How Fast Should I Lose Weight?

Weight loss is a common theme within the fitness industry. Whether you’re an athlete, fitness client, or even a personal trainer. A good percentage of the fitness population are looking to lose body fat and gain lean muscle. I mean who doesn’t want to be ripped up, am I right?!

Within the fat loss scope, the question that normally pops up next, especially working as a personal trainer in NYC, is “How fast should I lose weight?

How Fast?

This is a fascinated question, as you commonly hear fitness marketing schemes pushing quotes like:

“I’ve lost 15lbs in two weeks!”

Truth be told, this can actually happen (losing 10-15lbs in 2 weeks), BUT before you freak out and get upset, hold tight and let me explain. The big consideration you should look at, is the person involved. If a person started with a nice lean body fat percentage (below 8%) and then went all out and ate everything possible- pizza, soda, ice cream, etc… for a day or two. This will significantly bloat up and seemingly “gain” a significant amount of weight. Once they go back to their normal clean diet and fitness routine- BAM – they drop right back to being lean.

In this situation it’s not a necessarily body fat dropping but more water weight. With that said, most people are not in this situation. But what we want to do is focus beyond water weight, we want to focus on lasting changes that will help you maintain lean muscle mass and strength while decreasing your body fat percentage.

A very powerful example of what food can do to your body, even in just 5 hours.

I know I show this a lot but it’s a damn good video :p

To Lose Weight Fast or Slow?

To answer this question, let’s take a look at the Garthe et al study –

“Effect of two different weight-loss rates on body composition and strength and power-related performance in elite athletes.”

In this study Garthe et al compared weight loss at a rate of .5kg per week (.7% reduction) “Slow Reduction” (SR) vs. 1kg (1.4% reduction) per week “Fast Reduction” (FR) to see which group would preserve muscle and performance.

The diet restricted based on the predetermined weekly weightlifting routines. All participants had 4 resistance training sessions per week. The length of the test= 8.5weeks  +/- 2.2 weeks for the slow reduction, fast reductions 5.3 +/-.9wk

The pre and post test focused on the following:

• Dexa- Body composition
• 1 Rem max test
• 40 meter sprint
• Countermovement jump (CMJ) before and after intervention

Subjects:

• 36 elite male and females athletes age range 18-35.
• 30 completed the total study.

Fitness Performance Tested and Results”

• CMJ improved by 7% in slow reduction, no significant change was shown in the fast reduction group.
• No change in 40 m sprint for either group- I would think this may also have to do with mechanics and programming. They didn’t explain the full method of the fitness program.
• 1RM squat- improved by 11.9% in the slow reduction, 8.9% in the fast reduction.
• Bench Press- increased in the slow reduction by 13.6% and the fast reduction by 6.4%.

Weight Loss and Fat Mass Results:

• Body weight decreased in the slow reduction by 5.6% and fast reduction by 5.5% respectively.
• Body fat percentages dropped in the slow by 31% and in the fast reduction by 21% respectively.
• Lean body mass had increased in the slow reduction by 2.5%, while in the fast reduction it remained unchanged.

In conclusion, data from this study suggest that athletes, fitness, and weight loss clients who want to gain lean body mass and increase strength during a weight loss training cycle should focused on a weekly body weight loss of 0.7%, respectively.

NYC Personal Trainers Thoughts:

*Sadly some people actually think this way…

In my experience dropping weight fast, regardless of the process- i.e. intermittent fasting, juicing, calorie restrictions, etc… seems to negatively impact performance and maintaining muscle mass. Meaning you lose strength and muscle but you do lose weight = potential to look soft.

As a personal trainer in NYC, my clients work hard to increase lean muscle mass, so we don’t want to lose results during this process. This is why we have always focused on building  healthy habits and slowly dropping the weight off versus a fast dramatic weight loss. Keep in mind that we’re not talking about water weight, we’re talking about dropping down the body fat percentage and maintaining it! In my experience, while this is the “slow method” it is the method that has lasting results!