How fast should you lose weight? Here’s a quick new video on the basics. For those interested, I’ll link several scholarly articles related to the topic below. ***It’s also worth noting that this is the short explanation for those of you with short attention spans ???? Metabolism is more complicated than JUST muscle mass, but muscle is a major determining factor. Check it out! Hope it helps!

Sources, summaries and interesting related material:

Very low calorie dieting decreases RMR (resting metabolic rate), making it difficult for obese people to keep weight off once it’s lost:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00007256-199010020-00002

Very low calorie diets combined with A. aerobic exercise and B. resistance training, show that resistance training was favorable for maintenance of RMR and LBM, compared to aerobic training.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07315724.1999.10718838

Wrestlers who didn’t “cut” maintained their RMR better than those who cut repeatedly:

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/372663

“Given that fat-free mass (FFM) represents a key determinant of the magnitude of resting metabolic rate (RMR), it follows that a decrease in lean tissue could hinder the progress of weight loss. Therefore, with respect to long-term effectiveness of weight-loss programmes, the loss of fat mass while maintaining FFM and RMR seems desirable.”:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00007256-200636030-00005

Weight loss by exercise did not effect RMR in 100+ adults, but weight loss strictly via diet caused a decrease in RMR over a year:

http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/2361810