How can you tell if it is a crash diet?

Answer 1

People who are promoting crash diets or have personally succeeded in losing weight with these programs will often tell you about how easy it is to lose excess pounds with these diets. They'll also tell you how great they feel about having lost weight; but there is another side of this coin. What people promoting crash diets won't tell you about is that some of these diets can be dangerous - and that in the long term, crash diets simply aren't a viable solution.

What Are Crash Diets?

In case you're unfamiliar with the term, a crash diet is a diet which is intended to help you to lose weight very quickly by imposing severe restrictions in your food and drink intake. Some of these diets restrict you to certain foods or drinks; some even limit dieters to one fruit or vegetable or one type of juice for days, even weeks at a time.

The Health Risks Of Crash Diets

Nutritional deficiencies - The most serious risk posed by crash diets is that they involve eliminating many essential vitamins, minerals and other nutrients from the diet. Avoiding a particular food group or restricting yourself to only one food will quickly lead to malnutrition. Signs of nutritional deficiencies include unhealthy nails, hair and skin.

Metabolic slowdown - Going on crash diets usually causes your metabolism to slow down as the result of taking in too few calories. This in turn makes it easier for you to gain weight once you resume normal eating patterns again - this is why crash dieters go through the "yo-yo" effect of alternate weight gain and loss.

Loss of muscle mass - One thing people often forget (or are simply unaware of) is that a crash diet doesn't just make you lose fat - you also lose muscle mass due to undernourishment.

Stimulants - Many, but not all crash diets rely on the use of stimulants to promote weight loss by increasing heart rate and suppressing appetite. These drugs can indeed stimulate weight loss in the short term, but can also lead to serious health problems, especially in people who are more sensitive to these substances.

There are a lot of different crash diets out there, so keep in mind that if someone tells you about a popular diet which is effective in promoting weight loss, this is no guarantee that it's safe or for that matter, something you should try. These are the telltale signs of a crash diet which you should watch out for:

1. Claims that a diet will cause immediate weight loss. It takes time to lose weight in a way which is safe - if someone promoting a diet tells you that you'll lose 10 or more pounds in a week, this is a crash diet which should be avoided.

2. Claims that the diet will help you lose weight without exercise.

3. Diets which call for avoiding certain food groups entirely; this is a diet which will lead to malnutrition and can cause serious health problems.

4. Anything which sounds too good to be true. Any claims which seem impossible on their face is a good sign that this is not the diet for you.

Crash diets are not only ineffective but can be downright dangerous. Knowing what to look for will help you to steer clear of these unhealthy weight loss programs - a healthy weight loss diet should be designed by a professional nutritionist or dietician, not marketers.

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