To make matters worse, we often expect weight loss to happen quickly. We believe that as soon as we make up our mind to cut back on snacking, the pounds should magically melt away, and we get impatient if our pants are still fitting snugly after the first week.
“People make the decision that they want to start losing weight, and they want to see something in real, substantial numbers, so they go on to this crazy diet,” says Kuldeep Singh, MD, director of the Maryland Bariatric Center at Mercy in Baltimore. “But the fact of the matter is that this is a problem and a concern that has been there for some time. It didn’t develop in a day, and it should not go away in a day.”
“It depends on what weight you’re starting at, and your age, but people between 150 and 300 pounds should not be losing more than 2 to 5 pounds a week at any given time,” says Singh. “Anything more than that on a sustained basis is not healthy.”
Losing weight quickly can put stress on the body and alter your hormonal response, according to MedlinePlus. The hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin, which tell your body when you’re full and when you’re hungry, respectively, can get out of sync, making you want to eat more often, according to Northwestern Medicine. Dropping 10 pounds during the first week of a new diet, for example, may seem like a huge success, but the weight loss will likely slow down and you may even gain that weight right back once you stop or relax the diet, according to MedlinePlus.
