Stronger Than Your Boyfriend
Stronger Than Your Boyfriend
Losing Weight Too Fast (And Why It's Working Against You)
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Think dropping weight quickly is a win? Think again. In this episode, Heather and Katie break down what actually counts as losing weight too fast, why rapid weight loss almost always means losing muscle (not just fat), and how that slows your metabolism for the long haul.
They cover the real signs your cut has gone too far, why GLP-1s without proper guidance set you up to regain everything, and what to do instead; including why reverse dieting and building muscle are the moves most people skip.
Download our reverse dieting guide to learn more
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Welcome to the Stronger Than Your Boyfriend Podcast, podcast for anyone into fitness, especially for all of you exception lovers out there. We are Heather and Katie, owners of Barpath Fitness, here to help you sift through the bullshit and toxic misinformation that permeates the fitness industry. Today we're talking about losing weight too fast. Yes.
SPEAKER_02This is not a GLP1 episode, but kind of. I mean, we'll probably talk about it. We're gonna talk about it for sure. We're not hating on them. No. But we're talking about losing weight too fast, which tends to happen. Tends to happen.
SPEAKER_00With people who are uninformed and taking GLP1s. Yes.
SPEAKER_02That's a good way to say it. Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So let's talk about what actually counts as losing weight too fast. Well, it depends on where you're at now, for one. Generally, the rule of thumb is one to two pounds a week is healthy or one percent of your body weight, they say. Um if you go over that, it's considered somewhat not sustainable. If you're very inactive, very overweight, I would raise that up a little bit, three to four pounds a week. Yeah. And this is consistently, okay, outside of a supervised medical medical program. Right. If you are in a supervised medical program, you can use lose a lot of weight fast and they can keep track of things, and that's fine. But if you exceed that three to four pounds a week regularly, and we'll talk about water weight in a second, that often means that you're also losing muscle mass. Yes. And this can trigger a lot of issues, right? Yep. And when I say consistently, I mean like week to week. So your first week of weight loss or even two, you might notice more extreme things. You're gonna notice some water loss. You can lose like five pounds of water in a day, you know? Yeah. So that you'll see that at first, and that's okay. And I have seen people a lot of times, I don't know if it's like I'm thinking of like family members or Facebook groups, where they're like, uh, the first week I lost five pounds, and then I lost another three pounds, and now the scale's not moving. And it's like, well, that first eight pounds was probably water and inflammation because you you know change your habits and whatnot. So it's sorry to break it to you.
SPEAKER_02Like, would you say that if you're consistently losing over three to four pounds or over for like a month? That's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's probably a red flag there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because that's a full I'm just four weeks. I'm gonna just go by women.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was gonna say that's all your phases. Yeah. And you're continuously losing weight in those different phases. If it's over three to four pounds, yeah, it's probably not sustainable.
SPEAKER_02Man, people just still love to see that number on the scale just go down and down and down. That's wild. It is. I mean, it's 2026, y'all. Like, it's and I know, and you know, that's that's also part of the problem. It's 2026, and there's so much more technology. It's like, buy this scale and it'll detect your body fat, which probably won't.
SPEAKER_00So did you see that video that went viral of the girl? I don't even know who she was. She was like, you are a 160-pound woman, you need to be. Oh, some of you need to be acting like what you weigh. If you're 160 pounds, you need to be dieting, blah, blah, blah. A bunch of people, I never actually saw the video itself. I saw it remixed by a bunch of awesome badass women who were like 160 pounds throwing shit around.
SPEAKER_02Like, you know, you're just saying that shit for what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm sure that girl was canceled. Like it was pretty good.
SPEAKER_02Goodbye. No one wants to hear your dumbass comments, but okay. What are common causes of rapid weight loss? There's a lot of obvious ones, but first and foremost, if you're not trying to lose weight, you should go see your doctor. Yeah. It's rapid because you might have an illness. Yes. So let's we're just gonna cover our asses with that one. Go get checked out. Yeah. Drastically cutting your calories. And the big problem with this is the diet culture, obviously. And eating that 1200 calorie diet or whatever. And honestly, not knowing how where you're cutting from as far as your maintenance calories go. Because you could just be eating like you could just be suffering or doing a cleanse for three weeks and you're eating carrots and almonds and a cleanse and you're eating two 500 calories a day, and you're losing all this weight. But it's if you're if you have cut your calories drastically, even if you are strength training, even if you're not doing a ton of cardio, you're losing muscle too. No matter what. You're losing weight, you're losing muscle, like a lot of weight rapidly. So, uh, or drastically increasing your cardio workouts, although, caveat on this one, your body will adapt to that, so you will stop losing weight. And that's the good thing about our bodies is that we adapt to act the activity that we do. But at first, if you just all of a sudden are increasing your cardio, or if you've hit that plateau and then you're adding more and more, you're losing muscle for sure. So you know, weight loss doesn't mean it doesn't say anything about your body composition. Right. Because you could be losing a ton of weight, but you might be skinny fat too. So not eating enough protein and only doing cardio, okay, that's probably mostly muscle that you're losing, to be honest with you. Because if you're doing a bunch of cardio, your body probably thinks it's starving, so it's gonna hold on to body fat and get rid of the muscle because muscle is expensive tissue. So, okay, what happens to your body when you lose weight too fast? A lot of more obvious things, but your metabolism will slow down. You will have less muscle. The more the lower muscle mass doesn't, again, require a lot of energy for survival. So that means it doesn't require a lot of calories to keep. So your BMR or your RMR is a lot lower than what it was. And that just means how many calories are you burning at rest? You could be burning a lot if you have a lot of muscle. Yeah. And that's kind of the goal, especially in the context of modern life. We want more muscle on our bodies so that we can just sit here and burn more calories. Not saying don't move, but still.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've never understood why people are like, I just want to lose weight. Why? Because like, like lose weight be smaller, smaller, smaller. Yeah. Because then your your muscle, you lose muscle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they're like, oh, I don't want to get big. Okay, well, you lose muscle and then you lose your metabolism, and now you can't eat anything. Like, don't you want to be a machine? Don't you want to be a calorie-burning machine?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like don't you wanna just like put in the work and then go out and have a fat ass burger and then wake up the next morning with like fit as fuck and look good and not feel bloated, like it's sticking to you. I don't know. And you know, everyone thinks they want to be smaller, but they really don't. They want that muscle. Like they say, you want to be toned. Like, that's muscle. Yeah, that's not a thing. And the less muscle you have, actually, even if you're losing weight, means you have a higher body fat percentage. Yeah, you could keep the same amount of body fat on your person right now and gain muscle, and your body fat percentage will be lower because you have more muscle. And that is good. Yes. Okay. Other signs of losing weight too fast, fatigue. Also, why do people want this? Why do people want to feel lower, like solo energy throughout the day and in your workouts and weakness in general, especially in your workouts? I mean, you intensity is so key for body composition in general, for the muscle on your frame, for being lean. And if you don't have any energy to put forth in your workouts, it's not gonna change. You're gonna be skinny. You're gonna be skinny. Hormonal changes. Women are very, very sensitive to this. You cut your calories really low for long periods of time, your estrogen and your testosterone, especially, are going to drop, and you're gonna one feel like shit. You're gonna continue to lose muscle. And if this sounds like you, you should go get tested. Hopefully, you can go get some blood work done, but it you will notice this. It doesn't feel good. Right. I mean, again, this is not you can have hormonal disruptions outside of just losing weight, but still, if you're trying to lose weight and you notice all these things, low libido, no energy, losing muscle, your hormones are shifting no matter what. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And if you're losing weight fast, often you're going to regain the weight fast, right? So there is a reason or a few reasons why weight loss, fast weight loss, often leads to regaining that weight.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And don't they talk about this with bodybuilders, especially female bodybuilders who they diet down so low, they get their calories so low. And it's like the the post-competition there's a plan, uh, regain or whatever. But the refeed. Yeah. The refeed. But but the women who don't do that end up putting on more body fat than they had before. Because their body actually makes new fat cells because they have starved their body, and your body is doing exactly what you want it to do. It is saying, oh shit, we're starving. We need to hold on to this body fat. So when you just eat, eat, eat, eat, eat after your metabolism is slowed, you're gonna you're gonna put on more body fat than you had in the past. Totally. And do you want that? No. I want to eat burgers and have muscle. Right. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And don't metabolic adaptation is real. Yes. Also, I think there's like a mental part, right? Like when you when you lose weight really fast, it feels like a diet, like a rather than like a permanent lifestyle shift because it's not sustainable. So your brain treats it as like the finish line, and you're like, okay, I did it, I'm done.
SPEAKER_02I did it, now what?
SPEAKER_00And then you can't go back to normal. Like you have to you have to keep it.
SPEAKER_02And this is the problem with the insane widespread use of GLP once without the proper information. Because I've known a lot of people now who they do it, they lose a bunch of weight, and then they come off of it. And they're right back to where they started. It's the same thing. And that's why it's it's a tool. I'm not, we we've talked, we've done a few, a couple episodes now about GLP1s and you know, all these injections that you can take, they're they're great for the right person. But man, if you're not doing the right, and even honestly, even if you are doing the right things, and I've seen this, you'll still gain weight back. And that's not necessarily a bad thing if you're strength training and you're eating right, but people don't like it. They just don't like it. And you're not setting yourself up for success. You're really not, if you're just going right to that quick fix. Totally.
SPEAKER_00So if you're not sure if you're losing weight too fast, here are some things to look for. Yeah. If you're losing more than two pounds a week consistently, especially if you're not like significantly overweight, after the first like two weeks, yeah. Um, that might be a sign. If you're constantly fatigued, if you have brain fog, if you're cold all the time, that could be a sign. There's a lot of things that could be, but that could be this. Uh, hair, you're losing your hair is a big one. Um brittle nails, skin changes if you're a woman, loss of your menstrual period or cycle irregular, yeah, being irregular. Uh dizziness, lightheadedness, low blood pressure, your strength is dropping, not just for a session or even a week, but consistently like your strength keeps dropping. Yep. Uh mood swings, irritability, trouble sleeping, obsessive thoughts about food, I think about uh intense hunger that doesn't ease, digestive issues, constipation is actually a really, really big one. People do not realize how important. I've been hearing and reading more and more about fiber, specifically in perimetopause, menopause, like how important we actually need to get even higher than we thought. Yeah. Uh for a lot of reasons. So obviously, if you're not eating enough fiber, which is really hard to do in the first place, I think, then you're gonna have gut issues for sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and obviously those are a lot of things, and it doesn't necessarily have to be, but here's the other thing: even if you're doing all the right things, like we talk about all the time, which means you've built your metabolism, you've spent the time, you've reverse dieted, you've added calories, your calories at a very healthy, sustainable range, and you're on a cut, you want to lose some body fat for summer, whatever. And you still drop calories too fast. Like, you don't need to drop 500 calories, right? You could drop 200 and consistently lose some body fat. Like, why would you want to do more than you have to? Yeah, you know what I mean? It's and I get that mentality in especially with working out, but you always want to do the least amount, especially when you're cutting calories. Cut the least to see that body fat, and then when you plateau, then you use it as a tool. Cut some more. So that's another thing. There's no need to do it that fast. If you cannot, you can't outmaneuver the laws of physiology and physics. Like you cannot just say, well, I'm eating less than I was and I'm not losing weight. That's not true. Like you will lose weight. So do it the right way, build your metabolism up, and then cut slowly. So how do you lose weight without losing well? How do you lose sorry? How do you lose body fat without losing muscle? Because fuck the losing weight. I feel like we just need to get rid of that word weight.
SPEAKER_01Yes. We really do.
SPEAKER_02You know? Okay, protein and strength training. End of podcast. But I mean, really, yes. Okay, even though, even still, you could lose muscle even if you cut your calories really drastically. And really too too low. Yeah. There's a I think there's a point too if you do do it the right way and you are cutting your calories to go on a cut and to lose body fat. Once you hit a certain number, I think that's it for that cut. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't think women should drop down below, I want to say 1,800 calories, but I feel like the bare, bare minimum is 15. 15 is too low. 16. I changed my mind right now. 16. I just think it's so low to be below 2,000 calories. You know what I mean? I mean, there are a lot of factors. I get that.
SPEAKER_01Height is one of them, but you're you're a short person. I'm short. We're short people.
SPEAKER_02The minimum I eat is 2,000 calories a day. Yeah. And I'm still hungry.
SPEAKER_00But you also built that over time. Built that over time. And that's something like uh Yeah. So let's get into that a little bit. Like, yeah, how does that work if someone has been eating 1,400 calories or less for years? They can't just 2,000 calories.
SPEAKER_02Right. This is why it's individualized, and this is why you should always do what we preach on this podcast. And if you're new, you're gonna hear about it now. Figure out how many calories you're eating and just track for a week. I mean, you cannot know this information without the the data. You have to do the work and get the data, or else you can't just tell me you're eating this amount when you don't know. Yeah. So you have to track, it's inevitable. You have to do it. You cannot tell me that you don't want to do it. If you don't care, that's fine. But if you care, you have to do this.
SPEAKER_00You also can't get, I mean, you should just track what you're eating and not change anything the first week. But you're going to have to change your habits if you go out to eat every day. Yes. Because you cannot know exactly how much someone is putting of oil, of butter, of whatever it is into that marinade on those veggies. Yeah, like you can't track it. You're never gonna be impossible. You're never gonna know. And I know people who work in the restaurant industry, and holy shit, do they use a lot of butter.
SPEAKER_02Butter is I mean, I've you've gotta know this because if you make just think of an omelette. If you make eggs at home, you're like, this is fine. If you get an omelet at a breakfast restaurant, you're like, this is fucking delicious. Yeah. It's the butter you got.
SPEAKER_01It's so much butter.
SPEAKER_00It's so much. So much butter. And they're usually, honestly, most restaurants, unless they specify the eggs, they're using like the eggs that come in a in a thing, right? Like, yeah. And I so I heard about what was this about? Oh, this was about a very specific restaurant. I'm not gonna talk about which one. And there's this fucking cookie, and it's so good. And it comes out warm and it's it's got a ton of butter in it. It's chocolate chip, actually. And I'm not a huge chocolate chip, but you would love this one. It comes out warm and salty for chocolate chips and butter. And I heard from someone who works at this restaurant that they do butter? They, yes. So if it's been sit, if it's been like sitting for a while and they need to rewarm it up, they'll put another layer of butter on top when they pull it out. So you don't know how many layers of butter you got.
SPEAKER_01God, American is such a problem, but it sounds so delicious in this season. It's really good. That I've definitely ordered them multiple times.
SPEAKER_02I don't think I need each other.
SPEAKER_01You do? You'd have like a butter.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you want. Okay, anyway, so back to you at the track. If you're eating too low, this is most people. So we're not telling you to just jump right to 2,000 calories. I am a very firm believer that all women, no matter what your height is, I don't care if you're 4'11, I don't care if you're six, well, sex bite, you should be eating a lot more. That's true. I'd love to be that. But, anyways, no matter how short you are, I think most women should be able to get their calories up to maintain a healthy body composition at 2,000 calories. But you can't start there. And I'm sure most women aren't starting there. You have to, it takes a while, and it took me a while to get to this point. Years. So, and that's okay. I'm not saying you have everyone has to jump there, but you probably, actually, not probably, whoever you are, I'm looking at the camera now, you need to reverse diet. You need to reverse diet. You need to build muscle, you need to add in calories and zero muscle. Okay, girl. Because it's probably some men too. You need to build muscle. Everyone should do it. So add in cal, I'm not saying add in brown, buttery, delicious, salty cookies, but sometimes it's easier to eat that when you're trying to build. But focus on building the muscle track. It takes a while. You will have multiple, multiple phases of building and cutting and maintaining and building and cutting and maintaining. It's not just you build once and then you cut. A lot of people think that that's how it works. Like, okay, Katie, I'm on board. I'm ready for my build. I'm gonna suck it up. And then they're like, all right, when can I cut? When can I cut? When can I cut my calories to lose body fat? Sure, we could do that. You'll see a few pounds of body fat feel a little bit. Then we have to do that again. It's it takes years, it's an investment. Your body is the best investment. So do that. And if you want to also enjoy your life, this is the way to do it. It's not by trying to just lose weight, lose weight, lose weight. Yes. And I hate the it's still fucking out there. The hey, this doesn't taste as good as skinny feels. It's like, what? No one wants to be skinny. No one wants to be skinny. No one wants to be skinny. No one is attracted to super skinny either. You know? Whether who you're attracted to, I don't know. Maybe there's some people who are, but most people. I don't know. Also, as far as longevity goes, the more muscle you have, the better you're off. But even if you have muscle and a you know, some body fat on you, it's better to have more body fat for longevity. So if that tells you anything, it's okay to put on some body fat. I know people don't like it, but let's not do a ton of cardio either. This is another issue that I see. When people are like, build, all right, I'm gonna build, but I'm gonna add in all this running and this cardio, and it's like that is not the point. That doesn't work. And even when you're when you're dropping calories, I don't think you should do cardio at all. I think that's like just a risk to lose more muscle. If you want to minimize the muscle loss, you know, when you've built your calories up to a healthy range, I don't know. I think maybe do cardio once in a while for heart health, but I don't think that should be a consistent part of your routine if you're trying to keep your muscle. I also think you could just take cardio off for that cut. Maybe do it like during maintenance phase or something. Yeah. But, anyways, I feel like it was a little ranty. I love it. But it's fine. We love a little rant. We love it. We love a little rant. Yeah. I cardio is still like, ugh, do it to lose weight. Do it for heart health. Yeah. You know, do it for heart health. Or because it feels good. It feels good, yeah. And I'm not saying not do it. I it's really good for stress, but don't get addicted to it for stress. You know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But there's worse things to be strong.
SPEAKER_02Again, there is worse things to do for stress.
SPEAKER_00I've seen people be very addicted to cardio, and that is dangerous.
SPEAKER_01If it's like drinking versus running, go for a run. Let's do the run. Let's do the run. But that's kind of extreme. But totally. Anyways, okay. Balance. Balance. Hashtag balance.
SPEAKER_02Eat to build. Yes. And don't cut your calories too bad. Don't, do not do a juice cleanse. Don't do a fucking juice cleanse. Don't do it. Don't do it, because you will, first of all, you're not losing. I mean, maybe by the end you'll have lost some body fat, but like, what? You're gonna gain it right back when you eat? I just why?
SPEAKER_00Why is that a thing? I was watching My Guilty Pleasure the other day, which is Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. And I think it was Kathy Hilton said she did some sort of I think it was like a lemon cleanse or something, and all the women were like, what? And she, I can't remember which celebrity she said. Apple cider, vinegar, and lemon.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. Oprah is using Oprah does this epic now. She's not doing cleanses. First of all, and here's another thing to be wary of. All your favorite Instagram fitness influencers, if they made a big drastic transformation, if they, I don't know, if they're it's all GLP ones. And BBL ones.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I'm not hating on BBL, I think they look good.
SPEAKER_02Whatever. It's not that I'm talking about like, I'm talking about losing weight. I'm talking about like they've gotten too late. They are using a GLP one. Yeah. Most likely.
SPEAKER_01If it's within the line lawyer. Or probably. And maybe some other things. Is that the one? That is, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Nuggets burst.
SPEAKER_01Um. Okay. Well. Ooh, you want to destroy our Facebook group. Yes, you should. What do you think about it? Tell us what you think. Tell us it to be. Alright.