Does Crash Dieting Work..
Being in the industry for over 20 years, I am often approached with the question about crash dieting and will it work? The answer is both yes and no. A crash diet is defined as any diet that restricts or limits. This can be a caloric restriction or limiting or even elimination a certain food group all together. The thing about crash dieting is that it is only meant to be done for a short amount of time. And there can be so many negative consequences. The time after is perhaps the most crucial because if you immediately go back to adding a surplus of calories or add back the food that was limited in large quantities, you will end up gaining all the weight back that you lost and perhaps even more. So when is a crash diet good? There are some cases for higher level athletes during training when crash dieting may serve them in a sport. For the average person, wanting to shed weight, it is not always the best choice. It can also lead to a bigger binge period once you feel like you are off if it. Any time you are telling yourself a food is good or bad eventually you will give in to the bad food. The physical and mental toll this takes on our bodies does not create sustainable results. You can also walk away from a crash diet, missing key nutrients that you need
I think so many people feel like they want results now, immediately like I am ready to start so all of this weight should fall off. This is why crash diets can be so appealing, they play onto our insecurities, lose 10lbs in 2 weeks, get your mom bod back…. We are flooded with these adds, the before and after pictures, only a small portion of the real story. And we are thinking yes please, I need to lose 10lbs now…Ill do it, but at what price? So we read the rules of the diet and see that we can have protein and veggies for example for 12 weeks, we try it for a few days, get a headache or have low energy or go out with co workers after work and it's over. When our system is adequately fed, we have cravings or headaches, or our sleep can be disrupted. Can you feel hungry on a diet, sure, is that ok bc we care creating a deficit, sure.. The thing is that we did not put on the weight overnight so we can’t just get rid of it overnight. And the habits that we have created, can be really hard to break. Here are some things you can do to begin a weightless journey that is sustainable.
1. Track everything you are currently doing. Trying to do this without any changes or judgements, this way we have an accurate starting point. If you log for 5-7 days and notice that you are taking in 1800 calories a day on average this gives you a place to start. This way we can create a small deficit, instead of a crash going from 1800 to 1200, what happens is that at some point 1200 will be your new set point, you will plateau and there is not much lower we can take the cals safely or sustainably.
2. Create one staple in the day, choose one meal or snack that you know you can eat most to everyday this can be having the same breakfast or lunch every day.
3. Plan, plan, plan. This its where I see the most success stories and also the most challenges..Planning ahead for every meal, event and night out can take time and can also set you up for success. Taking time the day before or even week before to see what you have going on. Do you have a busy day where you may not have time to cook, is there a dinner out where you can look at the menu and plan ahead? All of these things will set you up for success, instead of walking into the day or dinner, unprepared.
4. Take notice of patterns or habits..every time I am sad, I reach for the ___, you fill it in. Whenever I am with my family, I tend to over eat….When I am drinking I tend to lose ambition and choose unhealthy food. When we are referring to unhealthy food these are typically highly processed, lower nutrient dense foods.
4. Begin to incorporate whole foods, if you are not already doing so, this can be adding one color to each meal or just one color to each day and then slowly increase that number. Choose high quality proteins and carbs, high quality means the least amount of steps or ingredients to get to you or to get from the earth to your plate. Think less process foods.
5. Start to move away from the idea that there are good and bad foods. Yes there are higher quality and lower quality foods. Creating words that are good or bad creates a feeling about a food. If we can start to shift our thoughts from good or bad to how the food makes us feel we will naturally start choosing foods that we know make us feel good and be aware of things that we don’t feel good after we eat.
6. Stay within your target at least 5/6 days a week, one day a 100 or so off won’t kill your progress, but 3 days off will. We can’t be in or on 55% and expect results, think closer to 80/90. Are you going to be perfect all of the time?, probably not. And remember, lack of sleep, lack of hydration, hormones and mood can all play a role in our food choices and some days we are just not into it.
7. Start adding more movement to your day, it can be taking 5000 or 10000 steps, it can be going for a walk after dinner, it can be going to a gym or taking a class, adding movement.
Losing weight can be a long, challenging journey. If we do it in a way that is sustainable, we can put crash diets in the past, learn new ways of eating that make us feel good and create new habits for our lives, without restriction, binging or yo-yo dieting.