Crash Diets: Why They Don’t Last & What To Do Instead
You’ve just bought a new bikini and are determined to fit into it by then. There’s only one choice left. You need to crash diet.
It might work in the short term but…you will end up paying the price!
The body is a clever machine. If you give it less energy in the form of food, it will burn its reserves. That, of course is the main principle underlying all diets.
The problem is that the body has a way of burning its reserves that just doesn’t work with fad diets.
How the Body Burns its Reserves
The body burns its reserves from the easiest to the most difficult to burn.
- First your body will burn glycogen (carbs stores) and the water molecule attached to it (at this stage, you do lose weight but it’s mainly water)
- Then your body will burn muscle tissue. You will probably feel tired and headachy (a by-product of your body burning muscle cells). With fewer muscle cells, the rate at which the body burns calories (metabolism) goes right down. That’s because muscle cells burn calories faster than fat cells.
- Now (nearly 2 weeks down the line) your body is ready to burn fat stores. The only problem is that it doesn’t need to burn that many calories any more!
After starving yourself, you do have a lighter body mainly through water loss. You have lost muscle tissue and haven’t built any new ones as no exercise program was built into the diet. Your metabolism has slowed down.
Rejoyce about your new shapes now…because, unfortunately, it won’t last!
Here’s what happens next.
- You can’t sustain such a low intake of calories (basically starvation).
- You resume your normal diet.
- The body still has a slow metabolism and cannot burn all the extra calories fast enough.
- It stores the extra calories away in your fat stores.
- And the weight comes back with a vengeance.
The Right Way To Lose Weight – Don’t take unhealthy shortcuts.
If you want to lose weight, reduce slowly your calorie intake and increase slowly your exercise level. Slowly…but surely…you will reap the benefits.
Be patient and just do it with good will and determination.
It sounds boring but the result will be worth it.