Rapid Weight Loss - Dangers You Need to Be Aware Of

That Christmas party coming up during the weekend? You search frantically for that dress that you dazzled the room with five years ago, and to your tearful dismay, you find that its three sizes too small for you. Now a few options come into play: one, get another dress; two, alter the dress; three, go on a diet. In case you are considering option three, you must be aware of the dangers that come with losing that much weight in a few days.

Rapid weight loss, or weight cutting, is the act of losing weight at an abnormal and alarming rate. Weight cutting has been used by athletes in attempt to enter light weight categories that they originally were not eligible for. Even then, it is not recommended by nutritionists, and is done under medical supervision. If you attempt to weight cut by yourself, you expose yourself to medical dangers that are associated with starvation.

Weight cutting can be done in a variety of ways, the most popular being fasting from food for a period of time. Other methods include dehydration of your own body, and eating unsafe combinations of weight loss products.

Fasting from food might lead to effect on your body that is similar to that of starvation. Basically, depriving your body of food for a period of time may lead to your body being malnourished. Your metabolic rate would slow down in response to the lowered amount of energy available for your body to feed on. While you may lose weight through your body having to use up fatty reserves of energy, you will use up the fatty reserves at a slower rate than if you ate normally and exercised due to your lowered metabolic rate and the difficulty involved in metabolizing fats into energy. Prolonged fasting would lead to spells of giddiness due to low blood sugar levels, and possible fainting.