If youre like most desperate dieters, you never stop to think about the danger of rapid weight loss. But you know those weight loss ads. Lose 10lbs in 4 days! Or what about: Lose 40 lbs in 40 days! They sound so good! I mean... the more weight you lose and the faster you lose it the better - right? Wrong! Its so easy to forget the dangers of fast weight loss.



Heres the problem, in our total paranoia about fat -- that its unhealthy and socially unacceptable, we often overlook that the danger of rapid weight loss is not just physical, its also psychological.

So lets step back and take a look at the danger of rapid weight loss. So here you are on that latest and greatest diet product and lifes going swimmingly. The

scale is telling you a miracle is happening, your clothes are agreeing - you feel fabulous.

The psychological danger

Its so easy to become addicted to rapid weight loss. Even your scale, instead of being voice of criticism, smiles back at you! Just jumping on your scale can give you a rush.

But even that is nothing like the addictive rush you feel when everyone starts complimenting you one how much weight youve lost and how fast youve lost it.

Aha - and herein lies the inherent, and little recognized, danger of rapid weight loss.

Why did we go on diet? Because we were living in a desert-like place, full of self-criticism and we wanted to feel better about ourselves. Now were losing the

weight fast which deserves an apparent - yay! By comparison to the desert we were in, those compliments feel like sweet rain and we blossom. Those compliments are addictive.

But, after a while the compliments start to die down -- everyone has become used to the new-looking you. Because your self-esteem was based on an exterior change without an accompanying interior one, without those compliments - you find yourself sliding back to the desert.

So how do we get those compliments again? Well we make sure we lose more weight fast right? And before we know it thousands of young women (and probably older women too), hungry to know they are attractive, are dieting themselves towards an eating disorder. This is a danger of rapid weight loss that we seldom stop to consider.

But rapid weight loss is precisely how I got anorexia when I was 15! I ate only gelatine and diet cold-drink for months on end - I thought losing weight fast and

furious was good. It wasnt.

The Physical Danger

Because there is physical danger of rapid weight loss I didnt know about back then. Whenever you go on a fad diet, your put your body into a state of deprivation and being the incredible biological masterpiece that it is, it immediately conserves energy and holds onto its fat supplies for when it might

need them.

And heres the order of any rapid weight loss. The very first thing you lose is water. Well pick up a bucket of water - its heavy, isnt it? So water loss on a scale looks fantastic.

So whats the problem? Well heres another danger of

rapid weight loss.

Your body needs water to function properly. When that rapid loss is water, youve just slowed down your bodies ability to burn calories, and your body is still holding onto its fat supplies.

The next thing you lose with rapid weight loss - isnt fat, but muscle. Well, muscle on a scale weighs 3 times what fat does, so guess what? That loss on the scale may look like a blessing - but in reality its yet another curse.

Heres where another danger of rapid weight loss creeps in. Muscle is the tissue in our bodies that utilizes the most energy to stay alive, it???s also what we need to keep our bodies strong. Losing muscle retards your metabolism and once again your body is still holding onto its fat.

So physically, youve lost water and muscle which you need to burn calories and all youve succeeded in doing is ensuring that you now have a higher percentage

body fat now than you did before you started.

And as if that isn???t enough ??? when the fad diet fails you, another danger of rapid weight loss is that your body composition has changed. The higher our

percentage body fat ??? the better our body becomes at storing food as fat. In this way, that rapid weight loss is contributing to the vicious cycle of fat regain.

Dont do those rapid weight loss plans unless you want to shoot your health in the foot.