If you want to lose weight, the only way to do this is to eat fewer calories than you use during your daily activities. Either eating fewer calories or increasing your activity level can result in weight loss, with a combination of both of these strategies being the most effective. However, many people try crash diets because they want quick weight loss without having to exercise.
Healthy Diets
Healthy weight loss programs involve making long-term diet and lifestyle changes, rather than going on a particular diet for a short time and then going back to the way you used to eat. Losing between 1 and 2 lb. per week is best, since people who lose weight at this rate are more likely to keep it off. Healthy diets also allow you to eat foods from all four food groups, and have a treat every now and then.
Crash Diets
Crash diets typically don't require you to exercise. They may help you to lose a lot of weight quickly, but only temporarily, since much of this weight is water weight. Crash diets require you to eat very few calories and severely restrict the foods you can eat, often requiring you to avoid whole food groups.
Effectiveness
Because crash diets are not sustainable, people regain the weight they lost, and more, when they go back to their old eating habits. This sets up a cycle called yo-yo dieting. Healthy dieting programs, however, teach you permanent changes you can make to keep the weight off, and give you tips to avoid falling back into the old unhealthy eating habits you used to have before you lost weight.
Safety
Crash dieting and yo-yo dieting are unhealthy. You may develop nutrient deficiencies, become dehydrated, weaken your immune system and cause damage to your heart with these types of diets, according to a 2010 article, "How crash diets harm your health," published on CNN.com. Healthy weight loss, however, improves your health, lowering your risk for obesity-related diseases including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer.
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