Many dieters think that extreme dieting is okay. However, anyone who is extreme dieting needs to be very careful.
Fat
A low calorie and low-energy diet works very quickly. You lose weight rapidly which can make it look like the diet plan is succeeding. However, this does not mean you have in fact lost any fat. What has occurred is that you have utilised the body’s restricted bank of glycogen, a type of carbohydrate. When you usurp your body’s glycogen supply, the body loses water. So it seems like you are losing weight rapidly.
Don’t Deny Yourself Foods
Crash diets can render the dieter lethargic, irritable and tired. It can also induce food cravings.
Risks to Your Health
- You will deprive your body of vitamins and minerals to stay healthy should you restrict food intake acutely.
- Upon usurping the body’s store of glycogen, you will lose weight from body’s tissues as they release energy to help your body to cope.
- Many crash diet plans omit informing you that you are usurping as much protein (from the muscles) as fat.
- Should your desire to lose weight be about vanity, it is crucial to realise that it is just as easy to put weight back on as it is to lose it.
Yo-Yo Dieting
- Weight more times than not returns as fat. Thus you end up with more fat as well as less protein than when you commenced the diet. This ends up with you feeling more out of shape than when you began. It can also start an ongoing circle of yo-yo dieting.
- Yo-yo dieting plays havoc with your metabolism. It can even increase levels of harmful blood cholesterol in the blood which can increase the likelihood of heart disease and arterial disease.
Fad diets
Another diet book about a magic diet seems to be published each week. Fad diets are big business. Everyone wants that magical solution for weight loss.
It must be noted that many of these diets are mad and in many cases dangerous.
- In early 2008 a Which? report condemned many fad diet plans, including cabbage soup, low-carbohydrate and the ‘Eat fat, get thin’ diet which actually states that it is not important to exercise.
- Most fad diets restrict the combinations of food you can eat; thus you end up consuming fewer calories. Another unfortunate effect is that your range of food intake is restricted, where food variety is crucial for good health.
- Note that you need scientific studies to back up the diet you are undertaking. A celebrity’ s testimonial is not sufficient.
Reducing your fat intake is fine. However, try not to go for the extremely low fat diets. The body needs some essential fatty acids alongside food.
- High-protein and low-carb diets are particularly dangerous. These diets have a lot of saturated fat, little fibre and not enough carbohydrate. They can bring about ketosis, abnormal metabolism whereby you get unsavoury side-effects like nausea and bad breath. Such diets can put a great deal of pressure on your kidneys.
- Nothing supports diets that recommend not combining carbohydrates and proteins in the same meal.
- There is also no evidence to support a specific diet for your blood type.
- Detox diets are meant to dispose the body of its ‘impurities’.
There is only one safe and sensible way to get weight down. That is, having a well balanced diet and doing some exercise on a daily basis.
