Why crash dieting doesnt work

Be wary of any diet that promises the key to weight-loss or a miracle cure. Focus on a long-term healthy eating plan you can follow for a lifetime.

A healthy diet is part of a healthy lifestyle that you will follow long term. Seek medical advice and discuss with your doctor what the best plan may be. About the Author:. She has 15 years of experience working with bariatric patients and loves to watch people as they change their lives and improve their health. Her favorite part of her job is her weekly support group. In her free time, Sarah enjoys spending time with her husband and three children.

Gain the tools you need to succeed in your health journey. Your email address will not be published. When you lose weight too quickly, your bones may start to become weaker and lose some of their density. Crash diets can be compared to that of an eating disorder because often times you are in fact, starving yourself.

Just as with an eating disorder, crash dieting can cause muscles to atrophy. Fat is typically burned through cardiovascular exercise, but if you are simply dieting with no physical exercise, that weight you see dropping on the scale could actually be muscle loss.

Crash diets can also cause cardiovascular problems such as heart palpitations or even a heart attack. Crash diets have a negative effect on your metabolism. To effectively lose weight and keep it off, your eating habits should be changed gradually, and in doing so, you are more likely to maintain healthier eating habits. Serious restrictive dieting as a means to lose weight should also not be used as a substitute for physical exercise.

It takes a combination of healthy eating and exercise to keep your body in top shape. It is recommended that you should only aim to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week if you are trying to lose weight. CoachUp is the safest and easiest way to find a private sports coach. Plenty of diets promise a fast fix for weight loss, without any concern for a balance of vitamins, minerals, fibre and macronutrients protein, fat and carbohydrates.

When we restrict food groups, calories or rely on shakes and powders instead of real food, it can be more difficult to ensure that we are getting all the vitamins, minerals and micronutrients that our body needs to function. Nutrients like iodine and selenium, magnesium, B vitamins and iron all impact our thyroid function, metabolic rate and fat burning capacity. Protein, fibre and fat help make us feel fuller for longer.

Eating a wide variety of nutritious foods will give us a healthy balance of the nutrients and energy our body needs to get through the day. When we start to restrict food, we can end up feeling hungry and 'hangry' and giving in to junk food with empty calories, leaving us hungry for more. Blood sugar and insulin balance are key for effective weight loss, but if we eat a low fat diet, that is high in refined carbohydrates and sugars, a cycle of dysfunction is set up, which over time can contribute to fat gain, rather than fat loss.

Even when thyroid test results come back within the normal reference range, a level of sub-clinical hypothyroidism can impact our ability to lose weight and keep it off. We now know that the balance of bacteria in our microbiome has a part to play in our body composition and ability to lose weight. So, what can we do about it? The key is to good nutrition is to get back to eating real food.