March 8, 2026, 9:15 am | Read time: 9 minutes
If you want to lose weight, you usually want to lose a lot of weight in a relatively short time. But this is precisely where the danger lies: if you eat as few calories as possible over a short period of time in order to achieve the greatest possible success, you will inevitably lose a lot of muscle. This results in a reduced metabolism, and the vicious circle of gaining weight and constant dieting begins. Fitness expert and FITBOOK author Alina Bock explains how to do it better and achieve long-term success.
Healthy weight loss means giving your body time to lose body weight in the form of fat while maintaining as much lean mass, i.e., muscle, as possible. Read on to find out how this works and which other factors are important for healthy weight loss.
Overview
Why Radical Diets Never Work
People who want to lose weight often want to lose a lot of weight in a short space of time. Examples of diets that follow this pattern are the cabbage soup diet, in which you only eat cabbage soup, or certain zero-diet plans, in which you go almost completely without solid food. But what many people forget is that these diets are counterproductive to successful weight loss and extremely harmful to the metabolism. To make this process easier to understand, we will first explain what happens in the body when we eat fewer calories than our body needs to maintain its weight.
In Starvation Mode, the Body Burns Muscle Instead of Fat
If our body notices that we are “starving” or consuming fewer calories than we need to maintain our body weight, it goes into alert mode. One kilogram of muscle burns between 15 and 20 calories a day. In contrast, one kilogram of fat burns only three to five calories. If the body notices that it is not getting enough calories, it urgently wants to save energy. However, it would not save nearly as much energy by breaking down fat as it would by burning muscle. So what does the body do? First and foremost, it burns the existing muscles.
Sufficient Protein Is the Key to Muscle Maintenance
To prevent this, i.e., to protect the muscles that stimulate fat burning and the body’s metabolism, protein must be consumed in large quantities. However, this is not nearly possible with radical diets. As a result, the body mainly burns muscle and only a small amount of fat. At the end of the diet, the basal metabolic rate has fallen drastically due to the loss of muscle. The body, therefore, no longer burns as many calories as before the diet. In most cases, however, the previous amount of calories is consumed again after the diet, and the yo-yo effect occurs. In most cases, more weight is gained back than was lost during the diet.
Radical diets are therefore not recommended: they restrict the metabolism, change the body composition negatively, and lead to a significant loss of fat-free mass. This can also lead to osteoporosis with increasing age, especially in women.
How Do I Lose Weight Healthily?
Healthy weight loss requires one thing above all: patience. Excess weight does not develop overnight, which is why it cannot be lost overnight. The aim should be to maintain as much fat-free mass as possible and to limit the burning of existing fat stores in order to keep the metabolism high despite weight loss.
Healthy Weight Loss is Explained in the Following Steps:
- If you are ready to lose weight in a healthy way, you first need to calculate your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). There are many calculators available on the Internet for this purpose. Once you have calculated your energy expenditure, subtract 300 to a maximum of 500 calories from it. Et voila: The amount of calories for the diet has been calculated.
- To ensure that you maintain your muscles, you need to adjust the amount of protein. Approximately two grams of protein per kilogram of body weight is recommended.
For example, a person weighing 75 kilograms should consume around 150 grams of protein per day. Sources of protein can be meat (turkey, chicken, beef), fish, quark, protein supplements, cheese, eggs, or vegetable protein sources. - Focus on healthy fatty acids: To boost metabolism and prevent inflammation-promoting processes in the body, it is advisable to consume polyunsaturated fatty acids. Polyunsaturated fatty acids, also known as omega-3 fatty acids, are found in oily fish (e.g., salmon, mackerel, tuna), walnuts, linseed oil, and linseed as well as chia seeds. Trans fatty acids, such as those found in chips, pastries, and potato chips, should be avoided altogether.
- Drink a lot! Water or tea is always good and also fills the stomach.
- Exercise in the form of strength and cardio training boosts fat burning. Strength training is particularly important to maintain muscle tone.
- Now it’s time to be patient. Losing weight is a process.
Study Confirms the Importance of a High Protein Intake for Maintaining Muscle Mass
A study published in 2010 in the journal “Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise” confirms the importance of a high protein intake for maintaining lean mass during a weight loss.1 To this end, 20 athletes were divided into two groups that consumed different amounts of protein during a calorie deficit (60 percent of their performance metabolic rate). The group that consumed only 15 percent (one gram per kilogram of body weight) of calories in the form of protein lost significantly more fat-free mass in the form of muscle than the group that consumed 2.3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (35 percent of calories).
The protein intake should therefore be kept high during a reduction diet in order to keep the loss of fat high and the loss of muscle low.
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Hunger and satiety are largely controlled by the evaluation of certain signals by the hypothalamus. Signals can include stomach filling/stretching, the concentration of nutrients in the blood, and the state of energy stores.
In order to induce satiety, foods that have a low energy density but at the same time cause a noticeable filling of the stomach are recommended. Vegetables are particularly suitable for this. In addition, factors such as the right ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids, a sufficient supply of vitamins and minerals, and a high intake of protein, which prolongs the digestive process, lead to increased satiety. The intake of fiber (>30 grams) also has a positive effect on satiety, as fiber expands in the stomach and thus leads to stomach expansion and subsequent satiety.
In addition, eating slowly leads to a 27 to 40 percent higher production of satiety hormones in the brain. It is therefore not only important what we eat, but also how we eat it.
Short Sleep Duration and Poor Sleep Quality Lead to Weight Gain
In addition to diet and exercise, there is another factor that plays a key role in healthy weight loss: sleep.
Sleep influences the production of hormones related to hunger and satiety. Insufficient sleep increases the production of certain hormones, such as the hormone ghrelin. At the same time, the satiety hormone leptin decreases. If there is an imbalance between the two hormones due to a lack of sleep, this leads to increased hunger and makes it more difficult to feel full. The weight loss process becomes more difficult.
Pathological Changes in Insulin and Cortisone Levels
If the internal clock is disturbed, which is particularly the case for people who work in shifts, this can lead to pathological changes in insulin and cortisone levels due to the disruption of some hormones and, consequently, to obesity, fat build-up, and certain metabolic diseases.
Disturbed Thermoregulation
A sleep deficit can also lead to impaired thermoregulation, which in turn can lead to increased tiredness and a resulting lack of exercise. This makes the weight loss process even more difficult.
Difficult Weight Loss and Tendency to Gain Weight
In a study published in the scientific journal “Sleep” in 2023, researchers looked at the consequences of sleep deprivation after a successful weight loss diet.2 The study examined how insufficient sleep impacts weight gain during the weight maintenance phase. For the study, 195 adults with obesity underwent an eight-week low-calorie diet and then a one-year weight maintenance phase. To investigate the effects of sleep on weight maintenance, participants were divided into subgroups according to sleep duration (six hours of sleep) or sleep quality (PSQI score ≤/>5).
The results indicated that participants with short sleep duration regained 11.7 pounds after a diet-induced weight loss of 28.9 pounds during the weight maintenance phase. They also showed a lower reduction in body fat percentage compared to the group with normal sleep duration. Furthermore, participants with poor sleep quality regained 7.7 pounds prior to weight loss compared to those with good sleep quality. The study results therefore show that a short sleep duration or poor sleep quality makes weight maintenance more difficult and leads to renewed body weight gain.