Though the sharp pains from surgery continue to diminish, a bloated stomach/belly ache has destroyed my appetite and sapped my energy. This week my weight has dropped precipitously. I’ve lost 5.5 pounds since my surgery on the 12th. (Today I weigh in at 185 lbs, 4.1% total loss)
I want to cheer, but from what I have read, rapid weight loss may trigger a starvation response which makes it harder to lose future weight as your body holds on more tenaciously to fat reserves it might need for energy if the “famine” continues. I think even those who do not hold to this theory, still agree that very rapid weight loss is often an unhealthy loss of water, or muscle rather than fat. Dieters too often see initial success as they dehydrate, or lose muscle which is their major calorie burning engine.
That is why my goal is a gradual loss of only 1.5 lbs a week. For losing 4 lbs last week, I should deserve a D grade or worse, but since I am kind of sick recovering from surgery, I think I shall excuse this excess and also try to be patient with some nearly inevitable weight gain when I get feeling better.
I am interested in knowing how much of a healthy weight loss ought to be fat and how much other tissue. It doesn’t seem reasonable to expect 100% fat loss even from the best program. I would think that a leaner body probably needs less skin, vessels, blood, etc.
Anyone know anything about this?
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2 comments:
You're right, one of the problems of being overweight is that the body needs to move more blood, for example, which puts extra strain on the heart. The heart doesn't magically grow in size to accomodate the larger body habitus, and so the same-sized heart has do to more actual "work". Thus the heart disease.
I should add that the heart does actually grow in size, but that's a bad thing, not a good one. The heart, as a muscle, will increase in size if it's worked harder, but this causes it to not work as well, and it makes its own blood supply more tenuous, thus allowing for a bigger chance of an ischemic event (not getting enough blood a.k.a. heart attack!)
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