Whether you begin a new diet and exercise regimen or opt for a bariatric surgical procedure, you probably want to know how quickly you’ll lose your excess weight. However, so many variables, both controlled and uncontrollable, affect the speed of your weight loss that even your physician can only estimate how quickly you’ll shed pounds.
Heredity influences the upper and lower limits of your weight loss speed. Just as some people have a predisposition to gain weight, some have a predisposition to lose it rapidly. If you have an efficient metabolism that needs less fuel to carry out necessary functions, you’ll gain more easily and lose more slowly than a person with an inefficient metabolism. It might seem paradoxical that a heavier body is a more metabolically efficient one, but consider your ancestors. They didn’t have access to ready-made food or drive-through windows, so their bodies developed that greater metabolic efficiency to deal with lean seasons. Your lifestyle has changed more rapidly than your genetics, leaving you with slower weight loss. The good news is that slower weight loss is still loss.
Your diet and exercise plan also affect your weight loss. The Mayo Clinic recommends a weight loss from diet and exercise of no more than two pounds a week. This number can go higher if you’re under a doctor’s supervision, have had bariatric surgery or have a great deal of weight to lose, but it’s a safe guideline to adhere to if you’re designing your own plan. These numbers may seem small, especially if you’re carrying many extra pounds, but there are sound reasons for slowing your weight loss.
Crash diets promise rapid weight loss, but even if they deliver on the scale, much of the lost weight is water and waste. Diet plans that guarantee double-digit weight loss per week are taking off more than fat. A dangerously low calorie intake also costs you muscle, and muscle is metabolically inefficient. Yo-yo dieting occurs when you diet away muscle as well as fat, leaving your body with a lower muscle percentage and lower calorie needs in the future. When you stop the diet, your reduced lean muscle tissue mass makes your body gain and store fat more easily.
Plan on losing 1 to 2 pounds per week unless you’re under a doctor’s supervision. If you’ve had bariatric surgery, your losses will be significantly more rapid, but your medical team will help you plan the safest path to a leaner, healthier you. The lap band Dallas residents prefer goes beyond the surgery itself and focuses heavily on after-care. Bariatric surgery patients have better success when they see the surgery as the beginning of the weight loss process, not the culmination of it.
