First 5 pounds melted off in a week
When someone goes on a diet they are amazed at how fast the first 5 pounds are dropped. The bad news is much of this weight loss was not lost fat at first. To lose fat during a diet that means you have to consume 3500 less calories than you burned off. The best way to look at it when on a diet is realistically to restrict 500 calories less than burned per day which equates to 1 pound per week is a goal. Anyone who has done the calorie counting diet and figured out how much they burn in calories exercising plus regular calorie burn during normal activity knows this pace of 500 calorie deficit is hard to maintain. So during the first week of a diet a highly motivated person may have burned 1 pound of fat.
The common theory about the early weight loss is that it is water weight. This is for the most part true but it is way more complicated than that. Most diets restrict processed foods, carbohydrates, saturated fats and alcohol. Processed foods usually contain lots of chemicals as preservatives, artificial flavorings, dyes, and simple sugars. All of the changes are really good because these foods are pro-inflammatory, which means they elicit inflammation in the body. The first step in the inflammatory process is flooding the extracellular fluid with water as the immune system starts the inflammatory process. When we eliminate these inflammatory foods our body reverses this inflamed state and we rid ourselves of all the excess water thru urination and sweat. Our immune system also backs off the assault of inflammatory response. This is why we lose weight very fast when we clean up our diets.
This decreased inflammation also makes you feel really good. That is why aches and pains ease during the early part of a diet not because we have less weight on our joints.
Cheating on the diet has the opposite effect
Everyone has experienced the grief on the scale after a bad weekend. You can also gain inflammatory weight just as fast as you lost it when you cheated for a short period. This is why when you are eating well as soon as you cheat you feel so uncomfortable and bloated. The sad part is how many people feel this way all the time and just do not know it.
For more information on how the eat and Anti-Inflammatory Diet follow the article in our blog.