6 Side Effects of Rapid Weight Loss

Your birthday is around the corner, or your neighbor is getting married next month; the reasons can differ for each individual, but trying to lose weight rapidly is what many people try out. This short-term weight loss goal may push you to eat less and work out more, but how long can you sustain the drill? You may be successful in losing a few pounds for the event, but can you continue following the same diet for years?

People try various methods to drastically lose weight, and it works, but it is unhealthy. Losing weight should be done slowly over a period. This will be sustainable and reduce health issues. It should be done by maintaining a healthy diet and regularly working out in a gym. There are 24/7 Gym facilities available that make workout timings more flexible and make the gym more accessible. On the other hand, drastic weight loss can cause health issues and complications.

Here we have listed a few side effects of losing weight too quickly.

1. Muscle Loss:

When you go on a weight loss regime, your aim should be to lose fat. This happens when you do it drastically, incorporating both cardio and strength training in your routine and a balanced diet. People who aim to lose weight quickly, in general, drastically cut down on calories. Even when they work out, they focus on cardio sessions more as they believe it will help them burn more calories. This results in losing muscle mass along with fat. Muscle is heavier than fat but occupies lesser volume; hence, your weighing machine may show that you have lost weight, but your inches may not change much. The proper measure of weight loss is not through the weighing machine. Use a tape to take your body measurements to find the real difference. You can also check your body composition analysis to understand if you are losing fat or muscles.

2. Fatigue:

A crash diet indicates you are eating fewer calories and burning many of them. This causes extreme calorie deficiency, resulting in abnormal body function. It may cause dehydration in the body and an increased risk of fatigue. You may get a headache, feel constipated, etc., making you feel irritated. At the end of the day, you may just feel like giving up.

3. Lack of Productivity:

Weight loss may not be the only thing you do the entire day. You also must have your work which you need to finish. If you work in an office, hunger pangs may interfere with your work and make you less productive. This does not just affect your physical health, but calorie deficiency affects your overall mood; hence, it can decrease your lifestyle quality.

4. Metabolic Changes:

Your metabolism is an essential factor that plays a significant role in weight loss. This determines how many calories you burn each day. Metabolism helps convert the food you consume into energy; hence, higher metabolism is preferred for quick weight loss. On the other hand, eating fewer calories will decrease your metabolism and just spoil your entire system. As you go back to your regular diet, you will not just gain back all the weight you lost but gain more weight. This means all your hard work just will go to waste. You will have a more significant weight loss goal to achieve now.

5. Disturbed Sleep:

When you sleep empty stomach, you will find it tough to have a sound sleep. A disturbed sleep cycle actually is really harmful to your mental health. It increases the production of cortisol hormone, which causes weight gain. Hence, it defeats the purpose of the entire drastic diet. A better idea is to eat a light dinner meal that is filling and well balanced to give your body the proper nutrition that helps you sleep soundly.

6. Unsustainable:

The extreme low-calorie diet you plan to follow might be possible for a few weeks. Maybe you can extend for a month or two, but what happens after that? You cannot always follow this diet as eating, so less is not really an option for a lifetime. You will get bored and irritated with the same diet. It will tempt you more to indulge, and when you do, you will lose all control. In general, when someone stops following an extreme diet, they tend to overeat all high-calorie food and gain back double weight. Hence, you should aim to follow a sustainable diet.

The Bottom Line:

You must not have gained all this weight overnight. Then why do you want to lose it in a few days? Weight loss is a gradual process, just like weight gain, which needs to be done correctly. Altering too much will result in permanent damage to your body. There are incidences where malnutrition due to drastic weight loss plans has been fatal to a few people. You have to be the wise one here and follow a balanced and sustainable lifestyle change that you can maintain forever.

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