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Weight loss: fast or slow?

Discussion in 'Physical & Sexual Health' started by wallrose, Sep 14, 2011.

  1. wallrose

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    I am (once again) having a crack at loosing weight, and I'd like to know which is better; losing wieght quickly by dieting and doing a lot of exercise, or losing the weight more slowly and gradually by cutting the crap out of my diet and doing a bit of daily exercise?
     
  2. Ridiculous

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    People who lose weight quickly are more likely to regain it back. This is generally because the way that they lost the weight was by making drastic changes to their diet/exercise which is not sustainable; once they have lost the weight they'll think "I've lost the weight, I can stop now" and then revert back to their old lifestyle and just put it all back on.

    Similarly if you overwhelm yourself with large changes, you'll probably only last one or two days before saying "screw this."

    Making smaller adjustments to your lifestyle will be more effective in the long term because you can actually realistically stick to these changes. You won't have an initial quick weight loss, but it will last when it is off.

    There may be health problems associated with rapid weight changes (both down and up) but I can't quote any.
     
  3. TraceElement

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    Slow weight loss. Cut out some of the "junky" food and exersize. Add in more veggies, whole wheat breads and cereals, lean meat and stuff like that. Give yourself a "splurge day" once a week where you allow yourself to eat chicken wings, a doughnut, a burger, chips and dip or whatever. That will help you stay on track a little longer, since you are not depriving yourself of the stuff you like.
     
  4. Gerry

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    Losing weight slowly seems more effective. I'm no health expert, but that's what seems to do the trick for a lot of people I know. Definitely cut out all that junk food and add fruits and veggies to your diet. Even small things like taking soda out and adding water instead makes a big difference. :slight_smile:
     
  5. Michealleo

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    Try to drink more and more water , do some cardio exericses like swimming , running , jogging , walking and cycling . Because these exericses are best for lossing some weight and for muscles fitness . eat more vegetables and fruits and eat eat ur food before going in bed . Because it will caused u to gain weight .
     
  6. KaraBulut

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    Two things to think about:

    1. The human body is about 95% water. Rapid weight loss is largely dehydration- you're losing water from your body that is both easy to lose and easy to gain back. When you under-eat, you're just going to pee off water. The minute you start eating again, the weight comes back. That's why fad diets don't work.
    2. The other thing that is something to think about is whether the issue is "weight". Guys have two very different types of tissue that is affected by diet and exercise: fat and muscle. Two guys can weigh exactly the same thing on the scales but one is muscular-atheletic and the other is sedentary-fat. So, don't focus on the scales- focus on whether you look atheletic and healthy.

    Instead of worrying about weight, focus more on inches- the size of your waist in relation to your upper body and lower body. If you're exercising and staying active, you may actually gain weight by adding muscle in your legs, chest and shoulders while you lose weight around your waist. Every inch you add to your chest, butt and legs makes your waist look smaller. Every inch you lose from your waist will also make your chest, butt and legs look bigger.

    If you want to look good in clothes and out of clothes... and if you want to stay in shape instead of yo-yo-ing up and down, exercise and a healthy diet are the way to go.
     
    #6 KaraBulut, Sep 16, 2011
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2011
  7. Veronica

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    As have been mentioned, weight is not necessarily the issue, but what that mass is made up of.

    I realised earlier this year that I was too inactive and my weight had turned into "fluff" and gone up too much. Due to my physiology, I don't build a lot of muscle easily, so I don't bother with muscle building exercise, and my fat percentage is in the female range. I.e. around 20%. Neither is a problem for me, but I also noticed that I had less energy and was a lot more tired. All I want is to reduce my waist a bit and get a bit more fit. What I have found effective is simply just consume a little less calories a day than my body burns and increase the amount of physical activity. Exercise increase the amount of energy your body consume, even when you're not actually exercising. I simply used to eat the same amount of food even if my level of activity was a lot lower.

    That and the fact that I turned 30 four years ago ...

    I don't think radical diets are effective nor healthy. What you want is a lifestyle change that you're happy with. Eat less, eat less unhealthy food and exercise. The body needs time to adjust to a healthier lifestyle, and let it take the time it needs. A radical diet does not let your body adjust at all, and the body will try to bounce back to what it has gotten used to being normal. Keep in mind that it may have taken years for your body to get where it is now—where you don't want it to be—the reversion will take time too.
     
    #7 Veronica, Sep 16, 2011
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2011
  8. Kidd

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    It's way better to lose the weight slowly and I can speak from personal experience. Over the course of my life I've lost over 70 pounds from my heaviest weight, and I'm at a place now where I guess I could be borderline underweight but I'm where I am now by choice and hard work. I've kept all of the weight off too.

    Start out with just one thing. I read somewhere that it takes 30 days to break a habit and 45 to break an addiction; and it was too overwhelming for me to change so much about myself so quickly. First I just cut out all pop, and then I started weening myself off of really sugary juices and tea, and then I started counting calories, and then I started a beginner's running program and now I run 18 miles a week which would have been just completely impossible for me to even think about a year ago. Eventually you'll replace your bad habits with healthier ones, and someday you'll reach a point where you've turned your entire life around.

    What Veronica said is very true too. It's going to take a long time to lose weight. I lost all of mine at a pace of about a pound or two a week for over a year. Stay the course though, because if you start now; five or six or seven months from now you'll be at a happier and healthier weight and you'll feel so amazing when you finally get there because you really earned it.
     
  9. malachite

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    Everyone has a different speed, but losing the weight by starving yourself means the weight will come back quickly because your body wants to store every bit of fat it can. Loosing weight because your eatting right and working out is the best way to go. Chances are the people aroud you will see the results before you do
     
  10. wallrose

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    Thanks guys. I'm glad I won't have to go on a crash diet and start running 50 km a day.
    I was thinking of cutting most meat out of my diet, because I think that's where a lot of the crap comes from and eating less bread and such. I already walk about an hour a day, half uphill, so I think I'm pretty well on top of the exercise. The real problem with exercise for me is that I have bad feet, legs and back, so I can't do a lot of exercise before I start to ache all over.
     
  11. Ridiculous

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    Before you cut 'healthy' (and by healthy, I mean not bad) things out of your diet like meat and bread, make sure you get rid of the absolutely useless things first.

    Soft drinks, juice, energy drinks, alcohol, pretty much any liquid that isn't water should be first to go. For a lot of people just doing this alone is enough to put them into the energy-deficit zone, meaning that they'll begin losing weight because they burn off more than they are putting in.
    For a comparison, not drinking 5 glasses of juice/soft drink is about equivalent to not eating a largish meal... the difference is that cutting out the meal means you are also cutting out the nutrients and full-feeling that comes with it. The drinks have negligible nutritional benefit so you won't be losing anything by removing them.
    Make sure you replace them with water, and lots of it - atleast 6 glasses a day minimum I'd suggest, as it reduces hunger (its not uncommon for people to mistake thirst for hunger, so they go and eat more instead of just drinking).

    Meat is perfectly healthy as long as it is reasonably lean, cooked sensibly (i.e. not in a McDonald's burger or deep fried) and you don't eat too much.

    You should try looking into non-impact exercise if you have problem with your legs/feet. Both swimming and cycling are great, as they don't require your legs to carry your bodyweight and don't have your feet hitting the pavement. However if you already do an hour of walking a day then it sounds like you are pretty good in that area.

    It's great that you're making these changes by the way :grin:
     
  12. Thomas Miller

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    I think we should lose weight slowly because fast weight lose is not good for health. For weight lose try to drink lot of water and eat fruits and avoid fast food. Regular exercise is also good for weight lose.
     
  13. Daisy1

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    Have you tried extra-supportive sneakers? They made a huge difference for me.
     
  14. seeksanctuary

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    I always recommend this book for people who are considering losing weight, or have weight issues in general:

    Health at Every Size, by Linda Bacon, Phd

    It saved my life, and I am not exaggerating.

    In reality, only 1% of people who lose weight keep it off. Doesn't matter how they lose it or why... weight usually comes back, like it or not.

    The truth of the matter is that there's more to it than "eat less, move more". If that worked, we'd almost ALL be at our perfect weight. The body is smart, and knows when something is up. Eat less? Okay, but you're going to feel lethargic and not want to exercise as much. Exercise more? Fine, but you're going to get hungrier and need to eat more. Plus the sad fact is that not everyone is meant to be skinny. As this site explains:

    The Dog Theory of Fatness « Shapely Prose

    Some people are Great Danes, some people are Whippets. You can have health Great Danes and healthy Whippets, and you can have unhealthy Great Dane and unhealthy Whippets, but a Great Dane will never be a Whippet nor will a Whippet ever be a Great Dane. Trying to force one body shape to be another only leads to frustration and poor health.

    Because uh, yeah... diets? They don't work, and are often unhealthy. Exercising too much is also unhealthy.

    So really... your best bet is to find out what foods make you feel good, and figure out what you can do to increase your fitness in an enjoyable way. Make sure you get lots of sleep and plenty of water, and make sure you get checked for medical issues like thyroid problems, anemia, parasites, etc. Learn to love yourself and your body. This, coupled with better nutrition and higher levels of fitness, will do more for you and your health than trying to lose weight ever could.

    And sometimes, all of that can cause weight loss. But weight loss should be a perk, not the point.
     
  15. Zontar

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    I beg to differ. Nobody was "made" to be fat and 99% of people who diet certainly don't have "fat" as their natural body form.

    I lost fifty pounds over the past year after being at a utterly disgusting 230 pounds. Mainly, losing fat is as simple as exercise. Lots of exercise. I mean, you're going to have to exercise when you don't want to and you're going to have to do types of exercises which are exhausting. I got on my bike every day and rode twelve miles in very hilly terrain. Along with this, you can't eat more than what you're working off as well. I stuck to a rigid no snacks or soda plan. Believe me, not being able to eat a few chips now and then was pure torture. You really do become addicted to food when you're overweight. I went through what was probably an extreme form of sugar withdrawal, since food companies add sugar to everything.

    The good news is that anyone can lose weight and get to where they want.

    The bad news is that "eating healthy" fucking sucks and the exercise is exhausting. I'm not going to lie, healthy food does not taste good. But you do what you gotta do, y'know? At least we can all do it nonetheless! And no expensive pills or surgeries or eating bags of dust shipped weekly.
     
  16. Ridiculous

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    Yup I've got to disagree on some of that as well. Particularly this part:

    Energy in = energy out. Energy doesn't come from nowhere, so if you have excess body fat it is because you are consuming more energy than you are using. Law of thermodynamics, one of the basic laws of the universe.
    Of course people do vary in some degree, having different metabolic rates and other things like that... however this certainly isn't an excuse for being overweight. If you have a slower metabolism this means you eat less than someone else, you don't just eat the same and then complain when you gain weight and they don't.

    Additionally if you look back about 70 years and prior, the sizes of the people were far lower because of the way they ate and their activity level. There wasn't some magical event that made some people 'naturally fat' in the last 20 years, it is solely due to the change in lifestyle. This can clearly be seen in obesity rates in countries that are only recently being exposed to the western lifestyle.
     
  17. Austin

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    Not to be rude, but the first half of what you said is, to put it nicely, wrong. BULLSHIT.

    And that book pisses me off so much.

    You are right though in the last few parts. Eat healthy and exercise will make you healthy. And it should make you lose weight. If you are not losing weight you either need to cut back more on the junk food you eat or have smaller portions. You'd be surprised how much nutrition you can receive from just, let's say, 1200 calories. And you're right. Weight loss should not be the point. The point should be to get healthy. But to get healthy you need to lose weight.

    Don't seperate the fat and the skinny. They are two different races of people.

    And, I'm sure the rise in consumption of fast food and fatty, salty packaged food has nothing to do with the rise in obesity... since it's genetic... Those people who eat 4000 calories of food a day just have it in their genes to be fat.... No. Yes it is partly genetic, but anyone can achieve a healthy weight. I'm sorry but some people have been unfortunate to have genes that may make it hard. It does suck but just requires a bit extra work.

    I think avoiding diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and other chronic diseases associated with obesity are worth the extra work.
     
  18. junea9

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    Don't follow the way of fast weight loss using different medicines available
    in the market. Instead of it go for slow weight loss by following your daily
    diet and exercise.