Losing more than 2 lbs a week can backfire later on

I always read a lot of questions on the message boards about people wanting to lose 10 lbs in one week, or 20 lbs in 2 weeks.

There are many problems with this. First off, it is possible to lose that much weight in time, but it's going to be very hard. It's going to involve a highly calorie reduced diet, and lots of exercise. Basically, imagine going through Hell. Instead of Fire, it's pure exercise. The normal American, no matter how badly they want to lose weight, doesn't have that kind of time in the world.

Secondly, and probably the most important reason, is that if you do lose more than 2 pounds a week, you are going to lose muscle mass as well. That is why health professionals recommend you lose 2 lbs at most a week. Anything more and it's considered unhealthy. Plus, if you lose more than 2 lbs a week, you will eventually hit the dreaded "plateau" of weight loss. This is a point where people who work hard at losing weight just can't lose weight anymore, even though they are doing the same intensity exercise or even raising the intensity level. Why does this plateau start? Because that person has lost so much weight and muscle mass that their Resting Metabolic Rate has decreased so much that they are not hitting the high negative net calories daily they were hitting earlier on in their program.

Did you know that 1 lb. of muscle mass burns an extra 50 calories daily? If you don't then I suggest you google it...it's true. The saying "Muscle burns fat" is true.

And don't think that gaining muscle is easier than burning fat. I thought burning fat was really hard when I was doing it last summer. Once I burned off 50 lbs in 3 months, I hit a plateau where I didn't lose a single pound for 2 weeks. People were telling me I looked so anorexic, which in some ways was complimenting me on my fat loss, but criticizing me on my muscle mass loss. I have been currently trying to gain muscle mass for the past 8 months. I've only been able to gain about 5 pounds of muscle mass so far. Gaining muscle is just as hard as burning fat.

So if anyone really wants to lose more than 2 lbs. a week, please reconsider. You need muscle to burn fat and avoid the plateau. If you don't do this, you won't look anything close to the models on television. You'll just be a skeleton and skin, and look just as bad as you do being overweight.

I saw someone post an answer on Yahoo! Answers about fat loss. He said that the formula is different depending on how obese you are.

Obese: Diet 80%, Cardio 10-15%, Weightlifting 5-10%
Overweight (closer to ideal weight): Diet 80%, Weightlifting 10-15%, Cardio 5-10%

I could not agree with him more.

Update: I just found a great link that can explain the 2 lb per week rule. It's written by Tom Venuto, who is the author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, which is a gem of a book for anyone wanting the dream body.
http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/news/two-pounds.htm