Wellness & Fitness

Why crash diet is not magical weight-loss formula

women

Most diets involve cutting out whole food groups from the diet – no carbohydrates, no proteins or fats. Photo/PHOTOS.COM

Recently I received in my mail an article on a diet plan said to have been developed by General Motors specifically for its employees.

Its development was allegedly funded by a grant from the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

The diet, the article went on, was tested, and presumably given the seal of approval, by the respected John Hopkins Research Centre.

Now you couldn’t get better endorsement, could you?

The GM diet apparently has been in existence since 1985 when the GM board recommended it to its employees. Now read on:

This programme is designed for a target weight loss of 10-17 lbs per week.

It will also improve your attitudes and emotions because of its cleansing systematic effects.

The effectiveness of this seven day plan is that the food eaten burn more calories than they give to the body in caloric value.

This plan can be used as often as you like without any fear of complications.

It is designed to flush your system of impurities and give you a feeling of well being.

After seven days you will begin to feel lighter because you will be lighter by at least 10 lbs.

You will have an abundance of energy and an improved disposition.

Magical. At least the GM diet appears to take into account the issue of dietary balance, at least over the period of the diet plan.

Most other crash diets promise a lot, and sometimes deliver especially in terms of losing weight, but before you go GM please have a conversation with a nutritionist of good repute and this is what she (I don’t know a male nutritionist of good repute) will tell you in greater detail.

One, crash dieting is abnormal, it shocks the system and is for the lazy.

It is for people who eschew the discipline of a lifestyle change which will require them to slowly and systematically, by eating right and exercising, shed the pounds they put on over the years.

Go right ahead if your mind is set on a crash diet, but you might find out later it carries a huge price tag, and not just what you pay the quack who prescribes it for you.

If you haven’t noticed most diets involve cutting out whole food groups from the diet – no carbohydrates, no proteins or no fats.

Our bodies need carbs, proteins and fats in the right quantities and proportion in order to do their job well.

Your diet plan, minus an important food group, might help you achieve your primary goal of losing weight but it will traumatise the system.

The human body does not take shock treatment very kindly and might react by giving you kwashiorkor, beriberi and arthritis.

And possibly even play host to jiggers.

If she doesn’t tell you that the effects of a crash diet are temporary then look for another nutritionist.

Most crash diets put restrictions on what you can or cannot eat, right?

However if the body needs something it will crave for it and then a few days into the diet plan, you will give in to temptation.

In despair, frustration but mostly to comfort yourself you will start eating like a pig.

Then you will get as fat, maybe fatter, than a pig, because your body will store more fat than it used to before the madness.

When the body is starved its metabolism slows down.

Your nutritionist might want to avoid telling you this for fear you might think that she thinks you are a nutter, but it is true that dieters who try and fail often end up anxious and depressed.

Failure might lead them to conclude that they are just good for nothing blobs of fat but depression, irritability, mood swings and lethargy do not always result from one’s failure to reduce the waistline.

Eating disorder

Sometimes they result from the lack of essential hormones like dopamine and serotonin which are produced by carbohydrates, which most diets cut out.

Did I mention Osteoarthritis is more common among women dieters due to calcium deficiency which weakens the bones, that chronic dieters experience early ageing more than the average non dieter and that you could develop an eating disorder if your dieting experiment goes wrong?

Well then. Put on your walking (jogging) shoes and start eating sensibly.