A Crash Course in Crash Dieting

A Sauna Suit: if you die from dehydration,
will your weight really matter?

I love learning about the latest weight-loss trends: no carbs, sauna suits, no solid foods, lemonade, protein, grapefruit and the list of crazy goes on and on.  Are these diets effective?  It depends upon your goal; if you want to dump weight rapidly, not caring about side-effects, your long-term health or that the weight will come back and bring a few more pounds with it, then, yes, fad diets are spectacular.

So if they are are bad for your body, why does each have a doctor endorsing it?  Dr. Atkins would probably be the first to tell you that doctors are not always right, but others just want a share of more than 80 million Americans who each year spend more than $30 billion annually to lose weight.

But if there is an obesity epidemic in the United States, should we not applaud people for wanting to lose weight?  If you want to lose weight to improve your health, then you are to be applauded and because you are intrinsically motivated, you stand to meet with some success.  Many people simply want to lose weight to look better than the captain of the cheerleaders at their reunion, but they do not address this burning desire until it is too late to lose weight in healthy manner, so they do something extreme like cutting carbs out of their diet (note: your body needs carbs and in the absence of them will break down your muscle tissue to produce carbs to insure the proper function of your brain and other muscles (e.g. your heart) and a lack of muscle will slow your dieting efforts) and they workout in a sweat or sauna suit in the heat (those lost pounds are only water weight, which means that you are dangerously dehydrated) and hope that they do not die before the reunion.
The implications of the second scenario are even more far-reaching than just the long-term health of the dieter, if that dieter is a parent or role-model, as that two week crash diet demonstrated that weight is more important than health and others opinion of your physical appearance is paramount to who you are as a person.

But if fad diets take off weight, why does it return?  In the case of water weight, it is because you finally had to drink, but if you lost more than water weight, you will gain your lost weight back because you are living in a state of deprivation, which is not sustainable.  You will return to your old eating habits, because you are no longer motivated to maintain or your body can simply no longer handle it.

I want to lose weight and keep it off.  Do any diets work?  Absolutely.  The diet that will work for you is the one most suited to your needs, motivation, discipline, and lifestyle.  In general, successful diet plans will ask you to make "lifestyle changes," not just food changes, which means that they want you to consider both your intake and output, as fitness and nutrition are inextricably bound. Ask yourself what triggers you to over-eat, what you eat, and how much; those items will help you to understand why you make your current choices and how to make different ones.

So I have to exercise?  You do not have to do anything, but exercise will help with long-term success and achieving your short-term goals more easily.  Here is the math to prove it: you can safely lose 1-2 pounds per week.  One pound is 3,500 calories, thus to lose a pound, you have to change some aspect of your intake (eating) or output (exercising) to lighten yourself of 3,500 calories per week or about 500 calories per day.  Simply diminishing your daily calorie intake by 500 calories is probably an unrealistic goal, requiring more sacrifice than most can sustain, but if you walk for thirty minutes and burn 200 calories (or do yoga, lift weights, or whatever you enjoy doing) you only have to eliminate 300 calories from your diet per day, which most people can do easily through electing water over other beverages or simply controlling portion sizes. 

Will exercise alone make me lose weight?  Maybe, but if you are not treating your body well, it may not be safe to put more demands on it.  Also, if you are not conscious of your diet, you may consume more calories than you burn off.  Generally, the greatest drawback to exercise alone is that it will not allow you to see results, whether on a scale or in your clothes, quickly enough to keep you motivated. 

But how do I find a diet that has food that I like?   The best diets will educate about food, not dictate your food selection.  If your diet consists of foods that you do not enjoy, are unavailable in your area, or beyond your budget, you will quickly give up, but if you are taught that you have a wide variety of foods that can be prepared in a myriad of ways you will build up an arsenal of foods that you can use to create an amazing and fulfilling diet.

Ultimately, what you want to find is a diet that introduces you to a healthy lifestyle that suits your personality, because once you get the weight off you, you want a diet that you can enjoy for the rest of your life without feeling like you have had to sacrifice.