Maintaining weight after a diet is hard, no matter how fast or slow you lose it, and it’s not just about reigniting your appetite.
One of the “problems” is that when we lose weight we not only lose fat, but we also lose quite a bit of muscle, and muscle helps burn calories.
Unlike fat, muscles burn energy throughout the day, even when we sleep. So when you lose muscle, your basal metabolic rate (the calories you burn at rest) slows down as well.
Which means that not only will your weight loss likely plateau, but you’ll also find it harder to keep the pounds off when you stop dieting.
The problem of loss of muscle mass is not only common to many diets, but also occurs with new drugs to lose weight, such as semaglutide (Ozempic or Wegovy brand).
The most important thing is to make sure you are getting enough protein in your diet because it is critical to preserving your muscle mass.
A 2021 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which helped fuel the frenzy of interest in these new weight-loss drugs, examined what happened when nearly 2,000 overweight adults were assigned weekly injections of semaglutide or a placebo, for 68 weeks.
The average weight loss in the treated group was an impressive 15.3 kg. However, the researchers found that while most of the weight the participants lost was excess fat (yay!), around 40 percent was due to loss of lean muscle mass, which isn’t good news.
In addition to burning calories, lean muscle mass is needed for strength and mobility, especially as we age.
So is there a way around this? The ultimate solution would be a weight-loss drug that helps patients lose pounds without slowing down metabolism. A recent study suggested that this might be possible with a drug called GDF15.
It seems to induce weight loss through two different mechanisms: it not only suppresses the appetite but also speeds up the muscles so that they burn more calories, according to the study published in the journal Nature.
Researchers at McMaster University in Canada took two groups of mice and injected one with GDF15, while the others acted as controls. Both groups were put on a calorie-restricted diet, and within two weeks all the mice lost weight at roughly the same rate. But four weeks later, despite the fact that all the mice continued on the same diet, weight loss plateaued in those that did not receive the drug.
The mice that received GDF15 continued to lose weight, dropping to about 75 percent of their starting weight in some cases. The main difference was that the mice injected with GDF15 had retained their muscles (and thus their basal metabolic rate) when they lost weight (the control group had not).
The scientists said more research is needed, but clearly a drug that helps preserve muscle while losing weight has great potential.
One of the ‘problems’ is that when we lose weight we not only lose fat, but we also lose quite a bit of muscle, and muscle helps burn calories.
In the meantime, what can you do to preserve your muscle (and your metabolic rate) if you want to lose weight the old-fashioned way?
The most important thing is to make sure you are getting enough protein in your diet because it is critical to preserving your muscle mass.
In the infamous Minnesota Starvation Experiment, conducted during World War II, thin young volunteers were asked to live on a diet very low in protein and fat, consisting primarily of turnips and potatoes, to investigate the impact on their health. general.
After six months, their body fat had dropped to less than 10 percent, their metabolic rate plummeted, and they lost about 20 percent of their muscle strength.
They also went crazy with hunger (one man was so crazy that he cut off three fingers with an axe).
When they were allowed to eat again, they gorged themselves, gaining all the weight and more. This experiment is a warning about what can happen if you don’t consume enough protein.
If you want to lose weight safely and effectively, make sure you eat at least 50g of protein a day (good sources include meat, fish, eggs, tofu, and whole grains) and that your daily protein intake is distribute between the three main meals, as it is better absorbed in this way.
Whether I’m trying to lose weight or not, I usually have two eggs (15g protein) or kippers (25g protein) for breakfast, making sure to get at least 20g protein with lunch and dinner. dinner.
You should also exercise regularly, particularly resistance exercises like push-ups and squats, to help preserve muscle.
A 2011 study in the Journal of Nutrition found that overweight women who followed a high-protein, low-carb diet and were asked to exercise seven days a week lost twice as much belly fat as the group that followed a low protein diet and finished. with 3 more pounds of muscle, on average.
