You want to lose weight, and you want it now. Maybe summer is coming up, and you want to look good at the beach. Or maybe you have a wedding coming up, and you need to fit into that suit or dress. Whatever the case may be, you’re looking to lose weight fast and you’re wondering what’s the best diet for rapid fat loss.
I’ve got your back.
As well as your belly.
And your love handles.
See what I did there? In this article, I’m going to give you the best diet for losing weight quickly. You’re going to learn how to shed weight fast, so you can look and feel your best in the shortest amount of time possible.
Let’s get right down to it.
How quickly can you lose weight?
Before we get into how quickly you can actually lose weight, we need to make an important distinction.
Most people talk about wanting to lose weight, when in reality they want to lose fat.
Losing weight and losing fat are different.
It might seem like I’m being nitpicky, but hear me out..
Weight loss vs. fat loss
When you step on the scale, you’re measuring more than just the amount of body fat you have. This is because the scale measures everything that’s in your body at one time, including your muscle, the amount of water you have in your body, your bones, and the contents in your gut.
The scale is going to fluctuate for many different reasons that actually have nothing to do with whether or not you lost body fat.
These include:
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- How hydrated you are
- Your sodium intake
- How stressed out you are
- The amount of carbs you’ve eaten
If your goal is just to lose weight, then you could just cut off your arm and your weight will be lower on the scale!
I’m going to go out on a limb here (haha limb! Get it?? Okay that’s the last one..) and guess that’s not what you really want though.
If your goal is fat loss, then you need to be in a calorie deficit, which means consuming fewer calories than you burn.
So the real question we should be asking isn’t how quickly can we lose weight, but..
How quickly can you lose body fat?
The amount of weight you have to lose and the size of your calorie deficit are going to determine how quickly you lose body fat.
It takes a deficit of roughly 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of fat (1)*.
Knowing this, you can figure out how quickly you’ll lose fat by adjusting the size of your calorie deficit each day.
Let’s use an example of a 200 pound person who wants to lose weight.
Example #1:
For someone who is 200 pounds and wants to lose 1 pound of fat per week, they would need to eat in a 500 calorie deficit each day (500 calories x 7 days = 3,500 calories).
Example #2:
If that same person wanted to lose more weight, they could bump that calorie deficit up to 1,000 calories per day and lose 2 pounds per week (1,000 calories x 7 days = 7,000 calories, which is 2 pounds per week).
But what if you want to lose weight even faster?
By creating an even larger calorie deficit, you can lose more body fat quickly.
Now I’m going to stop you right here, because I know what you’re thinking:
“I’ll just create a MASSIVE calorie deficit and I’ll lose weight in no time!”
Here are a few reasons this is a very bad idea..
*This is a little bit of an oversimplification.. In reality, the amount of weight you’ll lose by creating a 3,500 calorie deficit will vary from person to person.
Too big of a calorie deficit isn’t sustainable
Losing body fat takes time, no matter how you slice it.
Even if you slash calories dramatically, it’s still going to take time to see results.
The problem that most people run into is they try to lose weight too fast by cutting too many calories, end up not being able to stick to their diet, and starting over again.
This is the classic cycle of a yo-yo dieter who tries again and again to lose weight, only to keep falling short.
Repeating this cycle over and over again is only going to make your weight loss journey take longer than it should!
In reality, the fastest way to reach your weight loss goal is to be in a more sustainable deficit that you can actually stick to.
You’re going to lose more muscle
The bigger the calorie deficit you’re in, the more likely it is that you’re going to lose muscle mass as you lose weight.
When you are in a calorie deficit, you want as much of your weight loss to come from fat as possible.
Keeping your muscle mass while you’re in a calorie deficit is going to make you look better.
When you lose muscle along with fat, you’re going to end up with the dreaded “skinny fat” look.
Research has shown that when you take a more gradual approach to losing weight, you’re more likely to keep your muscle mass and your strength (2).
The bigger your calorie deficit, the more likely you are to put the weight back on
When you severely restrict calories for a period of time, you’re very likely to end up overeating once you’ve hit your goal weight.
This is partly physiological and partly psychological.
Let’s say you just finished a crash diet where you were in a very large calorie deficit for a number of weeks.
By creating a large calorie deficit, you’re going to increase hunger by a lot. By the end of your diet, it’s likely all you can think about! Because your hunger is off the charts, you’re much more likely to go off the rails when your diet is over and eat everything in sight.
On a psychological level, you’ve had to be extremely disciplined for the past few weeks. You haven’t eaten anything unhealthy, and you feel like you deserve to eat whatever you want. So you do, which leads to you regaining the weight you’ve lost.
These are two major reasons why most people who lose a significant amount of weight end up putting it back on.
By being in a more reasonable calorie deficit, you can lessen the chances of regaining the weight you lost.
You’re at a bigger risk for nutritional deficiencies
Whenever you restrict calories, you can risk missing out on key nutrients.
However, the bigger your calorie deficit, the more likely it is that you’re not going to be able to get enough micronutrients in your diet.
The simple fact is that you’re eating less, which makes it more difficult to reach the recommended levels of vitamins and minerals.
Now, in some cases, it might make sense. If you’re very overweight, the risks associated with carrying too much extra body fat can outweigh the risks of nutritional deficiencies. In this case it might make sense to restrict calories more severely.
For most people, being in a more moderate calorie deficit is a better idea.
You’ll slow down your metabolism
When you lose weight, your body will reduce the amount of calories it burns to try to make up for the deficit.
Your metabolism, or how many calories you burn per day, is made up of 4 components:
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- Your basal metabolic rate, or BMR for short, is the amount of calories you need to keep all your organs running and “keep the lights on” in your body. It’s essentially how many calories you burn doing absolutely nothing at all.
- How many calories you burn from exercise is called your exercise associated thermogenesis, or EAT for short. Doing strength training, cardio, or any other planned workouts fall into this category.
- Non-exercise associated thermogenesis, or NEAT, is the amount of calories you burn from activities that are not strictly working out. Walking, cooking, working, and grocery shopping are all part of NEAT.
- It takes a certain amount of energy to break down the food you eat. This is known as the thermic effect of food, or TEF for short.
Losing weight causes a decrease in every category, which is a normal part of being in a calorie deficit.
However, when you cut calories and try to lose weight too fast, you’ll cause a greater drop in your metabolism than if you were in a more moderate calorie deficit.
Research has shown that your BMR decreases more when you lose weight quickly compared to when you’re in a more gradual calorie deficit (2)*.
Your Workouts With Fewer Calories
Since your calories are so low, your workouts are going to be much more difficult. You’re not going to be able to put as much energy into your workouts which will cause you to burn less calories from EAT.
Your NEAT is also going to be lower because you won’t have as much energy as you did when your calories were higher.
Because you’re eating less calories overall, you’ll also be burning less calories, causing your TEF to be lower.
This can make it more difficult to lose weight as time goes on because you’ll need to further decrease your calories to see the same weight loss!
*This meta-analysis measured resting metabolic rate, or RMR instead of BMR. There are slight differences between the two, but for all intents and purposes they pretty much mean the same thing.
You can negatively impact your relationship with food
I’m a big fan of flexible dieting, which means being able to eat any foods that fit within your calorie budget.
For most people, I think restricting an entire food group or cutting out certain foods doesn’t lead to better results and can contribute to an unhealthy relationship with food.
By thinking of some foods as “good” and others as “bad”, you’re more likely to feel like you’ve done something wrong when you eat things that aren’t healthy and end up quitting your diet.
And that’s not just my opinion. Research has shown that when you avoid a certain food, it actually increases your desire for that food (3).
Generally, I like taking the approach of being able to include foods that you enjoy into your calorie deficit. This makes being in a calorie deficit easier to adhere to and more enjoyable.
Sticking to a very low calorie diet is extremely difficult.
In order to stay within your calorie budget, you’re likely not going to be able to eat many unhealthy foods. It’s simply going to be too difficult because your calories need to be so low.
This can lead to an all or nothing mentality, which makes it more likely that you’ll end up overeating the foods you restricted during your calorie deficit.
The real benefit of rapid fat loss
Now, with all that being said, I actually think there can be a benefit to losing weight quickly, at least for a short period of time.
But it’s probably not what you think..
The real benefit to rapid weight loss is the motivation it can give you.
A lot of people think that motivation comes from watching inspirational videos on YouTube, or reading a book that moves them to do something.
And while those things can provide some short term motivation, they aren’t going to be enough to consistently do the things you need to do in order to be successful on your weight loss journey.
Real motivation comes from taking action, and seeing results from that action.
For someone who has tried to lose weight over and over and over again without any success, they might need to do something to prove to themselves that they can do this.
This is the true benefit of rapid fat loss.
By losing weight quickly, you can see a result.
Seeing the result will lead you to keep doing the things you need to do in order to make progress.
Doing the things you need to on a consistent basis for a period of time is what’s going to get you to reach your goal!
So what is the best diet for losing weight quickly?
If you really want the best diet for losing weight quickly, then a low carb diet is going to be best.
Why?
When you eat carbohydrates, you use some of them for energy and store some of them as something called glycogen. Glycogen is how your body stores carbohydrates to use as energy. With every gram of glycogen you store, you’ll also store 3-4 grams of water (4).
By restricting carbohydrates, you’re going to lose a lot of water weight very quickly because you’ll be storing less glycogen in your muscle cells.
However, by now you know that losing weight and losing fat are not the same thing!
If your goal is rapid fat loss, then it really doesn’t matter whether you eat carbs or not. All that matters is that you’re in a big enough calorie deficit.
In reality..
There is no single best diet for losing fat quickly.
Everybody is different, and an approach that might work great for me might not work well for you at all.
As long as you are in a large enough calorie deficit, you can achieve rapid fat loss by eating a variety of different things.
Finding foods that help fill you up and are low in calories is going to be the key to rapid fat loss.
The rapid fat loss protocol
Before I get into the protocol of how to lose weight quickly, I want to make a few things VERY clear!
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- You should only be doing a rapid fat loss protocol for between 1-4 weeks. Losing fat rapidly is NOT something you should be doing for a long period of time. If you skipped over the reasons why rapid fat loss is a bad idea, go read them. I’ll wait..
- If you have a history of disordered eating, this is NOT for you. This is something I do not specialize in, and I would absolutely not recommend it to someone in that situation.
- You need to be damn near 100% consistent during your rapid fat loss protocol. This is not something you can do for a few days, and then go back to eating your normal calories. You need to be very consistent with your calorie counting in order to see results.
With that being said, here is a rapid fat loss protocol you can follow to see results quickly.
Step #1: Set your calories and protein
The first step is going to be figuring out how many calories you need.
You can use my calorie calculator below. Just fill out your information, and choose “rapid fat loss that is NOT sustainable”.
Cal’s calorie calculator
Next, you need to figure out how much protein you need.
Getting enough protein is very important when you’re in a rapid fat loss phase because it’s going to help you keep muscle as you lose fat.
To figure out your protein requirements, take your goal body weight and multiply it by 1.
So for a 200 pound person who wanted to lose 20 pounds, they would aim for 180 grams of protein every day.
Step #2: Figure out how long you’re going to be in a deficit
Remember that a rapid fat loss protocol should last somewhere between 1-4 weeks. It is NOT something that you should be doing any longer than that, unless you are very overweight and working under the supervision of a doctor.
If you’re reading this and thinking:
“I’ll do my rapid fat loss protocol for 4 weeks because I want to lose the MOST amount of weight possible!”
I’m once again going to stop you.
You need to be very consistent with your rapid fat loss protocol. If you are doing a rapid fat loss protocol for 7 days, and then eating 5,000 calories on day 8..
You are not doing a rapid fat loss protocol!
Make sure that you can stick to your calorie deficit. Typically, you’re going to get much better results doing a rapid fat loss protocol for 1-2 weeks at most.
Step #3: Transition to a more sustainable approach OR back to maintenance
Before you even start your rapid fat loss protocol, you should have a plan in place of what you’re going to do once it’s over.
The last thing you want to do is go right back to eating the way you did before starting your diet. That’s a quick way to end up getting stuck in the yo-yo dieting cycle.
Starting your diet with a rapid fat loss protocol and then switching over to a more moderate calorie deficit is a great idea.
Alternatively, you could also switch back to eating at maintenance. You can stay at maintenance for a period of time before transitioning back to a fat loss phase.
Regardless of which you choose, you need to have a hard date of when your rapid fat loss protocol is going to end and what you’re going to do once it’s over.
Wrapping up: How to Lose Weight Fast
There you have it!
There is no one best diet for losing body fat quickly. If you were looking for a quick answer, I’m sorry to disappoint you.
Rapid fat loss comes down to being in a big enough calorie deficit.
If you’re going to do a rapid fat loss protocol, you need to make sure that you have a plan going into it. Don’t just cut your calories and take the “see what happens” approach.
Remember that the key to long term progress is sustainability.
If you want to start a fat loss program with a rapid fat loss protocol, you can.
Just keep in mind that fat loss takes time, and if you try to rush the process faster than I’ve written out for you, it’s going to be very hard to succeed.
If you want someone to take care of everything for you and take the guesswork out of your fitness and nutrition, you can apply for coaching to see if we’d be a good fit for each other.
Thanks for reading and leave your questions below!