Too Much Too Fast?

Many patients ask me about losing weight quickly and is it ok? I thought this piece by Jilian Micheals was helpful.

How Much, How Fast?

Q: I love that I have the information I need to lose 2 pounds a week; however, I would like to lose more than that. How can I lose 4 to 5 pounds a week? I have a total of 96 more pounds to lose.
A: To lose a pound, you must burn 3,500 calories. As I've said before, it's all about the math — how to burn more calories in the most effective way.
You can only do so much resistance training without damaging your muscles and impeding your results. Additionally, you can't starve the weight off: If you eat fewer than 1,200 calories a day, you will sabotage your optimal results. Therefore, cardio is weight-loss extra credit — it allows you to burn additional calories without overtraining. This is one of the reasons my Biggest Loser contestants can still lose 10 pounds a week several weeks into the program.
Think about the math: If you are eating 1,500 calories a day — we assume your base metabolic rate (BMR) without exercise is 1,600 (this is actually my BMR) — and you do two 1-hour cardio sessions that burn 500 calories each (one in the morning and one at night), the two sessions, along with your regular daily activity, will speed up your base metabolism to at least 2,000. As a result, you will have burned about 1,500 calories that day — that is, almost half a pound. At that rate you will be losing up to 3.5 pounds a week.
That said, you are bound to lose more weight during the first two weeks of any weight-loss regimen because of the dramatic change in your diet and the loss of excess fluid. After that, it's all about crunching the numbers, and cardio is the key.

Going Overboard

I want you to work hard, but there is such a thing as overdoing it. If you're not taking days to rest, or you're constantly feeling exhausted, or your resting heart rate is higher than it should be, you could be overtraining. This won't do anything but put you right in the middle of a serious weight-loss plateau. Take your rest days. Pace yourself. And if you think you're overtraining, take a week off and start again — this time at the right pace.