Lose Weight in a Week

Can you lose weight in a week? Sure, you can. You just have to be careful “how” you go about it. If you go on a crash or fad diet, you might lose as much as ten pounds in a week. But, you are setting yourself up for future failure.

You have to think of your body as a machine that needs fuel to function. Food is the body’s fuel. When you eat less, your body has other choices. It can either burn glucose circulating in the bloodstream, fat stores or glycogen stored in the muscles.

You probably know that cutting calories triggers a “starvation” response in your body. It’s a defense mechanism leftover from the early days of man’s development. When food is in short supply, the metabolic rate, or the rate at which we burn fuel, slows down.

So, if you try to losing weight in a week by severely limiting your caloric intake, your body will respond by burning less fuel. If you keep it up, continuing to reduce your caloric intake, you will stop losing weight.

You often hear about and read about people who were doing well on a diet, continuing to lose the pounds that they wanted. Then, suddenly, weeks and months go by, without a pound being lost. It’s sometimes referred to as hitting a “plateau”.

Trainers and nutritionists try to be encouraging. They say things like, “be patient, this will pass.” But, often, it doesn’t pass and people give up.

They go back to an unhealthy lifestyle and eating patterns, gain back all of the pounds that they lost and often more. Eventually, something motivates them to try again. But, instead of trying something really different, they simply try the latest fad diet and the process starts all over again.

That’s why people keep getting fatter and fatter. Everyone wants to lose weight in a week, instead of actually making changes that last a lifetime and keep the pounds off for good.

When the starvation response sets in, your body releases fewer fat burning enzymes and hormones. Your body chooses to burn muscle, because muscle tissue needs fuel. Since there is less fuel available, your body is trying to get rid of anything that needs more fuel.

Chemicals are released by the brain, telling you to “Eat!” You’re starving, after all. So, if you try to lose weight in a week, you are “screwing up” your entire body. Very low calorie diets may work in the short term. But, they can ruin your body’s ability to burn fat fast.

Most diet books recommend 1200 calories or less for women, 1800 or less for men. That’s simply not enough for most people. Diets should be “customized”.

Everyone burns calories at different rates. The first thing that you need to do is figure out how many calories you are actually eating. If you are taking in an average of 2400 calories per day, then cut back to 2000 and increase your level of physical activity.

Small changes will allow you to lose weight in a week, without kicking your body into starvation mode. Think about the “big picture”, but make tiny changes. That’s the key to success.