When you are overweight or obese, it increases your risk of developing a chronic disease, such as diabetes. Dieting can help you manage unintentional weight gain, but following unhealthy dieting practices can cause more harm than help. Weight loss done by healthy means does not require fasting or following severe restrictions that eliminate certain foods. Some medical supervision may be advised if you are looking to lose a large amount of weight.
Binge Eating Habits
Severe dieting can cause you to limit your dietary intake. Cravings for the eliminated foods can develop. Strict dietary regimens can ignore your personal lifestyle. Imposed meal plans can overlook your natural hunger cycle. You may be able to ignore these hunger cues initially, but eventually your body forces you to give in. Hunger and cravings can causing a dieter to stray off the plan and bring about feelings of guilt and lower self-esteem. You can set yourself up for developing disordered eating habits with each new diet program you follow. Cyclical dieting can open you up to future binge eating habits. It also leads to failure and low motivation for losing weight properly; you must address the main reasons why you have gained weight.
Poor Nutrition
Dieting programs can steer you away from nutritionally sound foods to promote weight loss. Restricting food groups or certain foods to promote weight loss can cause dehydration from rapid weight loss, muscle cramping, bad breath, headaches, constipation, vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Decreasing your calorie intake 500 to 1,000 calories below your usual intake can create a large nutrient deficit, causing your body to reserve the calories you take in for vital organ function rather than promoting weight loss and the energy needed to engage in exercise. Dieting can deplete your muscles, in addition to lowering your fat stores. Depleting your muscles can lowering your metabolism, causing you to lose weight at a slower rate or hit a weight loss plateau faster.
Weight Losses and Gains
Cycling your weight can cause more weight gain with each attempt to lose weight. Restrictive diets produce weight loss, but most dieters aren't able to maintain the weight loss for more than two years. Low-calorie diet and low-carb programs work initially because they cause rapid weight loss initially.
Chronic Conditions
Following a strict diet could increase your risk of developing heart disease and diabetes. Cortisol, a stress hormone, is increased when your calories go below what your body needs to maintain lean body mass and organ function. Increased cortisol levels for prolonged periods of time increase inflammation in the body and can cause blood sugar abnormalities. In addition to increasing inflammation, high levels of cortisol can increase abdominal fat, a component of metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is defined as having elevated cholesterol, a waist measurement greater than 40 and 35 inches for men and women, respectively and an elevated blood pressure which contributes to chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
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