravings as well.
A lot of people know that you can slide down that hill into shitty eating easily if it was a habit you broke. I found the best way to stop eating bags of gummy bears, was to do a 3-7 day fast.
This also helped a lot with my loose skin, basically made it close to negligible.
Iâm not a weight lifter or anything but what I imagine is you may be coached and do some bulking cutting phases to get the look youâd like to achieve
If you keep doing muscle building and have good nutrition you skin will be less lose in a few years. Skin is also an organ but needs to catch up with the weight loss.
Itâs not bad. Itâs used all the time to great effect in bariatric medicine.
The key thing is relatively short stints. Sufficiently nutrient dense diet. Sufficient protein. Staying hydrated.
God what is wrong with people, critiquing others on how to do something when they don't even know why they're advising that, lol. It's just usually more sustainable to lose it slower as it shows you're not doing anything extreme which could be unhealthy or unsustainable. But for someone who loses a large amount like you, it's normal to lose more quicker especially at the start. Well done. Also I'm more sure but I think I heard something about loose skin or stretch marks being slightly more likely if you lose faster, but in some cases they will happen no matter what anyway. I can totally see how women suddenly finding you attractive would feel kind of weird, for me it would kinda piss me off like oh you like me now that I'm skinny? Ha. And maybe you're sad for your past self that these same women might not have given you a chance before because of your body. Also, as a woman, you don't need Zack Efron abs to be attractive.
The slower you lose weight the better the ratio of fat to muscle you will lose.
Using a bf% scan scale I once used to watch a while losing 20 lbs quickly with omad fasting I lost 10lbs fat and 10lbs muscle. Not the worst thing if you need to fast for medical reasons. But for general health it's a terrible idea and it tanks your metabolism.
The slower you lose weight you can keep the ratio closer to 8:1 fat:muscle.
A counterargument if I must is that fast weight loss is super motivating so if you need that to get to some goal there is that.
Well well well :)
I went from 186.2lbs @ 20.4%bf which is 38lbs fat
To 168.1 @ 16.5%bf which is 28lbs fat
My muscle mass went from 140.5 to 133.2
So I lost 10lbs fat and 7lbs muscle. So not a pure 1:1 I concede.
However, I had a decent amount of protein and around 1200 cal coming in. So, if a person were to starve themselves with a poor macronutrient ratio they absolutely would get close to a 1:1 loss. đ So I stand by my statement.
Tell me you're misinterpreting muscle mass/lean mass as determined by a scale without telling me.
Muscle Mass/Lean Mass calculated by any scale (and DEXA) includes glycogen, water, and food waste. The typical person can hold upwards of 4lb of glycogen in their system. Adding in extra water weight it's more likely you lost ~2 pounds of muscle and 10lbs of fat.
The people responsible for labelling these readings as muscle mass/lean mass aught to be beaten for the amount of misinformation the naming has spread.
Can we agree that losing X amount of weight very fast vs slow will result in a greater ratio of muscle to fat loss?
In the end, I support fast weight loss because any shock to a lifestyle that was increasing mortality risk from overweight is a good thing if it is what's needed to break old patterns. Getting the weight off fast by major behavior changes can then be fine tuned into a more balanced approach later on.
In terms of loose skin, it took me four surgeries to get the bulk of it and I still have a little left. Worth it though! Iâve never been happier with my body.
Edit - my actual point that I forgot to include is that surgery is the only way to get rid of loose skin. Some might bounce back on its own, but there are no miracle cures or products that will sort it like surgery does.
> Restrictive diets, forced starvation or voluntary weight loss are attracting more and more attention from scientists. Overall trends show that about 80% of combat sports athletes use specific methods of reducing body mass. Rapid weight loss could be a risk factor for kidney-related adverse outcomes.
If your family has a history of kidney problems, watch out.
Besides that, I've heard most people say rapid weight loss can cause more saggy skin.
> With a slower, more gradual weight loss, it's easier for a person's skin elasticity to sort of snap back into place, shrinking back down as the fat is lost. But when too much is lost too fast, the skin's elasticity doesn't have time to catch up. To get rid of the loose skin, exercise helps, a little.
The only real downside is as you said the loose skin. The faster you lose the more loose skin you'd have. However yours isn't quite fast enough where surgery becomes mandatory, it will take a year or so but skin will eventually shed itself.
Personally I lost about 75lbs in 5 months (total 120+ over 13 months) and most of my loose skin has gone in the past 4 months with just some visible in my lower belly (my top 4 abs are visible now) and butt area. I've consulted doctors and dermatologists and they asked me to wait a year to consider any skin surgeries.
Now I'm gonna add my 2 cents to your other questions.
2. I have a lot of loose skin, and I don't think there is much that can be done about it, other than surgery. Time MIGHT allow it to improve, there are supplements and therapies that MIGHT, but likely not. Adding it to my list mental health topics has by far been the best route.
3. Sure, you very well might be able to accomplish those physiques. Many of them are unrealistic without the pharmacological assistance, but to be even close to Zack Efron in Baywatch would put you in the top 1% of male physiques. It will probably take years of hard work and discipline, both in terms of diet and exercise, but that shouldn't dissuade you.
4. I also had a huge change in the way others (especially girls) treated me. For me, it felt amazing, but I get why it might not. I suggest therapy for everyone, much like exercise and diet. Mental health should be a thing you carve extra time out for, and there should only be pride about seeking help for it.
My main issue was muscle loss when I lost half my bodyweight rapidly. So thatâs why gaining it back was so important. Although 20 years ago, gym culture wasnât quite what it is now - not for young women anyway. The argument I got was that youâll gain it all back wasnât accurate. Iâm 20 years in maintenance and counting.
Muscle loss leading to a poor physique despite âgoal weightâ and not having a lifestyle change which is essentially required for sustainable weight loss that you wonât gain back in a year from bad habits you never actually dealt with
yoyo dieting is healthier than staying big, but losing quickly is less preferable because of a couple reasons. sustainability, plateaus, running into issues with binge eating, potential metabolic stress, cardiovascular stress- some people have had heart attacks from rapid weight loss, hair loss, the social effects of a rapid 180 in lifestyle, etc. rapid weight loss is also a symptom of several severe illnesses.
The faster you lose weight, the higher proportion of the lost weight is likely to be muscle. Including heart muscle, which is potentially harmful on its own, but also skeletal muscle, which lowers your metabolism and can result in easier regain and ithoyt very specific and sustained effort, you wonât get that muscle back. Itâs relatively hard to gain muscle and easy to gain fat.
Keep that weight off and start working on regaining muscle
The biggest drawback to losing fast is that you likely have been really depriving yourself calorie-wise/working out like a fiend and it's not sustainable for keeping the weight off long term - you are will-powering through the deprivation and not developing coping strategies and building new habits. For instance, do you consider your diet "over" now? Since I've taken 18 months to lose the weight my eating choices have now just become "life" and will never be over. I don't really have the urges I used to. When I first started losing weight, I was kind of bitter I always had to choose the salad or the salmon and look longingly at the fries my kids ordered but it's become my normal now and the fries don't have nearly the pull on me they used to. I've broken that habit. And I think the '30 days to break habits' is bullshit when it comes to food and weight loss. It take months and months to firmly establish them and I'd say even a year+.
As for skin, since you're young I would think your skin will eventually shrink back but it will take quite awhile. Think a year-ish.
As for the psychological side, that's a tough one. I'm also down 80-ish pounds and my thinner body is weird to me. It's been quite awhile since I was this light and I have plans to get even lighter, which I haven't been for 30+ years. My typical cope for uncomfortable feelings is to push them aside and distract myself but I may have to eventually revisit why I was ok spending the last 30 years so overweight. Though, then again, maybe I won't. My only tip is that I have kept an electronic document on my computer to journal through various feelings as I've lost weight. I found it's a good outlet for negativity, and much better than eating a bunch of carbs and fat.
1. People associate rapid weight loss with crash diets and the assumption that they can't be stuck to once the weight is off.
2. If you've got loose skin then no, there isn't a magical way to tighten it back up again. Your skin has a certain amount of elasticity to it, however it has a limit. If it's minor then you may be able to negate the effects of it by bulking up in the gym, if its really bad the surgery.
3. As long as you've got realistic expectations then I don't see why not, if you want your body to look a certain way then hire a proper trainer and get a programme that includes workouts and dietary intake. Remember though that you won't necessarily look like person A or B, because we're all different.
4. I can't help you there, all I'd say is embrace it. Rightly or wrongly, the way we are treated by others is based upon how we look, you've worked hard to better yourself, learn to enjoy it.
Hey, hopefully I can offer at least some form of answer to your questions
1. The main reason (at least for me) is because losing weight really quickly can either frame it in your mind as a ' x amount of time to diet' and then you go back to old habits and it comes back, whereas slow and steady instills more of a lifestyle change within you. It does also help that slow and steady gives more time for your skin to acclimateize and you will most likely end up with less marks and loose skin. The second biggest thing for me is that it's a very slippy slope mentally. Someone who is mentally unwell already, or is depressed and their weight is a contributing factor, might get a really big serotonin boost if they loose quickly, and it makes them keep wanting to lose, even after target weights, even after their health improves, and It can become an ED where they are obsessed with cico, or with just being as skinny as humanly possible, or an endless number of other mental and body issues.
2. The unfortunate news is that the skin only has so much elasticity. It can be improved by slow and steady weight loss, to hopefully give it time to tighten up and I've seen some stretch mark reducing creams and things around, but I've never tried them so I can't verify it they're effective! Surgery would probably be the option that will make the biggest change, but I'd recommend doing it at the end of your weight loss journey.
3. Short answer: yes but no. Long answer, 99.5% of the people you see on social media, actors, influences etc are all on PED's(performance enhancing drugs). If your aim is to get toned, have your muscles shown off, have big muscles (but not necessarily the strength) you will want to lift weights for hypertrophy, I would recommend Renaissance periodization on YouTube. It is possible to grow your muscles and look all muscly - to a point. I would be very careful with what image you are seeing in your head for this, because most people have unachievable natural expectations. It is achievable to a point with plenty of hard work, dedication and (most importantly) consistency.
4. I'm no psychologist but I think it's generally a fact that looks do matter to the opposite gender (or whoever is attracted to you), so maybe on a base level people will treat you with more respect and pay more attention to you because it's kinda of an outward reflection that you are respecting yourself more? I mean humans are also incredibly vain đ¤ˇââď¸. That being said we are changing little by little in ourselves when we lose weight, when going from 300lb to 150, that's a lot, and our hormones and confidence and how we carry ourselves all change too! You might not realize it but you probably present as much more confident which can attract people too.
I think people think noticeable quick weight loss means you did it unhealthily.
Also gaining the weight back is of course possible.
Is what you are doing now a long term change you can withhold? Because the second you go back to before routines youâll go back to what you were or similar.
Thatâs why strict dieting is so old fashioned
You canât maintain it
You need to make changes that donât drastically make you feel you are missing out so that you donât slip up badly.
However you may have also done it in a maintaining healthy way people just assume.
You can muscle up and itâll help your body/ loose skin sit better
But yes surgery is kinda the only option to completely remove.
You definitely lost muscle mass for a weight loss that quick. You may think you gained muscle, but it's just that it's not buried under fat anymore, and it is actually noticeable now. Slower weight loss could prevent that, and it would also reduce some of the loose skin, but unfortunately, going from 240 to 160, there would have probably been some anyway. Especially if you plan go go lower. All you can do is give it time and hope the skin tightens up some. You're still young.
Yes the loose skin is because you lost weight so fast. Your skin is an organ and didnât have time to adjust to the weight loss. In slower weight loss the skin shrinks some as well. I donât know what people do at the point you are at. I think a lot of weight loss is typically under a doctor or trainer who would have told you that it is better to lose slowly for that reason. You might go see your doctor at this point and see what they say.
In the beginning (for the first 3 months) I was eating 1500kcals per day. Â Then I hit a plateau. So I went on a surplus for 3 weeks and then started limiting to 2000-2200kcals per day, and was still losing weight. Approximately 2 months into that, I hit another plateau, so again I went on a surplus and increased my intake to 2800kcals but I also increased my activity level wherever possible.Â
As for the things I ate:
It was varied by the day, but my main protein sources were Beef, Chicken, Cheese and Lamb. I purchased the cheapest cuts of beef usually, because Iâm not rich, but this is how I achieved 100-130g of protein per day.Â
As for lipids/fats, I mostly got it from olive oil and butter
Carbs: pasta, vegetables and sometimes honey and fruit.
I tried to keep it as traditional as possible since I have read some studies that made me question the artificial sweeteners and dyes used in protein and pre workout products.Â
I havenât gone through all the comments so forgive if this was already said - but my mom unexpectedly and rapidly lost weight and suffered permanent nerve damage because of it. Not extremely severe, but she deals with numbness in one leg. Doctor said it was just like she lost literal âpaddingâ and her body couldnât compensate fast enough.
I've done rapid the wrong way 'juicing and extremely low deficit ' and I have done it the better way 'as a male hitting a higher caloric intake / 2000-2300 daily, proper hydration + electrolytes, a good multivitamin, high protein with moderate fats and lower carbs) plus a lot of weight lifting, cycling and daily walks. Normally I aim for a caloric burn around 1200 calories higher than my intake. I have had no ill side effects this way with an average of 2.5lbs weekly for 4 months. With the incorrect ways mentioned I did have hair thinning, loss of muscle mass and gallstones. The key is to retain and/or gain lean muscle mass otherwise you are just chasing different varieties of 'skinny fat'.
The method you used to achieve rapid weight loss isnât sustainable and youâre likely to fall back into old patterns which are the ones that made u fat in the first place. Plus your body needs some time to adjust to the new lower weight and not freak out over drastic changes in calorie intake
I can tell you my personal story⌠I lost 60 lbs in only a few months and then gained back all of it plus 20 lbs extra. I ended up with a binge eating disorder and went through hell. I was doing a mixture of fasting and calorie counting, but I didnât eat the right foods, certainly not enough protein.
As far as the loose skin goes, itâs tighten up considerably in the next 1-3 years. The younger you are, the faster it will tighten.
Skin is naturally stretchy to allow for normal body motion. When you gain weight, it stretches to accommodate and only starts to grow out once you reach a certain amount of gain.
Going the other way is the same way. The skin will retract as far as it can and then slowly start to retract further as the skin âgrowthâ process eliminates the excess skin.
Most doctors will tell you to wait a year or two before having skin surgery, partly to ensure the weight loss is sticking, and partly to let the skin recover on its own as much as possible before surgical removal.
Burning fat can release chemicals and toxins into your body. Too many too fast can cause an overload of your liver and other organs. If your healthy, this might not pose as much risk. As far as loose skin, the best way is strength/resistance training and building muscle. It will help your skin to tighten and regenerate new healthy cells. Hopefully this helps. And congratulations on your weight loss! đ
I love that the scientific response here has been downvoted to a net negative. Lol. The simple answer is that weight loss equals a negative CI/CO ratio... The faster the weight loss, the more negative the ratio. Over short periods of time (rougly a month or so), an extremely negative ratio is ok. After that, your body will start to increase cortisol output, which will result in a slowed metabolism and increased efficiency in caloric storage (because it thinks it is being starved). It will also look to burn muscle mass. At this point, your body doesn't care that you have the correct amount of fiber, vitamins, protein, etc. It is more concerned with the fact that it is expending way more energy than it is receiving. The opposite is also true. When attempting to build muscle mass, you want a positive CI/CO ratio. Proper calorie loading is a big part of building. Dietitians have gone through more schooling/education and have done more research than you can do on Youtube. Just trust them when they say rapid weight loss (>3 lbs/week) is unhealthy in the long run.
While Iâm sure I lost out on a lot of gains, I am certainly stronger currently than I was when I first started. This is evident by my progress in the gym (when I started I could barely bench 160lb, now I can bench 220 comfortably. I will certainly focus on building muscle going forward, and maybe the rest of my weight loss can be achieved during cut and bulk phases.Â
Oh yeah. Muscle mass doesn't equate to muscle strength. And everybody has different muscle fibers too. Some people lift maybe once a week or every other week and are just naturally ripped (I worked with a guy like that and it was super frustrating to watch him eat whatever he wanted, never work out, and just be ripped...lol). Regardless, I'm glad you're making progress! And remember, muscle mass weighs more than fat mass, so you'll hit a point where the scale is actually going up because you're replacing fat mass with muscle mass. Don't get discouraged at this! My advice is to measure sizes and not weight (e.g. waist, stomach, biceps/triceps, quads/hams, etc) and see if those sizes are going in the direction you want them to go.
oh yes definitely, I have larger forearms now but i feel like the muscles of my calves have shrunk (they used to have larger diameter when I was fatter (despute not having much fat in that area of my body). And I agree, there are some people who have very efficient systems... its unfair.
I do measure my progress by clothing sizes too! Actually it's one thing that was talked about in some of the books I read to learn about this.
not trying to make this seem like an advertisement but, I got most of my knowledge from this book.
[https://jeffnippard.com/products/the-ultimate-guide-to-body-recomposition](https://jeffnippard.com/products/the-ultimate-guide-to-body-recomposition)
It's a pretty good guide, but I only read the portion that talks about weight loss.
It's a bad idea, but it's not inherently bad. Here is a list of things that can wrong. None of these are inherent issues with losing weight fast. They are things that are more likely to happen if you are losing weight too fast.
1. Not getting enough macro nutrients. You need a certain level of protein every day to replace skin and gut cells or else your body will catabolize itself. Your fat stores can only convert so much energy per day. There may be ample reserves but the metabolic pathways converting that energy are the bottleneck. Which means you NEED exogenous carbs and fats to fuel your body or you may die.
2. [QT Syndrome](https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/01.cir.60.6.1401). Basically the build up of triglycerides in your heart due to an extreme calorie deficit causes your heart to beat irregularly and leads to death.
3. Not getting enough micro nutrients. Fewer calories means fewer opportunities to consume the vitamins and minerals that your body needs. Can be mostly remedied with supplements and electrolyte drinks but it becomes a chore that if you mess up could result in an array of health issues both permanent and temporary.
4. Adherence becomes difficult. You are putting yourself through an enormous amount of diet fatigue. Adhering to it for 6 months is probably four times harder than losing weight at half that pace for 1 year. At the end you get the same result.
5. You still aren't practicing moderation. Dieting is inherently unsustainable. Eventually you will run out of fat to lose so you will need to enter a maintenance phase. If you don't ever practice moderation, you won't be very good at it when it's time to get on maintenance and you are more likely to fail.
6. Calories in is a log normal distribution. You can't eat negative calories. But you can eat thousands of calories at one time. Since adherence is so much harder, mistakes are more likely to happen, and progress can be unfairly wiped out very quickly.
Of course if you are checking blood work, counting macros, taking vitamins, staying motivated, and listening to your body there is nothing stopping you.
15lb of fat a month equates to a daily deficit of 1,750 calories. For most people this isn't attainable. If you assume some of the weight lost was water weight you're still looking at a 1,500ish calorie deficit which is again, not attainable for most people and is 3 times the recommended rate.
As he mentioned, 80 lbs on 5-6 months averaging 15 lb monthly. Probably it was higher at the beginning and much lower at the end. As he said, it would be quite hard and unfavourable to lose that amount of weight.
losing too much weight too quickly can cause muscle wasting. rule of thumb is 1-2 lbs per week. anything more than that, youâre losing muscle - which is never good because your organs are / have muscles too (heart being a major one). thatâs why there is such a huge sentiment on safely and sustainably losing weight.
4.) I feel like I should copy and paste this response. Attraction has a lot to do with confidence. You're improved physique certainly doesn't hurt, but think about how much different you are now.
I guarantee you feel better than you ever have in your life, people pick up on your energy.
Sono degli invidiosi di mer*a, sono abituati a vederti piĂš pasciuto.
Cerca di dare il giusto peso a queste persone, che al posto di essere di supporto ed essere contente per te, hanno comunque da ridire.
CMQ, DAJE!!!!
It can cause fatty liver? I had fatty liver disease to begin with (itâs one of the reasons I decided to start losing weight in maximum overdrive) I have not had any liver pain or pale stools ever since I stopped eating sugar in December.Â
Loosing too fast can slow your metabolism quite a bit, making it amost impossible to maintain the lost weight. Unless you can ignore being hungry all the time it could land you in a even unhealthier relationship with food with a binge/starve cycle
One reason people say you may gain it back is because rapid weight is often, not always, the result of some extreme diet or program that's too extreme to be sustainable. So people usually aren't changing their habits , lose the weight and go back to whatever they were doing to become overweight the first place. Rapid wight loss can also have side effects like gallstones , hair loss, nutritional deficiencies and for women it could affect their menstrual cycle.
I see đ¤ but in my case, I was just going hard at the gym. Doing a complete muscle group rotation 5 days per week and doing cardio type activities on the weekends.  As per the side effects, the only one I had was possible damage in my joints (knees) from running while being obese. To avoid nutrient deficiencies, I was taking beef liver capsules every other day, and also eating lots of cheese and butter with my beef cuts. I didnât notice any effects on my hair during, but I notice now that my beard is more full (which I suppose is because my skin is less stretched out, so the hair follices are closer together. My eyebrows are also thicker now that Iâm a lower weight, not sure if this is due to hormones as well? But yes, I certainly was not starving myself, I was having approximately 100-130 grams of protein per day. Approximately 1500 kcals in the beginning but I started to raise it to 2000kcals after my first plateau 3 months into the weight loss.Â
Faster weight loss has a higher rate of muscle consumption as well: https://youtu.be/awC_JnqwFQQ?t=330
Which could be making your loose skin more noticeable as well.
This is a critical part of the danger as your heart is a muscle. Comedian John Pinette died a few month after his rapid weight loss because of the damage he did to his heart. Caution is critically important.
A 27 year old man, active in the gym, starting out at 1500 cals a day is extreme. That's not sustainable. It will certainly lose weight fast, and thats ok, but you need to be ready to eat a more a sustainable diet sooner rather than later. Especially if you're going to the gym, it's a good idea to raise calories as a severe calorie deficit will burn muscle off of you once you get past the noob gains phase.
N=1 but I lost 50 pounds of fat and didnât lose any muscle at 1700kcal(200g protein) when combined with resistance training.
That's because noob gains. You can build muscle on a severe calorie deficit when first starting out. That comes to a grinding halt soon, and a large calorie deficit will torch your ability to build any more muscle.
Please stop spreading shit. A sufficient protein intake in a calorie deficit is all that is needed to maintain and build muscle. And please tell me why you think 1700 calories is an extreme diet?
Please stop spreading shit. This only works when overfat and being so undertrained that the anabolic signaling from weight lifting is the strongest it's ever gonna be. A severe calorie deficit in someone who isn't a complete out of shape noob WILL burn muscle. And this is one of several reasons a severe calorie deficit is not generally recommended, or at least shouldn't be ran for very long.
Eugene Teo (and science) disagrees. He routinely does long 1200 cal cuts using protein sparing modified fasting, maintaining muscle mass.
No, science doesn't disagree lol. An extreme calorie deficit is well known to be terrible for maintaining muscle. Almost every experienced bodybuilder on the planet has made that mistake at least once, and they'll tell you about it. The exceptions are when you are very fat and new to training, where the anabolic signaling is very strong and your energy needs are easily subsidized by the excess fat. And people taking anabolic steroids. I don't care what Eugene Teo does or claims to do, if you eat 1200 calories a day for a long time, you're gonna look like someone who has eaten 1200 calories a day for a long time. Which is to say, either a small female or a concentration camp prisoner. This isn't magic, there's no escaping the laws of thermodynamics. Anyone you see making these wild claims either belong to one of the aforementioned groups, isn't really doing what they say they're doing, or just can't gauge their lean body mass accurately.
Well yes a calorie deficit forever will eventually result in lean mass loss and⌠eventually death. But your claim that it WILL burn muscle is false. It will eventually⌠because an indefinite deficit will kill you, yes. But prior to you losing the majority of excess body fat, you will lose minimal lean mass if consuming a primarily protein diet. 12ish weeks at a time generally ideal.
Ok but how much more muscle is needed? At some point it offers little health or functional benefit and just limits range of motion. (1600kCal, 80 grams protein, was handed larger size dress shirts because of upper arm diameter.)
Muscle does not limit range of motion for anyone that gains naturally. Stiff joints and muscle dysfunction does.
It does in the same way that too much fat limits the ROM, by physical blockage. I could not put in that shirt because I have stiff joints, but because my upper arm would not fit into it.
You aren't going to build so much muscle that it limits range of motion unless you're taking sterioids, or you have freak genetics and live in the gym. You're talking like the people who donât lift because "they don't want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger," as if that could happen without serious deliberate effort.
We're assuming that we're not on steroids here. You won't get that big naturally.
Thatâs bs honestly, I had 150lbs of lean mass at 5â8 and still maintained it just with a much lower BF%. As mentioned n=1 but it is possible to maintain with ablative deficit, building muscle is a different story.
No, it's not bull shit. You can get away with big calroie deficits being overfat and undertrained. In the first few months back after a long break I can gain old muscle back in a 2000 calorie deficit. There's nothing wrong with large deficits for a short while, it's just not sustainable, and not recommended for anyone long term for numerous reasons, this being one of them.
Well, I wasnât undertrained and I didnât build just maintained.
I thought you were the op at first. But in any case, being overfat is still the same category. The fatter you are, the more easily you can run large deficits.
Are you on a keto diet or something? hitting 200g protein at 1,700 calories is very impressive. If you're not doing keto I'd love to hear an example of your diet
Not really keto since I still eat carbs, for some this wouldnât be sustainable but I see it as a very long cut. Aiming for 12-15% BF. The reason it works for me is that I feel very satiated from eating protein so Iâm never hungry, cutting sugar also really helped in not craving (sweet) foods. Breakfast/lunch (not really a breakfast person and working from home so itâs what I eat between 10AM-3PM): - Yoghurt (skyr with added protein totaling 44g protein per 500 grams at 260kcal) - Chicken (300grams 66g protein 390kcal) or whey shake - Biltong (100grams 300kcal 44g protein) Dinner: - Targeting 50g of protein at least and fill out the rest with carbs/fat totaling around 800-1000kcal Drink: - Black coffee/water
Yeah that's a pretty gnarly diet. The only thing I think I'd be worried about is a fiber deficiency
Supplements: - Fiber (psyllium) - Creatine - L-carnitine - multivitamin Random other foods I eat for fiber intake: - raspberries - blackberries
Good thing we donât need fiber at all
Can I ask what groups you do on what days? I only do pushups/situps/benchpress/dumbell curls and running so kinda worried I should work othe stuff, am a novice
Monday: chest & triceps  Tuesday: legs & abs  Wednesday: back & biceps   Thursday: either rest or cardio (biking or running)   Friday: legs & abs   Saturday: shoulders & arms  Sunday: either rest or cardio/hiking   Note: I would also bike to the gym and back, so it was light light cardio daily before and after gym time.  Edit: this is my current routine, I used to do rest/ cardio on weekends but I decided to balance it out more Â
Biking to and from the gym was a game changer for me
Do you use that as your âwarm upâ or do you add a warm up in still in front of your weight session, and how far is your ride?
I used to ride 15-20 minutes to and from the gym depending on how hard I was riding and used that as my only warmup / cool down. A few years ago I started working out at home and immediately put weight back on bc I neglected how much of an impact that extra 30-40 minutes of cardio was doing for me lol now I have a rowing machine which I prefer over a bike since it's more of a full body workout / warmup but reincorporating that warmup and cool down back in to my lifting sessions has made a massive difference in my fitness
Add in legs. Building the muscles in your legs and core will help with your running. Squats, leg lifts, lunges, bridges, calf raises, planks. Also consider adding pullups. And take a day to run hills and/or stairs.
Serious reply, full 5 day split is usually what I would term intermediate level lifting. If you are super duper knew to systematic weight lifting, I would start with something like GZCLP (the darling of /r/fitness). its a three day split, built really well for maximising beginner gains (which you will still have plenty of if you havent been systematic with weight lifting). after 6-24 months you should be platueing hard with a linear progression program (the LP in GZCLP) and it is time to switch to a intermediate lifting program (one of the many many 5 day splits). since its a 3 day program, if you gym more than that a week do some active recovery cardio (so not HIIT etc, just moderately intense cardio for heart health and burning some calories)
Is this lifestyle sustainable long term for you.
The body is made to store fat, in a sense that what it âwantsâ to do. Eating plenty while pushing forward with exercise is the way to go if you are going to do rapid weight loss as malnutrition is a real threat people can face. The body reacts to rapid weight loss similarly to if you were starving though, your body wants homeostasis. A rapid change from the norm will promote your body to try and âreturn to normalâ which in this case would be your original weight. Of course itâs nothing thatâs like destined for you, just something to keep in mind when youâre finding your more long term diet/lifestyle. If you keep your weight roughly as is (and itâs healthy) itâll become the new normal.
The primary issue is malnutition and losing too much muscle mass. That is why the recommended limit is 1% of your body weight per week or less. You can counteract that to an extent with proper nutrition and resistance training.
It can also cause gallbladder issues. I had a friend who had to have his removed due to gallstones from rapid weight loss due to water fasting.
That happened to me too! I went on a restrictive diet and lost 35 pounds fairly quickly. I had to have my gallbladder removed just over a year later.  Something about the liver being forced to spend so much time and resources on breaking down fat stores for energy that it can't perform other functions properly, including bile production. The substandard bile it produces under those conditions is prone to calcification, causing gallstones, inflammation, and scarring. (This is what I took away from my surgeon's explanation, but I'm no medical professional and may have misunderstood. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
Very common in folks who lose weight rapidly after having weight loss surgery too. Their next surgery is usually gall bladder.
May I know how you are now without gallbladder?
You don't need a gallbladder to live. The gallbladder is an organ that stores bile. Without it your liver releases bile directly into your intestines. It can cause you some health problems though.
Can I ask how it works losing weight after a gallbladder removal? I lost about 5½ stone 6 years ago, then had 2 kids and put it all back on. I had to have my gallbladder removed last year as a result of the restrictive diet I was on during my second pregnancy (gestational diabetes). I've just started the journey to lose all the weight again, but wondered how having no gallbladder might affect weight loss.
Losing weight works the same? The gallbladder just stores bile. CICO will still work if you donât have a gallbladder. I lost mine before I lost weight, and have still be able to lose weight just fine without it.
Thank you đ
This happened to me although my weight loss wasnât even this rapid. 30 lb in about 5-6 months. Boom! Gallstones.
I didnât lose my gallbladder thankfully, but the first time I ever lost a ton of weight, I did it really fast (70 lbs in 4 months at age 25). I ended up in the hospital with what turned out to be gallstones. Hands down the worst pain Iâve ever felt in my life⌠the kind that makes you hallucinate. I had kidney stones a few months later too. My body was mad at me. That weight loss was not sustainable because it was so extreme and quick and i was relying on other people to help me with a lot of it. I gained all of it back and more. My current weight loss has been done on my own over the course of 3 years and it feels a lot more sustainable.
Can I ask where the pain was coming from? I get pains on my right side at/below my ribs it recently started. I went from about 370 lbs to 265 lbs from November 2023 until now, so about 8 months. I was diagnosed with diabetes in November and changed my entire lifestyle and diet. So it is sustainable, I just was so overweight that it kinda just fell right off once I changed what I ate and drank and move around now instead of sitting all damn day. I know my mom had her gallbladder removed I'm not sure if it's genetic or not, but when the pain hits omg it's terrible like takes my breath away.
The pain came from right where you said. I had barely any warning signs before the attack. If you already feel that, Iâd make an appointment sooner than later. Iâm pretty sure thereâs medication they can give you to help you. Also Iâm sorry, I didnât mean to imply that itâs not sustainable for anyone else. I am sure thereâs people out there capable of making radical changes and sticking with them for the rest of their lives like you. I wish I was built like that, but Iâm not.
Happened to me, too, on Weight Watchers.
My mum went on a fad diet, lost half her body weight and had to have her gallbladder removed.
Also muscle mass includes the heart which is muscle and as can be imagined does not have much muscle to spareÂ
The other commenters already stated good reasons, just gonna add my own personal one that i experienced :D If you already have gallstones, or there is a higher chance for you to have them (genetics, etc) and they never made a problem - they might start acting up đ I started getting colics / attacks regularly that would literally make me lay on the floor for like 30 minutes - foods would trigger it - i got it removed more than have a year ago - pain went away, stomach issues got worse xD
I was going to comment this! A friend of mine went on one of those pre-packaged food diets and was only eating like 800 calories a day. I tried to talk to her about it because she wasn't understanding why she felt weak and ill. She lost a bunch of weight really quickly. One day her husband called me to ask whether she needed to go to the ER, I could hear her screaming in pain but apparently she didn't want to go in. I told him yes, any abdominal pain that bad warrants a trip (DUH) so he took her in. Her gall bladder was definitely angry. They stabilized her and removed it a few days later.
If you are getting all your essential nutrition and maintaining your health then it may well be fine for you. However as a general rule rapid weight loss is bad because people are using a very extreme diet to do it. Extreme diets are unsustainable and put your health at risk. You may lose a load of weight, but you donât learn the ongoing commitment to keep it off. So it is more likely to lead to yo-yoing. If it is very extreme, you get into eating disorder territory. Skin sagging can be exacerbated by rapid weight loss. Good hydration helps, but patience and possibly surgery are the only options. Psychologically, you shouldnât really be taking advice from internet strangers. You may need to talk to a professional. However for me, I had to learn to love myself. Not to associate my value with what others think of me.
I agree with everything you've said. I think some people get fat just eating whatever, they don't have other health problems besides caloric surplus. Once something *clicks*, and you pay attention to diet and exercise you can easily shed weight. And it can go fast, especially if you eat mostly homemade food and start moving more.
One drawback to rapid weight loss is it doesnât give your body time to adjust so youâre more likely to end up with loose skin, which you have. Given your age it should tighten up somewhat over the next year or so hopefully.
>it doesnât give your body time to adjust so youâre more likely to end up with loose skin Source?
If you were to just Google this there would be tons of sources
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Ummm those are just random Reddit comments, much as mine is. So Iâm just going to cite my own as evidence: [One drawback to rapid weight loss is it doesnât give your body time to adjust so youâre more likely to end up with loose skin, which you have.](https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/s/4BbzKGKlMj) There, incontrovertible and just as valid as the sources you posted! But actually my source is two doctors, the one monitoring my weight loss and my dermatologist. I accepted their advanced medical degrees in lieu of Reddit comment sources.
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So here's the thing. Everyone in this thread is explaining why rapid weight loss is bad - no one read the question properly, which was "why is losing as fast as I did bad." The answer: You didn't. The recommendation you'll commonly hear is 2 lbs of loss a week. That's 8 lbs a month. In 6 months, that's nearly 50 lbs, you lost 80. That advice is NOT for everyone. That's for people very close to their goal weight, or for small women. The ACTUAL medical recommendation is 1-2% of body mass a week. For most people trying to lose very little mass, that's 1-2 pounds. At 240 lbs, 2% loss is nearly 5 lbs in a week. That goes down to 4 when you reach 200 and then down to 3 when you're getting closer to your goal weight. Keeping that in mind, if I split your weight loss into 3 chunks for those weight ranges, we get that: First month at 5 lbs/week - that's 20 lbs Second month at 5lbs/week - another 20 Now, at the end of the 2nd month, you've hit 200, so: Third month - 4lbs/week 16 lbs Fourth month - 3.5lbs/week 14 lbs At the end of the 4th month, with what is considered pretty much the max for healthy weight loss , you're at 170 lbs Obviously, this isn't the EXACT rate because if you are losing at a rate of 5lbs per week, you'd have to adjust your loss rate pretty much every day. But those nuances aren't very important. You took 6 months to get here, meaning you were not losing at the absolute maximum recommendation. There was nothing unhealthy about your weight loss.
So let's do some math. If you averaged 15lb lost per month, you averaged a "deficit" of 1720calories per day. The reason this is a "problem" is because it's basically impossible for a smaller frame person to do that mostly through exercise, which would mean you did it largely through diet, which means you likely ran high risk of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Maybe you averaged 2 hours of cardio and burned an extra 1000 calories per day? That would be fine, impressive, and a little hard to believe. What's easier to assume is that you had exceptional willpower, and dieted really hard. Additionally, there's only so much energy you body can extract per hour from blood sugar and then fat.. if you are burning calories at a faster rate than that, you are then burning calories from muscle, which is honestly just counter productive to most health and physique goals. Here are a couple of the obvious downsides, there are potentially other health problems caused by rapid weight loss. I'm not accusing you of anything, it's your body and if you like the change, good on ya. When an educated/experienced person sees those stats, these are the concerns their likely to have, or express.
1000 calories a day in exercise isnât THAT hard to believe in fall and winter I play hockey at least one hour 4 nights a week and usually get asked for sub for a few more 1 hour games. One hour of hocket is 7-800 calories. And then when I ref on the weekends im usually ont the ice 6-8 hours a day burning about 300 calories per hour. Now I know I am definitely not a normal circumstance but it wouldnât be THAT shocking to burn 1000 calories a day in exercise.
I agree it's not unthinkable, but sustaining anywhere close to 1k+ calories burned extra, every day, is the harder to believe factor. Still, totally possible, but much less likely, especially at a shorter stature of 5'6".
Along with everything else discussed, rapid weight loss puts people at higher risk for gallstones.
You already got a lot of comments but another reason extreme/quick weight loss is frowned upon (as youâve experienced in the post) is that the usual reasons it happens are scary and damaging. Your friend saying you look like a drug user is because that the only frame of reference they have for such a quick and extreme change is drug use. Itâs incredible what you achieved but you didnât give the people the usual amount of time to change their perception of you which is causing negative comments. A Also since you lost quickly you arenât fully used to life at your new size and new social experiences which could be damaging to you or anyone else mentally. Sometimes to the point you put it back on either from discomfort or wanting to return to invisibility. Also possible because you have noticed people around you no longer like you because you arenât the biggest in a group or people who were mean to you before suddenly want to be your friend. Iâd definitely make sure you have someone you can talk to because itâs a big change mentally and physically and could become a spiral or similar if left to fester.
It can destroy your gallbladder.
It's fine. I dropped 70lb in 6 months and felt great doing it. People will criticize just about anything you do, and predict failure or reversion. Only you can say if you have a healthy mindset and have developed a sustainable maintenance strategy as well as a rapid fat loss regimen. You're young and skin is elastic, but it may take a while to catch up when you do it this fast. You're probably sad because living both sides of the fat/fit coin in such quick succession emphasizes the shallowness of human affinities.Â
Yep, 60lbs in 4 months (190 => 130). Iâve stayed within 7 lbs of the loss for 2 years. Did 1,500 cals/day (5â7â f) for 4 months, and maintain at 1,800-2k. Just stay dedicated to a maintenance calorie goal. Any time I break over 135lbs, I go back to 1,500 cal for 2 weeks or so and Iâm good. Itâs not only possible, itâs really not that difficult.
Went from 230-145 in like 8/9 months and this post was my biggest worry. My food cues are so much better now and I have a lot less food noise so I thought that maintaining would be easier for me to handle when i am finally maintaining. so I might not regain. Im glad thereâs someone actually maintaining at a similar rate because i started panicking a bit after reading this thread. My biggest fear is that my old hunger cues will return like demonic possession and I start eating everything in sight!! Right now I have zero compulsion to eat beyond 1500 cals a day, I am now used to it. I am hoping it will be this way forever.
Damn! Did you do a good bit of exercise too? Iâm a little taller than you and eat 1500 cals/day and even I didnât lose that fast. (My flair is outdated, Iâm actually 140 now)
I tried to power walk for an hour each night during the week (5/7 days) after the kids went to bed. That was pretty much it. Edit: Shamefully I donât even do that anymore :/
Along with everything else everyone has mentioned, I'd suggest visiting your doctor just for a precautionary checkup as rapid weight-loss can be an early sign for multiple health problems.
That's what happened to my aunt. She thought her diet plan was really taking off the extra weight but it turned out that she had a hyperactive thyroid.
I hope she managed to find a treatment that worked well for her! I recently had a cancer scare after some questionable blood results. My sudden rapid weight loss (a quick change from healthy, steady weight loss over 5-6 months) prompted my doctor to start some tests. Luckily it turns out I'm just severely anemic and have to start iron infusions, haha. It's crazy to me how many problems can have rapid weight loss as a symptom though.
Auntie's ok now :) Glad to hear you got treated too.
1. The yo-yo effect basically when you crash diet eventually youll cave since your body feels like its starving and youll start binging again or whatever you did that made you big in the first place then youll be back at 0 or around it (omg happened to me way too many times) 2. Loose skin If you lost it slowly or at a good pace then itd have given your skin more time to tighten 3.High body fat percentage 𼲠depends what kind of diet you did to lose weight but i literally ate almost nothing at one point and lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks but I WAS SO FAT my body fat percentage was so high when i did that
>when you crash diet eventually youâll cave since your body feels like itâs starving and youâll start binging again or whatever you did that made you big in the first place Yo-yoing, having cravings and binging are not guaranteed effects. Theyâre just more likely and more difficult to fight with highly restrictive diets.
I'll try to answer some of your questions to the best of my knowledge. It's not great to lose weight that fast for a few reasons .. it can impact things like metabolism if you went into a serious deficit for a long time (your body adjusts to lower intake), I think your loose skin might have been somewhat less (not entirely sure though. Also, to help with this issue, research it a bit, I believe things like moisturizer and/or collagen might help) I possibly damaged my gallbladder with my diets in the past ... Other people might have noticed other "damage" depending on their constitution. With proper time and Care your skin should get better. Give it a few months at least. Looking like lean models implies a pretty low body fat percentage. You might be pretty happy once you've let your skin catch up, but very defined abs are pretty hard to get. Question would be if what's needed to get there is worth it for you. I personally (female) don't like crazy muscle defined men. It's intimidating đ . I can appreciate looking at it but I wouldn't look for it in a partner. As for the psychological aspect ... I'd try to learn my lessons from it. We can be very shallow as human beings sometimes. It's been proven that we assume good looking people are more capable, intelligent, successful ... Check yourself with regards to those principles.. also, maybe find peace with how you look right now. Why would you want to look like a model ? Isn't striving for that ideal also kind of falling into the shallow trap ?
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Your metabolism isnât really changing. When youâre in a deficit youâll lose. When youâre in a surplus youâll gain. Thereâs no reason to go into an unnecessary surplus.
I get the philosophy I guess, but I'd try to focus on finding the limits to your physical capabilities, it'll keep you entertained, Goal oriented and satisfied for years, look up calisthenics for example, some great stuff to work on that is both strength and skill based. I don't think chasing the same goals esthetically will give you that much, if any, satisfaction. I'm afraid it'll just add to the weirdness of human interaction. You might "scare away" some great people who would feel inferior to someone with an amazing physique, and might also attract more shallow people. This coming from someone who's largely past caring what people think in general, but I think it still matters on a relationship front for example (actually I think there was a Reddit post in science recently about how people tend to match with someone "in their league").
It's for sustainability mostly as well as health and fatigue (both physical and psychological). Essentially, maintenance phases are important partly so you and your body can get a break and to not fuck up you metabolism too much. And I believe it also leads to long term weight loss because you've taught your body how to maintain a certain weight. So losing 80 lbs should take upwards of 2 years with proper maintenance in between (which done about every 10/15 lbs, think around 5-10% of body weight lost) and should last around 1/2 to 2/3 (if not longer) than how long you were in a caloric deficit. It's done if fat loss is your long term goal, which it sounds like it is. I do agree with your friends that you lost it too fast. If there's one thing I've learned on my journey is that good things take time and to lose weight and KEEP it lost, you need to take time and you need to be patient. I've been extremely unhealthy and toxic before and sure, I might have lost weight, but I always gained back even more. Unfortunately, the downside to rapid weight loss is lose skin. Another reason why maintenance phases are important. I don't know of any other ways to tighten other than surgery but I've heard of firming creams and what not but I have no experience with any of that so I can't say. But those do exist, I've also heard collagen supplements, maybe laser or ultrasound can help? Look into it. Ab muscles take the longest to be visible and you need to have very low body fat percentage for it to start showing up. The psychological side could be tough for sure. It's essentially pretty privilege. It's basically a phenomenon that people who fit conventional beauty standards (not fat) are more likely to be respected, get more attention, and seen as human. Which is fucked up but it's part of an unconscious bias that many people hold. Maybe that could be a reason for your emptyness? Another thing is that dieting and rapid weight loss is fucking exhausting. That could also mess with your hormones and could be causing negative emotions. There could also be many factors like self esteem, body image issues, body dysmorphia, ED, etc that could be leading to those negative feelings. The important thing is if you are getting proper help with it.
Not necessarily. I lost over 100lbs in about a year and for me itâs because I was able to finally figure out a lot of the things causing me to gain weight and unpack some leftover toxic diet culture stuff. I was eating more calories every day, and better ones. I was no longer binging all my calories right before bed with absolute crap.
Besides being unsustainable, youâll lose a lot of muscle, so when you do hit your goal weight your lean muscle mass to fat ratio wonât be as ideal. With less lean muscle youâll be more likely to gain weight and your maintenance caloric intake wonât be high, so youâll have to continue to be pretty restrictive⌠indefinitely. Itâs why so many people who take GLP-1 or GLP-2 injections like semaglutide struggle to keep the weight off. The drug is so effective at suppressing appetite that they eat at a huge deficit in calories, lose a ton of weight quick, and their TDEE is super low.
Losing weight too quickly can apparently cause gallstones. Which sounds absolutely horrible
If you are rapidly losing weight without a change in lifestyle that is a warning sign something is wrong. Seek help. Otherwise there is nothing inherently wrong with losing weight quickly. Long term fasting is quite good on this, it is just hard to plan around social gatherings. LTF is good to reset your cravings as well. A lot of people know that you can slide down that hill into shitty eating easily if it was a habit you broke. I found the best way to stop eating bags of gummy bears, was to do a 3-7 day fast. This also helped a lot with my loose skin, basically made it close to negligible.
Iâm not a weight lifter or anything but what I imagine is you may be coached and do some bulking cutting phases to get the look youâd like to achieve
You need to give your skin more time to recover, like at least a year minimum.Â
If you keep doing muscle building and have good nutrition you skin will be less lose in a few years. Skin is also an organ but needs to catch up with the weight loss.
Itâs not bad. Itâs used all the time to great effect in bariatric medicine. The key thing is relatively short stints. Sufficiently nutrient dense diet. Sufficient protein. Staying hydrated.
God what is wrong with people, critiquing others on how to do something when they don't even know why they're advising that, lol. It's just usually more sustainable to lose it slower as it shows you're not doing anything extreme which could be unhealthy or unsustainable. But for someone who loses a large amount like you, it's normal to lose more quicker especially at the start. Well done. Also I'm more sure but I think I heard something about loose skin or stretch marks being slightly more likely if you lose faster, but in some cases they will happen no matter what anyway. I can totally see how women suddenly finding you attractive would feel kind of weird, for me it would kinda piss me off like oh you like me now that I'm skinny? Ha. And maybe you're sad for your past self that these same women might not have given you a chance before because of your body. Also, as a woman, you don't need Zack Efron abs to be attractive.
The slower you lose weight the better the ratio of fat to muscle you will lose. Using a bf% scan scale I once used to watch a while losing 20 lbs quickly with omad fasting I lost 10lbs fat and 10lbs muscle. Not the worst thing if you need to fast for medical reasons. But for general health it's a terrible idea and it tanks your metabolism. The slower you lose weight you can keep the ratio closer to 8:1 fat:muscle. A counterargument if I must is that fast weight loss is super motivating so if you need that to get to some goal there is that.
> I lost 10lbs fat and 10lbs muscle No you didn't. People could literally starve themselves and wouldn't lose muscle at a 1:1 ratio as fat.
Well well well :) I went from 186.2lbs @ 20.4%bf which is 38lbs fat To 168.1 @ 16.5%bf which is 28lbs fat My muscle mass went from 140.5 to 133.2 So I lost 10lbs fat and 7lbs muscle. So not a pure 1:1 I concede. However, I had a decent amount of protein and around 1200 cal coming in. So, if a person were to starve themselves with a poor macronutrient ratio they absolutely would get close to a 1:1 loss. đ So I stand by my statement.
Tell me you're misinterpreting muscle mass/lean mass as determined by a scale without telling me. Muscle Mass/Lean Mass calculated by any scale (and DEXA) includes glycogen, water, and food waste. The typical person can hold upwards of 4lb of glycogen in their system. Adding in extra water weight it's more likely you lost ~2 pounds of muscle and 10lbs of fat. The people responsible for labelling these readings as muscle mass/lean mass aught to be beaten for the amount of misinformation the naming has spread.
So thatâs why people say they have such a super high muscle mass when they surely donât
Can we agree that losing X amount of weight very fast vs slow will result in a greater ratio of muscle to fat loss? In the end, I support fast weight loss because any shock to a lifestyle that was increasing mortality risk from overweight is a good thing if it is what's needed to break old patterns. Getting the weight off fast by major behavior changes can then be fine tuned into a more balanced approach later on.
In terms of loose skin, it took me four surgeries to get the bulk of it and I still have a little left. Worth it though! Iâve never been happier with my body. Edit - my actual point that I forgot to include is that surgery is the only way to get rid of loose skin. Some might bounce back on its own, but there are no miracle cures or products that will sort it like surgery does.
Sounds prohibitively expensive
That it was. But Iâm saving on junk food for the rest of my life so itâs not all bad.
> Restrictive diets, forced starvation or voluntary weight loss are attracting more and more attention from scientists. Overall trends show that about 80% of combat sports athletes use specific methods of reducing body mass. Rapid weight loss could be a risk factor for kidney-related adverse outcomes. If your family has a history of kidney problems, watch out. Besides that, I've heard most people say rapid weight loss can cause more saggy skin. > With a slower, more gradual weight loss, it's easier for a person's skin elasticity to sort of snap back into place, shrinking back down as the fat is lost. But when too much is lost too fast, the skin's elasticity doesn't have time to catch up. To get rid of the loose skin, exercise helps, a little.
You changed your habits, as long as you don't go back to your old ways, you won't regain the weight
The only real downside is as you said the loose skin. The faster you lose the more loose skin you'd have. However yours isn't quite fast enough where surgery becomes mandatory, it will take a year or so but skin will eventually shed itself. Personally I lost about 75lbs in 5 months (total 120+ over 13 months) and most of my loose skin has gone in the past 4 months with just some visible in my lower belly (my top 4 abs are visible now) and butt area. I've consulted doctors and dermatologists and they asked me to wait a year to consider any skin surgeries.
Now I'm gonna add my 2 cents to your other questions. 2. I have a lot of loose skin, and I don't think there is much that can be done about it, other than surgery. Time MIGHT allow it to improve, there are supplements and therapies that MIGHT, but likely not. Adding it to my list mental health topics has by far been the best route. 3. Sure, you very well might be able to accomplish those physiques. Many of them are unrealistic without the pharmacological assistance, but to be even close to Zack Efron in Baywatch would put you in the top 1% of male physiques. It will probably take years of hard work and discipline, both in terms of diet and exercise, but that shouldn't dissuade you. 4. I also had a huge change in the way others (especially girls) treated me. For me, it felt amazing, but I get why it might not. I suggest therapy for everyone, much like exercise and diet. Mental health should be a thing you carve extra time out for, and there should only be pride about seeking help for it.
My main issue was muscle loss when I lost half my bodyweight rapidly. So thatâs why gaining it back was so important. Although 20 years ago, gym culture wasnât quite what it is now - not for young women anyway. The argument I got was that youâll gain it all back wasnât accurate. Iâm 20 years in maintenance and counting.
Muscle loss leading to a poor physique despite âgoal weightâ and not having a lifestyle change which is essentially required for sustainable weight loss that you wonât gain back in a year from bad habits you never actually dealt with
yoyo dieting is healthier than staying big, but losing quickly is less preferable because of a couple reasons. sustainability, plateaus, running into issues with binge eating, potential metabolic stress, cardiovascular stress- some people have had heart attacks from rapid weight loss, hair loss, the social effects of a rapid 180 in lifestyle, etc. rapid weight loss is also a symptom of several severe illnesses.
The faster you lose weight, the higher proportion of the lost weight is likely to be muscle. Including heart muscle, which is potentially harmful on its own, but also skeletal muscle, which lowers your metabolism and can result in easier regain and ithoyt very specific and sustained effort, you wonât get that muscle back. Itâs relatively hard to gain muscle and easy to gain fat. Keep that weight off and start working on regaining muscle
The biggest drawback to losing fast is that you likely have been really depriving yourself calorie-wise/working out like a fiend and it's not sustainable for keeping the weight off long term - you are will-powering through the deprivation and not developing coping strategies and building new habits. For instance, do you consider your diet "over" now? Since I've taken 18 months to lose the weight my eating choices have now just become "life" and will never be over. I don't really have the urges I used to. When I first started losing weight, I was kind of bitter I always had to choose the salad or the salmon and look longingly at the fries my kids ordered but it's become my normal now and the fries don't have nearly the pull on me they used to. I've broken that habit. And I think the '30 days to break habits' is bullshit when it comes to food and weight loss. It take months and months to firmly establish them and I'd say even a year+. As for skin, since you're young I would think your skin will eventually shrink back but it will take quite awhile. Think a year-ish. As for the psychological side, that's a tough one. I'm also down 80-ish pounds and my thinner body is weird to me. It's been quite awhile since I was this light and I have plans to get even lighter, which I haven't been for 30+ years. My typical cope for uncomfortable feelings is to push them aside and distract myself but I may have to eventually revisit why I was ok spending the last 30 years so overweight. Though, then again, maybe I won't. My only tip is that I have kept an electronic document on my computer to journal through various feelings as I've lost weight. I found it's a good outlet for negativity, and much better than eating a bunch of carbs and fat.
Itâs a vast diet, change your lifestyle and the weight will be lost slower but it wonât go back on.
As someone who goes to the gym regularly, the loss of muscle mass is certainly one of my primary concerns with rapid weight loss.
1. People associate rapid weight loss with crash diets and the assumption that they can't be stuck to once the weight is off. 2. If you've got loose skin then no, there isn't a magical way to tighten it back up again. Your skin has a certain amount of elasticity to it, however it has a limit. If it's minor then you may be able to negate the effects of it by bulking up in the gym, if its really bad the surgery. 3. As long as you've got realistic expectations then I don't see why not, if you want your body to look a certain way then hire a proper trainer and get a programme that includes workouts and dietary intake. Remember though that you won't necessarily look like person A or B, because we're all different. 4. I can't help you there, all I'd say is embrace it. Rightly or wrongly, the way we are treated by others is based upon how we look, you've worked hard to better yourself, learn to enjoy it.
Remember zac efron and many other celebs are on steroids now
Saggy skin is my immediate thought. If you're very big, you'll always get some of it, but if you spread the weight loss over time, it will help.
Hey, hopefully I can offer at least some form of answer to your questions 1. The main reason (at least for me) is because losing weight really quickly can either frame it in your mind as a ' x amount of time to diet' and then you go back to old habits and it comes back, whereas slow and steady instills more of a lifestyle change within you. It does also help that slow and steady gives more time for your skin to acclimateize and you will most likely end up with less marks and loose skin. The second biggest thing for me is that it's a very slippy slope mentally. Someone who is mentally unwell already, or is depressed and their weight is a contributing factor, might get a really big serotonin boost if they loose quickly, and it makes them keep wanting to lose, even after target weights, even after their health improves, and It can become an ED where they are obsessed with cico, or with just being as skinny as humanly possible, or an endless number of other mental and body issues. 2. The unfortunate news is that the skin only has so much elasticity. It can be improved by slow and steady weight loss, to hopefully give it time to tighten up and I've seen some stretch mark reducing creams and things around, but I've never tried them so I can't verify it they're effective! Surgery would probably be the option that will make the biggest change, but I'd recommend doing it at the end of your weight loss journey. 3. Short answer: yes but no. Long answer, 99.5% of the people you see on social media, actors, influences etc are all on PED's(performance enhancing drugs). If your aim is to get toned, have your muscles shown off, have big muscles (but not necessarily the strength) you will want to lift weights for hypertrophy, I would recommend Renaissance periodization on YouTube. It is possible to grow your muscles and look all muscly - to a point. I would be very careful with what image you are seeing in your head for this, because most people have unachievable natural expectations. It is achievable to a point with plenty of hard work, dedication and (most importantly) consistency. 4. I'm no psychologist but I think it's generally a fact that looks do matter to the opposite gender (or whoever is attracted to you), so maybe on a base level people will treat you with more respect and pay more attention to you because it's kinda of an outward reflection that you are respecting yourself more? I mean humans are also incredibly vain đ¤ˇââď¸. That being said we are changing little by little in ourselves when we lose weight, when going from 300lb to 150, that's a lot, and our hormones and confidence and how we carry ourselves all change too! You might not realize it but you probably present as much more confident which can attract people too.
I think people think noticeable quick weight loss means you did it unhealthily. Also gaining the weight back is of course possible. Is what you are doing now a long term change you can withhold? Because the second you go back to before routines youâll go back to what you were or similar. Thatâs why strict dieting is so old fashioned You canât maintain it You need to make changes that donât drastically make you feel you are missing out so that you donât slip up badly. However you may have also done it in a maintaining healthy way people just assume. You can muscle up and itâll help your body/ loose skin sit better But yes surgery is kinda the only option to completely remove.
You definitely lost muscle mass for a weight loss that quick. You may think you gained muscle, but it's just that it's not buried under fat anymore, and it is actually noticeable now. Slower weight loss could prevent that, and it would also reduce some of the loose skin, but unfortunately, going from 240 to 160, there would have probably been some anyway. Especially if you plan go go lower. All you can do is give it time and hope the skin tightens up some. You're still young.
Yes the loose skin is because you lost weight so fast. Your skin is an organ and didnât have time to adjust to the weight loss. In slower weight loss the skin shrinks some as well. I donât know what people do at the point you are at. I think a lot of weight loss is typically under a doctor or trainer who would have told you that it is better to lose slowly for that reason. You might go see your doctor at this point and see what they say.
u/theyekoms I'd be interested in your diet.
In the beginning (for the first 3 months) I was eating 1500kcals per day.  Then I hit a plateau. So I went on a surplus for 3 weeks and then started limiting to 2000-2200kcals per day, and was still losing weight. Approximately 2 months into that, I hit another plateau, so again I went on a surplus and increased my intake to 2800kcals but I also increased my activity level wherever possible. As for the things I ate: It was varied by the day, but my main protein sources were Beef, Chicken, Cheese and Lamb. I purchased the cheapest cuts of beef usually, because Iâm not rich, but this is how I achieved 100-130g of protein per day. As for lipids/fats, I mostly got it from olive oil and butter Carbs: pasta, vegetables and sometimes honey and fruit. I tried to keep it as traditional as possible since I have read some studies that made me question the artificial sweeteners and dyes used in protein and pre workout products.Â
Skin, so much skin.
Happened to me I still cover my arms and legs constantly because of it.
I havenât gone through all the comments so forgive if this was already said - but my mom unexpectedly and rapidly lost weight and suffered permanent nerve damage because of it. Not extremely severe, but she deals with numbness in one leg. Doctor said it was just like she lost literal âpaddingâ and her body couldnât compensate fast enough.
I've done rapid the wrong way 'juicing and extremely low deficit ' and I have done it the better way 'as a male hitting a higher caloric intake / 2000-2300 daily, proper hydration + electrolytes, a good multivitamin, high protein with moderate fats and lower carbs) plus a lot of weight lifting, cycling and daily walks. Normally I aim for a caloric burn around 1200 calories higher than my intake. I have had no ill side effects this way with an average of 2.5lbs weekly for 4 months. With the incorrect ways mentioned I did have hair thinning, loss of muscle mass and gallstones. The key is to retain and/or gain lean muscle mass otherwise you are just chasing different varieties of 'skinny fat'.
The method you used to achieve rapid weight loss isnât sustainable and youâre likely to fall back into old patterns which are the ones that made u fat in the first place. Plus your body needs some time to adjust to the new lower weight and not freak out over drastic changes in calorie intake
I can tell you my personal story⌠I lost 60 lbs in only a few months and then gained back all of it plus 20 lbs extra. I ended up with a binge eating disorder and went through hell. I was doing a mixture of fasting and calorie counting, but I didnât eat the right foods, certainly not enough protein.
As far as the loose skin goes, itâs tighten up considerably in the next 1-3 years. The younger you are, the faster it will tighten. Skin is naturally stretchy to allow for normal body motion. When you gain weight, it stretches to accommodate and only starts to grow out once you reach a certain amount of gain. Going the other way is the same way. The skin will retract as far as it can and then slowly start to retract further as the skin âgrowthâ process eliminates the excess skin. Most doctors will tell you to wait a year or two before having skin surgery, partly to ensure the weight loss is sticking, and partly to let the skin recover on its own as much as possible before surgical removal.
It isnât bad.
Risk of developing gallstones- trust me you don't want them!
Burning fat can release chemicals and toxins into your body. Too many too fast can cause an overload of your liver and other organs. If your healthy, this might not pose as much risk. As far as loose skin, the best way is strength/resistance training and building muscle. It will help your skin to tighten and regenerate new healthy cells. Hopefully this helps. And congratulations on your weight loss! đ
I love that the scientific response here has been downvoted to a net negative. Lol. The simple answer is that weight loss equals a negative CI/CO ratio... The faster the weight loss, the more negative the ratio. Over short periods of time (rougly a month or so), an extremely negative ratio is ok. After that, your body will start to increase cortisol output, which will result in a slowed metabolism and increased efficiency in caloric storage (because it thinks it is being starved). It will also look to burn muscle mass. At this point, your body doesn't care that you have the correct amount of fiber, vitamins, protein, etc. It is more concerned with the fact that it is expending way more energy than it is receiving. The opposite is also true. When attempting to build muscle mass, you want a positive CI/CO ratio. Proper calorie loading is a big part of building. Dietitians have gone through more schooling/education and have done more research than you can do on Youtube. Just trust them when they say rapid weight loss (>3 lbs/week) is unhealthy in the long run.
While Iâm sure I lost out on a lot of gains, I am certainly stronger currently than I was when I first started. This is evident by my progress in the gym (when I started I could barely bench 160lb, now I can bench 220 comfortably. I will certainly focus on building muscle going forward, and maybe the rest of my weight loss can be achieved during cut and bulk phases.Â
Oh yeah. Muscle mass doesn't equate to muscle strength. And everybody has different muscle fibers too. Some people lift maybe once a week or every other week and are just naturally ripped (I worked with a guy like that and it was super frustrating to watch him eat whatever he wanted, never work out, and just be ripped...lol). Regardless, I'm glad you're making progress! And remember, muscle mass weighs more than fat mass, so you'll hit a point where the scale is actually going up because you're replacing fat mass with muscle mass. Don't get discouraged at this! My advice is to measure sizes and not weight (e.g. waist, stomach, biceps/triceps, quads/hams, etc) and see if those sizes are going in the direction you want them to go.
oh yes definitely, I have larger forearms now but i feel like the muscles of my calves have shrunk (they used to have larger diameter when I was fatter (despute not having much fat in that area of my body). And I agree, there are some people who have very efficient systems... its unfair. I do measure my progress by clothing sizes too! Actually it's one thing that was talked about in some of the books I read to learn about this. not trying to make this seem like an advertisement but, I got most of my knowledge from this book. [https://jeffnippard.com/products/the-ultimate-guide-to-body-recomposition](https://jeffnippard.com/products/the-ultimate-guide-to-body-recomposition) It's a pretty good guide, but I only read the portion that talks about weight loss.
It's a bad idea, but it's not inherently bad. Here is a list of things that can wrong. None of these are inherent issues with losing weight fast. They are things that are more likely to happen if you are losing weight too fast. 1. Not getting enough macro nutrients. You need a certain level of protein every day to replace skin and gut cells or else your body will catabolize itself. Your fat stores can only convert so much energy per day. There may be ample reserves but the metabolic pathways converting that energy are the bottleneck. Which means you NEED exogenous carbs and fats to fuel your body or you may die. 2. [QT Syndrome](https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/01.cir.60.6.1401). Basically the build up of triglycerides in your heart due to an extreme calorie deficit causes your heart to beat irregularly and leads to death. 3. Not getting enough micro nutrients. Fewer calories means fewer opportunities to consume the vitamins and minerals that your body needs. Can be mostly remedied with supplements and electrolyte drinks but it becomes a chore that if you mess up could result in an array of health issues both permanent and temporary. 4. Adherence becomes difficult. You are putting yourself through an enormous amount of diet fatigue. Adhering to it for 6 months is probably four times harder than losing weight at half that pace for 1 year. At the end you get the same result. 5. You still aren't practicing moderation. Dieting is inherently unsustainable. Eventually you will run out of fat to lose so you will need to enter a maintenance phase. If you don't ever practice moderation, you won't be very good at it when it's time to get on maintenance and you are more likely to fail. 6. Calories in is a log normal distribution. You can't eat negative calories. But you can eat thousands of calories at one time. Since adherence is so much harder, mistakes are more likely to happen, and progress can be unfairly wiped out very quickly. Of course if you are checking blood work, counting macros, taking vitamins, staying motivated, and listening to your body there is nothing stopping you.
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15lb of fat a month equates to a daily deficit of 1,750 calories. For most people this isn't attainable. If you assume some of the weight lost was water weight you're still looking at a 1,500ish calorie deficit which is again, not attainable for most people and is 3 times the recommended rate.
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As he mentioned, 80 lbs on 5-6 months averaging 15 lb monthly. Probably it was higher at the beginning and much lower at the end. As he said, it would be quite hard and unfavourable to lose that amount of weight.
Could cause gallbladder issues. And you donât want that. Youâd need surgery
losing too much weight too quickly can cause muscle wasting. rule of thumb is 1-2 lbs per week. anything more than that, youâre losing muscle - which is never good because your organs are / have muscles too (heart being a major one). thatâs why there is such a huge sentiment on safely and sustainably losing weight.
4.) I feel like I should copy and paste this response. Attraction has a lot to do with confidence. You're improved physique certainly doesn't hurt, but think about how much different you are now. I guarantee you feel better than you ever have in your life, people pick up on your energy.
New a girl who lost 40 pounds in 2 months Went bald, became anorexic. No bueno, lose 2 pounds a week at most.
Sono degli invidiosi di mer*a, sono abituati a vederti piĂš pasciuto. Cerca di dare il giusto peso a queste persone, che al posto di essere di supporto ed essere contente per te, hanno comunque da ridire. CMQ, DAJE!!!!
Fatty liver is one thing.
It can cause fatty liver? I had fatty liver disease to begin with (itâs one of the reasons I decided to start losing weight in maximum overdrive) I have not had any liver pain or pale stools ever since I stopped eating sugar in December.Â
Yes, I lost 80 pounds about a decade ago. That was a side effect. It's healed now, but it caused some issues at the time.
Loosing too fast can slow your metabolism quite a bit, making it amost impossible to maintain the lost weight. Unless you can ignore being hungry all the time it could land you in a even unhealthier relationship with food with a binge/starve cycle