When you start any kind of restrictive or crash weight loss diet, you are restricting the calories you eat and consequently eating less food than your body needs. Your body’s natural reaction is to reduce or slow down your metabolic rate. This then means that any weight that you do lose is largely made up from water and muscle (not fat) – the two most important constituents of a healthy body.
Without water we dehydrate and die (or at least shrivel up) and bearing in mind that your heart is a muscle, the last thing we want to do is to lose muscle tone.
You need to make sure you eat enough quality and healthy food to supply your body with all the nutrients it needs to keep working efficiently (otherwise we get sick), and need to make sure you get enough low impact exercise to make sure you burn off more calories than you consume. Walking to work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator or even starting a simple exercise program are all easy ways to burn off 300 – 500 extra calories each day.
If you cut 300 calories per day from your diet you will lose half a kilo per week, which is a very healthy and sustainable weight loss rate.
There’s literally thousands of studies and surveys that indicate that over 98% of people who go on a restrictive or crash weight loss diet don’t succeed long term. They may lose a few pounds during the diet, but this is generally only water and muscle, and then when they stop the diet the weight comes flooding back – and then some.
So don’t go chasing the latest fad weight loss diets – look for a healthy approach to eating and get some regular exercise – it’ll be a lot better for you in the long run.
