There is a misconception among numerous weight loss enthusiasts that following a strict and extreme diet will yield better results. However, many experts have dismissed this myth time and again.
Fitness enthusiasts and health experts have stressed that losing weight by following an extreme diet is of no use since this method is not only inconsistent but also extremely unhealthy. To make things worse, it is proven that this method had resulted in weight gain when the person reverts back to their old ways.
Extreme dieting poses a number of dangers to the human body. From making you weak to moody, sluggish, tired, achy and nauseated, its side-effects are endless. Adding to this, when you deprive your body of the essential nutrition in the long run, it can lead to metabolism issues; leave you severely malnourished and even bring life-threatening conditions. This is why it is very important to follow a healthy and well balanced diet.
Table of Content
- Extreme Body Dehydration
- Fluctuations in Blood Sugar Levels
- Muscles Break Down
- Slow Metabolism
- Malnutrition
- Refeeding syndrome
- Suffering of Brain
The adverse of the extreme diet on your body can be as follows:
Extreme Body Dehydration
Your crash diet being a successful one is nothing but an illusion. When you deprive your body of carbohydrates, essential nutrients and much needed calories, body burns the glycogen first and not fats. Glycogen is a carbohydrate stored in muscles and liver with every gram of it containing water. When body takes the stored glycogen to function, it also takes the water leaving the body dehydrated. Extreme weight loss diet can make your body lose its water which can lead to dizziness, nausea, fatigue, and headache. [1].
Fluctuations in Blood Sugar Levels
It is vital to have a constant supply of carbohydrate, fats, and proteins for maintaining the blood sugar and insulin levels. However, people start a crash diet for losing weight quickly. Being on a cleansing or detox diet lead to an influx of high-sugar and low-fibre juice can lead to the rise and drop in blood sugar level that can lead to insulin resistance. For this reason, one should always follow the best diet plan to lose weight healthily.
Muscles Break Down
When you lose 1% of body weight on a weekly basis by following a slow and steady weight loss plan, the lost weight consists of 75% fat and 25% water and muscle. However, taking an aggressive approach by cutting down calories between 1,000 and 1,200 will result in the body breaking the muscles since it needs the energy to function.
Moreover, losing weight real quick can lead to the atrophy of the muscles of the heart. Low calorie diets including liquid diets can also lead to ventricular arrhythmias and can even cause death.
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Slow Metabolism
Studies have revealed that extreme dieting can result in slow metabolism. Due to fewer muscles, your metabolism is also likely to drop. It means that you are likely to burn fewer calories while exercising. Your metabolism will drop considerably; that you stop losing weight and when you get back to your normal diet, your metabolism will be more sluggish than it was before starting your crash diet.
The brain tells the body to store fats in order to prevent you from starving to death, thinking that there is a shortage of food. Hence, it leads to the accumulation of fats instead of weight loss. [2]
Malnutrition
Calories are fuel and cutting down too many calories means depriving the body of the essential food needed for its functioning. Stripping of good fats from the body means that the body is not able to get essential fuel for absorbing other vitamins like A, D, E and K.
However, these vitamins are essential for your body for preventing the disease and inflammation along with supporting gene expression, cognitive ability, immune system function, cell growth, and bone health.
Refeeding syndrome
If you are following an unbalanced or extremely low-calorie diet, abruptly starting your normal diet can lead to a drop in magnesium, phosphorus and potassium levels which can lead to heart failure. It is an extremely lethal condition and is known as refeeding syndrome. It is usually seen in those suffering from anorexia, but it can also occur in those who abruptly cease crash or/and liquid diets.
Cutting down carbs intake to about 100g per day can lead to breaking down of fatty acids for getting ketones and carbon-containing compounds. Hence extreme dieting can lead to malnutrition.
Suffering of Brain
Running of the brain on ketones means it is running below its capacity. Hence, a crash diet can adversely affect the functioning of the brain. Such a situation can lead to decreased brain growth and long-term impairments in visual-spatial memory.
Moreover, any crash diet, even if it contains sufficient amount of carbohydrates helps in increasing the level of stress hormone corticosterone in your brain making you more prone to stress. It will lead to making you more depressed, and you are likely to binge more. Thus it can lead to weight gain instead of weight loss.
Hence, you should follow a healthy diet plan for losing weight wisely. Such a diet plan should have slow and realistic goals for helping you to maintain your ideal weight in the long run.
Think about a diet which has sufficient amount of carbohydrate, good fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals, as ignoring any essential nutrient can affect overall health. An ideal weight loss plan should work in the long term and help you sustain it. It is important to know that taking baby steps towards your goal is the key.
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I loved what you shared, gifted “That your crash diet is successful is nothing more than an illusion.
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loved the blog , the info was really interesting.
Hi! We’re happy to receive your compliments and appreciation towards our article. Thank you.
Wow sounds scary and dangerous. “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” pops up in my head. Thanks Truweight for always putting great information about health and weight loss.
Dear Alex! Thank you for your lovely note, We are so gleeful to receive your feedback towards our blog, We are glad to know that our blog was very useful to you. Keep following our blog to know such more health information.