Crash Diet: Can I Lose Weight in The Long Run?
A crash diet often promises heavy weight loss in just a few days. But does that really work? And does the weight lost not really come back?
Five kilos in one week – a crash diet usually promises to make you slim and stay slim in no time. But what can crash diets really do for our figure?
What is a crash diet?
In a crash diet, the aim is usually to lose as many kilos as possible in the shortest possible time. Often these are mono diets (e.g. rice diet, pineapple diet, potato diet or cabbage soup diet), in which one food is the focus of the diet and only a small amount of additional food may be eaten. A crash diet is usually recommended over a period of one week.
What is the benefit of a crash diet for losing weight?
The simple truth is: A crash diet usually does not help you lose weight – at least not in the long run. If you stick strictly to the diet, you will most likely lose weight quickly, but the smallest part of weight loss is really body fat. What is lost much more in such diets are water retention and muscle mass. This in turn causes us to lose vital protein.
Advantages of lightning diets
- Rapid weight loss
- Application only short-term
- Mostly people eat more fruit and vegetables
Crash diets: Why you should avoid them
A crash diet is only a temporary change of diet, which is not designed to be a long one (unlike our weight loss tips, for example!). But that’s exactly where the problem lies: as soon as you give up the diet and eat normally again, the lost kilos will quickly return.
Disadvantages of lightning diets
- Common yo-yo effect
- Unbalanced diet (deficiency symptoms may occur)
- Difficult to sustain due to monotony
- General feelings of hunger
- Frequent ravenous hunger
For whom are such diets suitable?
Nevertheless, you don’t have to demonize crash diets completely – if you just want to lose a few kilos quickly before your vacation to have the optimal bikini figure, you can definitely try them out for a few days. Under medical supervision, it can also be used for people with obesity, provided it is varied.
After all, a lightning diet can certainly have health benefits for the body – studies show, for example, that an unhealthy high blood sugar level can be quickly reduced with such a diet.
By the way, here we will tell you how losing weight without hunger – so that you don’t have to go on a crash diet in the first place! You still want to know more about mono diets? Then take a look at our article Pineapple diet. We also explain the 1200 calorie diet and the buttermilk diet.