Are Crash Diets A Solution To Your Weight Loss Woes?
“Long-term health risks include osteoporosis, liver and kidney disorders, heart problems and severe nutritional deficiencies”
Sticking to a diet plan is difficult. You must learn to deal with the continuous assault of irresistible cravings and be content with a healthy, but sluggish loss of a few grams at the end of each week. Bring trendy crash diets in the story, with a magical promise of many kilos down, in a span of just 10 days and there is little wonder that you feel tempted to chase them, even if it means starving yourself or consuming a monotonous diet with minimal nutrition.
Are these diets all bad and a strict no-no? What about the popular celebrity endorsed diets that are touted as ‘easy and sate to follow that helped them ‘lose weight fast? Which ones do you try and which ones do you skip? Here are some popular crash diets with their rules, restrictions and the risks involved. So, make an informed choice and lose weight efficiently and healthily.
What Are Crash Diets?
Any diet plan that drastically reduces the daily calorie consumption to 700 – 800 calories and results in losing weight quickly, In a short period of time Is a crash diet. It someone has an upcoming wedding party to attend, or a beach trip to make in next few days, the crash diets may prove effective. However, if you are looking at crash diets as a way to jump start your diet plan, or as a long-term solution to your weight loss woes, you will be disappointed. Crash diets are and should be a temporary fix, as they often pose adverse long-term effects on your health.
5 Most Popular Crash Diets
Lemonade Diet
This one is an old one (also referred to as the master cleanse diet) but still boasts of many believers and followers. Lemonade diet is basically a liquid diet, whereby the dieter must abstain from any solid foods for 10 days and consume four cups of salty water in the morning, six to twelve glasses of lemonade all day long and at night one cup of herbal laxative tea. Lemonade is a concoction made from lemon juice, water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper, as per the proponent websites. Fatigue, irritability, digestive troubles and light headedness are often experienced.
Cabbage Soup Diet
If you are fond of cabbage and are looking for a diet that can help you to lose tour-five kilos in a week, you can opt for the cabbage soup diet. However, there are many versions, the common thread being consuming two-three bowls of cabbage soup (cabbage, tomato, peppers, mushroom and onions) and following a list of allowed foods on particular days of the week, such as all fruits, except banana on the first day and brown rice on the seventh day.
Xtreme Fat loss Diet
Dieters are put on a 25-day schedule with a five-day diet cycle that gets repeated five times. They are also required to undergo a strict workout regimen to maintain lean body mass, increase calorie deficit and burn tat rapidly.
Grapefruit Diet
Cut back on sugar and simple carbs, bulk up on high protein and fat-rich foods and consume a glass of grapefruit juice before meals. This 12-day very low calorie diet works temporarily, but the claims of fat burning enzymes in grapefruit or its cardio-protective benefits are farfetched.
All You Can Eat Diet
For this diet, the day-to-day food selections are restricted, to only a few allowed foods that you can consume in any amount, on designated days. For instance, day two is vegetable day, so you can eat as many vegetables you want and nothing else. The result is usually two kilos to four and a hall kilos weight loss in a week.
Dangers Of Crash Diets
All crash diets are low in calories, deficient in vital nutrients and are sure to bring back the lost kilos in no time. The diets are boring and impractical to maintain on a long-term basis and a prescription for muscle loss, emotional disturbances and eating disorders. The drastic drop in weight is more likely to be due to water loss (and rarely substantial fat loss) and massive deficits in calorie consumption. Long-term health risks include osteoporosis, liver and kidney disorders, heart problems and severe nutritional deficiencies. A healthy diet and exercise plan may take a bit longer to show results, but are a far better choice than these crash diets, where health risks outweigh quick results.
Crash Dieting And Its Adverse Effects On Osteoporosis Patients
In today’s day and age of junk food, irregular eating patterns and lack of physical exercise, many are becoming obese. And in their eagerness to lose weight, they go on crash diets, wherein a weight loss diet is undertaken on a short term basis to achieve rapid or quick results. Such diets are not advised by doctors, as it can cause adverse effects, especially for osteoporosis patients.
Calcium Deficiency
Calcium deficiency leads to the thinning of bones (osteoporosis) and crash diets often lead to deficiencies in the body. Deficiencies lead to changes in the bone structure and it affects youngsters more than others. In a crash diet, the body starts breaking down its components and thus muscle mass reduces first.
Fragile Bones
Crash diets involve remaining hungry for longer hours and the starved body starts accumulating all the fat, which is the last to break down. And since the muscles provide nutrition to the bones, it is essential to put on more muscle mass. These kinds of diets make the bones fragile leading to a fracture – the most common being a wrist fracture. A celebrity once got a fractured wrist, despite the fact that there was no accident. Further enquiry revealed that she was on a crash diet regime and this obviously led to changes in the bone architecture. Thus, to avoid similar incidents, it is essential for those on a crash diet to take calcium and vitamin D supplements.
Maintaining Body weight
For those who are suffering with osteoporosis, it is vital to maintain body weight. Also, those who are underweight, should gain weight or increase lean mass as low body weight leads to weaker muscles and bones. However, while increasing one’s weight, focus should be on lean mass and not fat. For building lean mass, a diet rich in protein is essential.
Additionally, osteoporosis patients need to consume a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D supplements. For those who require to lose weight efficiently, the focus should be on weight bearing exercises, because these are beneficial for the bones. Walking or yoga /surya namaskars help to strengthen the upper limbs. The forearm bones need low intensity weight training and with the help of protein-rich foods the bone matrix will increase.
Health Tip
The goal of any nutrition plan should be to help you embark on the road to better well-being. And a slimmer body will be one of the many perks you shall enjoy on the way.