Crash diet plan for weight loss is built on the concept of losing weight quickly. Most people find it hard to lose weight and some also find it hard to sustain the same. A crash diet plan is designed to give you a quick start and make you lose as much as possible in a short span of time, typically about two weeks. However, before you go and spend your money on enchiladas, donuts, and milkshakes, take a look at this simple plan to lose weight correctly.
What Is A Crash Diet?
A crash diet is a quick weight loss dieting method for shedding pounds in less time. It is a restrictive or a very low-calorie diet (<= 800 calories) plan for short-term weight loss goals.
A crash diet is not meant for long-term weight loss. The results of a crash diet are short-lived, and you will gain the pounds right back if you do not eat healthy and workout. However, for an occasion right around the corner, you may try a crash diet. Here’s a list of popular types of crash diet.
Do Crash Diets Work?
Crash diets deliver short-term results. Because the dieter is cutting their calories so low and making such big changes to what they eat, their body will certainly lose weight. While crash diets do influence large amounts of weight loss, they are not safe and are easily reversible.
Risks of Crash Dieting
A healthy diet promotes strength in a body, but crash dieting can bring many risks to the body. High metabolism is important when losing weight, but crash dieting can make the metabolic rate lower. This is due to muscle breakdown being much greater with crash dieting. Less muscle means a lower metabolic rate, which can end in more weight gain.
When crash dieting, the body is not receiving all of the minerals and vitamins it needs to keep a strong immune system. A low immune system means that getting sick is much more likely. Your body requires vitamins A, D, E, and K in order to maintain a healthy immune system.
Due to a low carbohydrate diet, your body will start to break down fatty acids in order to produce ketones. Ketones might help the body to lose weight, but they also can damage the body. Ketones can cause nausea, bad breath, and liver and/or kidney problems.
The body loses so much weight in certain types of liquid diets because it is losing such large amounts of water weight. While effective, it is an unhealthy long-term weight loss method. Glycogen stores (the source of energy that binds water) are depleted faster than the fat cells that release the water. Once you start eating again, your body will gain back weight trying to replenish glycogen and water stores. This will cause dehydration
A crash diet can lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels. Even so, it can have harmful effects on the heart. Due to increased heart fat levels, a dieter can experience heart problems early on in their diet.
Alternative Ways to Lose Weight
Crash dieting is not a healthy or safe way to lose weight. Instead, you should consider some different weight-loss methods. Reduce the intake of alcohol, sugary foods, and foods with trans fats. Include more proteins, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains in your diet. Partake in physical activity daily and take part in exercise 150 minutes per week.
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Types Of Crash Diet
1. Master Cleanse
The Master Cleanse may help you lose 10 pounds in a week. It includes vitamin C-rich lemon juice, two to three teaspoons of maple syrup, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Cons – All you can drink is lemonade. You may feel extremely hungry and experience nausea, irritability, and mood swings.
2. Juice Cleanse Diet
Juicing is a great way to be on a liquid diet without compromising on nutrients. You will consume dietary fiber-rich and vitamin C-loaded fruit juices that will flush out toxins and rejuvenate your body. It is also good for the skin.
Cons – It may not be sustainable for more than two days.
3. Cabbage Soup Diet
The cabbage soup diet is a nutritious soup diet made mainly with cabbage and other veggies. All you have to do is consume this soup to lose water weight quickly and slim down.
Cons – Consuming only this soup for more than a day might cause boredom.
4. Grapefruit Diet
The grapefruit diet involves consuming half a grapefruit and other healthy foods in every meal. It aids quick weight loss without compromising on health.
Cons – Consuming grapefruit for every meal may cause nutritional deficiency and tooth enamel erosion, and it can be super challenging to eat only one type of fruit.
5. Hollywood Diet
The Hollywood diet has been popularized by Hollywood celebs and claims to cause a weight loss of 10 kg in just 48 hours. All you have to do is drink an herbal mix called “Hollywood diet,” which is available in supermarkets and online.
Cons – It is not doctor-approved. Your body may react to the herbs in the mix, and just drinking this mix will make you irritable and compromise on immunity.
6. Chicken Soup Diet
This diet requires you to consume chicken soup for seven days. You may add veggies of your choice to enrich the soup with vitamins and minerals. You may also have freshly pressed fruit juice as a snack.
Cons – It is not for vegans and vegetarians.
Clearly, crash diets are not nutritionally wholesome, but they aid quick weight loss in a short period. If you want to try it, do it for three days or seven days. Find an easy 7-day crash diet plan below.
How much weight will you lose after being on a crash diet for three to seven days? Find out below.
How Much Weight Will You Lose?
You may lose up to 10 pounds (4.5 kg) in seven days. You will lose water weight in the first three days, and your body will shift to the fat-burning mode . in the next four days.
Crash diets are only meant for short-term weight loss. Does that mean that they are not safe? Find out in the next section.
Is Crash Diet Safe?
Crash diets are safe if done for one to two days. Sometimes, doctors recommend crash diets to people who need to lose weight quickly for surgery. But being on a very low-calorie diet for a prolonged period, without the supervision of a licensed professional, might make you land in hot water. How can you crash diet safely? Scroll down to find out.
What are the Side Effects of a Crash Diet?
Following a crash diet plan can spurt several risks to health. Since the time period is short for a crash diet, it is easy to follow compared to other diets. But like the duration of dieting, the results may also be short-lived. The sustainability of the lost weight is a big question and depends on the individual’s lifestyle after the dieting period.
Losing weight rapidly may increase the probability of the formation of gallstones. About 25% of individuals consuming very low calories for weight loss develop gallstones. Such fast weight loss programs may lead to regaining the lost weight, which may trigger the formation of gallstones.
Nutritional deficiencies are the most concerning side effects of following a crash diet meal plan. As the diet includes low-calorie foods, it is challenging to meet nutritional adequacy. A study also reported severe anemia after following a crash diet. Foods are the best source of essential nutrients. Restricting foods to achieve weight loss will deprive oneself of important nutrients and lead to detrimental health effects.
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Rapid weight loss may potentially also cause lean body mass loss. Extremely low-calorie diets can lead to about 25% loss in lean body mass. Loss of muscle and bone tissues may lead to frailty and affect metabolism and strength.
Losing a lot of weight in a short span increases the chance of gaining more weight than lost. Crash diet effects on weight are short lived for many and hence may bounce back to their previous body weight or even more.
Eating disorders can also arise due to crash dieting. It should be reconsidered for people who already have eating disorders.
Other side effects reported with crash diet are hair loss, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, weakness, constipation, irregular heart rate, and hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) .
Crash Diet Recipes
A crash diet menu will include recipes that are low in calories and may be low in carbohydrates or low in fat. The following recipes can be included in a day’s menu until the crash diet is followed.
1. Cabbage Mushroom Soup:
Soups can be consumed during any meal of the day. They are low in calories and have enough micronutrients.
Ingredients: Cabbage, mushroom, carrot, tomato, celery, onion, garlic, olive oil, vegetable or chicken stock, salt, and pepper.
Method: Add olive oil to a heated saucepan. Toss in chopped garlic and sauté well. Next add in chopped onions, sauté until they turn translucent. Later add the chopped tomato, carrot, mushroom, and celery and sauté well. Pour in the stock, close the lid and allow it to boil. Lastly, add salt and pepper, mix well, and serve hot.
2. Crash Diet Fish Curry:
Fish is a good source of protein and are also low in fat.
Ingredients: Fish (variety of choice), onion, spinach, ginger garlic paste, chilly powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder, olive oil, and salt.
Method: Mix ginger garlic paste with water to change consistency to liquid-like. Heat the stewpot over medium flame. Add olive oil, chopped onion and sauté well for two to three minutes. Next add chilly powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder, and salt. Mix well and let it cook for five minutes. Adjust consistency by adding water. Boil the spinach separately and chop it finely. Add in the boiled spinach next and mix well until it looks like spinach soup. Cut the fish to the desired size and add to the curry. Simmer the fish until cooked by closing with a lid. Serve hot.
6 Facts About Crash Diet
Extreme diet or crash diet, is a method to lose a significant amount of weight within a limited time period. But crash diets are not meant for long term weight loss plans. Since crash diets usually cut down on one or more food groups to reach a desired weight level, these diets skip out on important nutrients that your body needs.
The ways crash diets can affect your body include:
- Dehydration: You realise you are losing weight after implementing the crash diet, but this is just an illusion. All the weight lost isn’t fat, but water. When you restrict calories, your body first burns glycogen—not fat, for energy. Glycogen is a form of carbohydrate stored in the muscles and liver, and water is attached to every gram of glycogen. So when your body burns glycogen, you end up losing water, which causes dehydration.
- Unstable blood sugar: When your body doesn’t get a steady supply of fibre, fat, protein and carbohydrates, your insulin and blood sugar levels run amok. Some diets, such as the detox diet, can lead to type II diabetes.
- Muscle break down: Energy comes from calories and restricting calories adversely affects your muscles. When you start losing weight, your body starts harnessing muscle proteins for energy. This leads to muscle loss and your physique deteriorates. For instance, liquid diets (that have low calories) cause rapid muscle loss and can lead to ventricular arrhythmias.
- Slow metabolism: Your metabolic rate crashes automatically when you lose muscles. This implies that you burn less calories when you talk, exercise and walk. You start feeling sluggish, and even after you get back to your normal diet, your metabolism won’t change back to how it was before.
- Malnutrition: A lot of crash diets recommend eating less than 700 calories a day, which will help you lose weight, but it harms your body. The body needs calories, since they are an important energy source. Soon your body adapts to the lack of calories and becomes malnourished.
- Intellectual problems: Some crash diets cut down carbohydrate consumption, and this ends up affecting your brain. The brain needs carbs to function properly. So, when there is a severe carbohydrate deficiency, the level of corticosterone (the stress hormone) increases in your brain, making you vulnerable to stress, depression and binge-eating behaviours.
Things To Do Before Going On A Crash Diet
- Count the number of days you have before the special event. If it is a month away, try the Mediterranean diet and do some cardio to lose weight.
- Talk to a dietitian or your doctor, especially if you are a new mother, have undergone surgery, have a BMI over 30, are on antidepressants or any other medication that hinders weight loss, or are over 50 years.
- Stock your kitchen with foods you are going to consume in the coming week. Toss out all other “distraction foods.”
- Keep a journal. You will undergo mood swings. Writing a journal can help during those times.
But things can go quite wrong when you misuse the crash diet. Here are the side effects:
What Happens When You Misuse The Crash Diet?
Crash Diet Side Effects
It is really easy to get carried away and misuse crash diets. In that case, the following may happen:
- Eating disorders
- Slowed metabolism
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Muscle loss
- Slowed cell and organ function
- Compromised immunity
- Impaired brain function
- Weak bones
- Poor attention
- Hair loss
- Skin problems
Crash dieting for a prolonged period is unhealthy and should not be done without professional guidance. This brings us to the next topic – should teenagers crash diet? Since the crash diet gives quick results, many teenagers want to follow it. But should they? Find out below.
Should Teenagers Crash Diet?
No, teenagers should not crash diet. The ages of 13 to 19 are part of the growing phase. Going on crash diets might stunt your growth and affect your mental health. If you do need to lose weight, seek the help of a professional.
Talk to a registered dietitian and get a customized diet chart. You must also be physically active and aim to be fit and strong. Also, remember, you don’t have to fit into any size to feel beautiful and worthy. Be healthy and happy, and pursue your dreams.
Here’s the takeaway message.
Crash Diet Is Not For Long-Term Weight Loss
Crash diets are unsustainable and unhealthy. The weight that you lose is mostly water weight. Moreover, most people tend to misuse these diets, which causes health issues. We do not recommend going on an unsupervised crash diet. You must consult your doctor before trying out our sample 7-day crash diet plan.
Crash diets are the quickest way to lose some pounds quickly, but they can turn out to be extremely dangerous if misused. They have to be treated as short-term weight loss options. Following these diets, which involve taking less than 800 calories a day, for more than a week is not advisable. Your body may get deficient on the nutrient front and lead to adverse effects like weak immunity, nausea, muscle loss, etc. Consult a doctor if you are a new mother, obese, old, or on antidepressants. These diets are a strict no-no for teenagers as they may impact their physical and mental growth. If you have a larger time window (like a month) for a special occasion, opting for the Mediterranean diet is advisable.