Fast Weight Loss Equals Muscle Loss

Posted by admin 12 October, 2008 (4) Comment

One problem with extreme diets is that they often lead to muscle loss. The faster the weight loss, the more likely it is that a significant portion will be lean muscle. Muscle loss works directly against sustained weight loss.

Drastically reducing calories forces the body to rely more and more on lean tissue—muscle—to meet its energy needs. As calories are restricted, the body starts turning to any energy source it can find to fuel its daily energy needs.The body literally starts to cannibalize itself. In many extreme weight-loss methods, as much as 40% of the weight lost may be from lean muscle! Muscle tissue, like glycogen, is about 80% water. So when the body breaks down muscle tissue, weight loss is quicker because of the water that is released.

Why is this problematic? Think of your body as an automobile, with muscle as the engine and fat as the trunk that stores energy. If you cut down on the size of the engine, then the amount of energy that your body burns decreases.This is exactly what happens when you lose lean muscle mass. What a pity it would be to go through all the sacrifice and struggle to reach a lower weight and then end up with a smaller engine that burns fewer calories.

There are two strategies for maintaining lean muscle during weight loss. The first is to pace your weight loss.You can help maintain the size of your engine and lessen the likelihood of regaining pounds if you lose weight at the recommended pace of 1 to 2 pounds per week. Pacing your weight loss means that your diet is supplying enough calories to allow fat burning but prevent muscle loss. Second, regular exercise is important, particularly during weight loss, to preserve lean muscle tissue. Although exercise helps preserve lean tissue, it cannot undo the damage done by too-fast weight loss. An extreme diet that supplies too few calories causes the body to break down muscle even if the person is exercising. In a study that compared a very low-calorie diet with resistance exercise and the same 800-calorie diet without resistance training, the loss of fat-free mass was the same.

Other Problems with Extreme Methods
Any method that produces fast weight loss by definition needs to be extreme. Severely limiting calories creates nutritional imbalances. Single-food diets (for example, the cabbage soup diet), eliminating foods with particular macronutrients like carbohydrates or fats, and skipping meals are examples of the extreme methods often used to attain fast weight loss.

Rapid weight loss is associated with a host of health problems including hair loss, dry skin, irritability, and commonly gallstone formation. Extreme methods are a setup for weight-loss failure.They provide fast weight loss for only as long as they are followed. But very few people can stay with them for more than a few days or weeks. Once the method is abandoned, old habits return and so does the weight. Several studies that have evaluated weight regain after completion of a very low-calorie diet have found that unless the lifestyle changes that support long-term weight loss are made, the pounds are quickly regained.