Summer is almost here. It’s so close you can almost smell the chlorine. And you can’t possibly think about chlorine without thinking about swimsuits.
It’s not surprising then that as June approaches we get more and more questions about weight loss. Without diving into 100 different topics that pertain to weight loss, there’s one BIG mistake a lot of people make we have to discuss…
Very Low Calorie Diets (VLCDs)
Without question, very low calorie diets, aka forced starvation, work in the short-term. Depending on your initial caloric and carbohydrate intake, a 10lb weight loss in 1 week isn’t uncommon. Initially it’s pretty simple. If you consume less calories than you burn, your body will begin to use your stored carbohydrates (glycogen), fat (free fatty acids), and protein (amino acids from your muscle) to create energy that your body needs to survive. A huge caloric deficit, common with VLCDs, burns through those reserves quickly causing a rapid weight loss. Sounds pretty good right?
Metabolic Disaster
Your body doesn’t care about abs, jean sizes, or swimsuits. All it cares about is survival. A lack of food, especially a big caloric deficit, is a threat to its survival. Thus you may think you’re dieting, but your body thinks you’re starving. Eventually it sets the survival alarms -slowing down your metabolism, decreasing your thyroid levels, etc. (If you’re a geek like me, here’s a link to a fascinating paper on what specifically goes on at the cellular level during a VLCD.)
So the end result of VLCD disaster is the exact thing you didn’t want – a SLOWER metabolism. Eventually 1 of 2 things will happen:
- You can continue to remain on the VLCD long-term and continue to lose weight, albeit at a slower rate. However, your life as well as the lives of people around you will be almost unbearable – constant fatigue, mood swings, cravings, cold intolerance, hormonal issues, etc.
- You eventually succumb to your cravings, and start eating like you did before the diet. Before you know it, you weigh more than you did before you started the diet (Why? Because now you have a slower metabolism).
Does either of those outcomes sound appetizing? I didn’t think so.
A Smarter Approach
You didn’t gain that weight all at once so you’re definitely not going to lose it all at once. Losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. When we discuss diets, or as we like to call it healthy lifestyles, with members interested in losing weight, we shoot for 1-2lbs per week. That’s a noticeable improvement, while also minimizing activation of the body’s alarm systems. Although that doesn’t sound impressive and won’t make the headline of the latest fitness magazine, it adds up. Over the course of 3 months, that’s 24lbs. And if done correctly, those 24lbs will look more like 48 pounds because the right healthy lifestyle will cause you to lose fat and retain as much muscle mass as possible creating a synergistic effect. Don’t believe me? Put a pound of muscle in a sock and a pound of fat in a different sock. Although they both weigh the same, which one appears much smaller?
The Recommendation
- Multiply your body weight by 12. That’s a good starting point for your daily recommended calories.
- If you don’t lose 1-2 pounds after 1 week of consuming the above total daily caloric intake, drop your DAILY caloric intake by 200 calories.
- If you still aren’t losing 1-2 pounds at the new total caloric intake after 1 week, drop it by another 200 calories daily. (Side note: If you are consuming 800 or less calories per day and still not losing 1-2 pounds per week, please see your doctor. There might be a hormonal issue or something else causing the problem.)
- Continue this process until you’re losing 1-2 pounds per week. Remember, if you’re losing more than 1-2 pounds per week, you risk setting the body’s alarm systems off. Increase your daily calories by 100-200 calories until you’re only losing 1-2lbs per week.
That’s how you get AND keep a swimsuit-ready body. Small habits create BIG changes.
If you have questions regarding weight loss, please send them to us, and we’ll answer them in future articles.
