Two Reasons Why Losing Weight Too Fast is Silly

Here’s the recommended rate of weight loss per week

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I’m not the sharpest shovel in the shed so don’t laugh at this stupid analogy for losing weight too fast.

Let’s say you have a flight to catch tomorrow morning. For reasons that elude rational explanation, you choose Thailand or some equally boring place as your vacation destination. It’s an early flight so you have two options to get to the airport:

1. You take a superbike taxi. Since it’s a superbike, there’s no trunk nor much comfort. So you hold your luggage with one hand and with the other one onto the bike while shitting your pantaloons. Cuz speed. You get an extra hour in bed but have to deal with the possibility of losing some of the luggage along the way (including that stupid Harry Potter book).
2. You wake up an hour earlier and get a taxi. You lose some sleep but at least you get to Thailand with all of your luggage including that boring Harry Potter book (although, the book is so boring that it would help you fall asleep during a flight so you could argue that both options are equal).

And when it comes to losing weight, it has come to my attention that most people choose the superbike option. They use the shortest amount of time to reach the goal body weight to avoid extended dieting. No matter the consequences. This is understandable. But still silly. And here are two main reasons why.

1. Losing weight too fast can lead to muscle loss

There’s a cool study by Garthe and colleagues where they looked at different weight loss rates on body composition and strength. They split the subjects into two groups:

Just like I recommended in How to Maintain Muscle Mass When Dieting article, calorie deficit was combined with strength training (four strength-training sessions per week) and adequate daily protein intake of 1.6 g/kg of BW to alleviate the negative consequences on muscle mass and gym performance. Results?