For people who are overweight or obese, rapid weight loss often seems desirable; however, getting into a cycle of following fad or crash diets isn't healthy. Instead, you should follow a healthy weight loss diet that includes foods from all of the food groups and encourages weight loss at a healthy rate of one to two pounds per week.
Identification
A crash diet is any diet that encourages unhealthy eating habits so you can lose weight quickly. Most of these diets are based on severely restricting at least one food group. Some crash diets instruct you to eat only one type of food. For example, one crash diet advises eating only cabbage and another crash diet forbids all carbohydrates. Many crash diets require you to cut calories to an unsafe amount. Any diet that encourages women to eat less than 1,200 calories per day or less than 1,500 a day for a man isn't safe.
Considerations
A healthy weight loss program includes exercise, but most crash diets don't require any exercise. Instead, crash diets focus on severe calorie cutting to produce results. You need at least 30 minutes of exercise on most days of the week; however, when you are trying to lose weight, you should aim to exercise on most days of the week for at least an hour.
Time Frame
Crash diets often claim that a lot of weight can be lost within a short period of time -- and a short period of time is usually how long these diets can be followed. The American Cancer Society notes that crash diets are impossible to follow for a long period of time because they are boring and don't make eating fun. Additionally, the negative health effects of crash diets are likely to increase the longer you stay on the diet.
Warning
When you crash-diet, you run the risk of developing serious health consequences, including death. Because your diet is so severely restricted on a crash diet, you may suffer from nutritional deficiencies, such as anemia or sodium deficiency. Stroke, heart attack and kidney failure are also possible. You may develop osteoporosis or mental health problems as a result of crash dieting.
Member Comments