crash diet

With summer just around the corner, this is often the time we fall victim to fad diets. After all, who wants to expose a sun-starved and flabby body when it’s time to put on a bikini? Although many of these quick-fix eating plans claim instant gratification, most of the diets are not safe or effective ways to lose weight.

Most fad diets draw us in with their promise of miraculous weight loss in a short period of time. In fact, most of them will work only in the short term because they rely on a limited range of foods (like cabbage, egg or unlimited protein portions), so you eat less and reduce your calorie and fat intake.

Here’s a summary of what happens to your body when you follow a low-calorie diet:

• First, your body uses up carbohydrate stores (known as glycogen) in the liver and muscles. Water is stored with glycogen in the body, and as this is used up you may lose several pounds in water weight.
• Once all the stored carbs have been used up, your body enters a kind of starvation mode, and protein in the muscles is used as the main source of energy. As a result, toxic compounds called ketones are produced that make you feel fatigued and headachy.
• As you begin to lose weight, you also lose muscle mass (because the protein from your muscles is being used for energy), and your metabolism begins to slow down to conserve the small number of calories you’re now consuming. Your metabolism (the rate at which you burn calories) is directly related to the amount of muscle you have, so the more muscle you have, the faster you burn calories.
• If you lose a lot of weight initially on the diet, you’ll also lose a lot of muscle. So, even though you’re eating fewer calories, your body is burning calories at a slower rate than before you went on the diet, because you now have less muscle mass.
• Once you return to your pre-diet habits (which is inevitable), you’ll regain the weight that you initially lost, and potentially more. This is because your slow metabolism can’t process the amount of incoming calories and, therefore, stores them as fat.

• A low-carb, high protein diet may also cause dehydration, weakness, nausea and, in severe cases, gout, kidney problems and an increased risk of heart disease.

So, next time you see a crash diet promising instant weight loss, remember:

• These diets are boring, unrealistic and impossible to sustain for long periods of time
• Fad diets rarely give you optimal amounts of essential nutrients because they

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