Demi has lost weight with extreme dieting

OK, here’s a sobering thought, summer is just around the corner and that diet you’ve been planning on doing is still in the ‘planning’ stages.

You really don’t want to expose those extra pounds you still blame Christmas for, but you want to be able to put on your bikini and feel confident on the beach. So, with not long to go until you have to brush the dust off your bikini, what’s a girl to do?

Crash dieting seems to be your only option. You don’t have to kill yourself in the gym, in fact you don’t need to exercise at all and you’ve already managed to lose a stone! It sounds amazing right? Well that’s where you’re wrong. When has it ever been that easy to lose that much weight in such a short amount of time? Yes girls, there definitely is a catch and this time it just so happens to be your health.

Demi Moore, Beyonce Knowles and Catherine Zeta Jones are just a few A-List celebrities who have all dropped a stone or more crash dieting. Cheating your way thin seems to be the craze in Hollywood today, whether it’s for a movie role or a photo shoot. But do these celebrities actually understand the harmful repercussions crash dieting can have on their bodies? More to the point, do you?

Crash dieting is one of the most restrictive diets you can follow. It involves drastically cutting down the amount of calories and fat you consume each day. Dieticians and nutritionists dub this extreme form of weight loss the ‘starvation diet’ and stress that it’s a dangerous way of trying to lose a few extra pounds.

So do they really work? On the surface, yes they do work. But before you start throwing out the contents of your fridge and cupboards in a bid to lose weight, there’s something you should know. The weight you may lose on a crash diet isn’t true weight loss. It’s just water weight. On low-calorie diets your body is forced to burn up excess glycogen, a type of glucose that absorbs excess fluid inside the body. So even though it may seem like your weight is dropping you’re not actually losing weight.

What’s even more depressing is that you’ll soon find yourself hitting a weight loss plateau, making it even more difficult for you to lose weight. But wait it gets worse, studies have showed that many crash dieters put weight on after dieting. Welcome to the not so wonderful world of the yo-yo diet effect! Just like a yo-yo, people who crash diet find that their weight will constantly fluctuate with each diet they go on.

Crash dieting isn’t only a poor way of losing weight and maintaining healthy weight loss, but they’re also very dangerous for your body, both in the long-term and short-term. Here are just a few of the side effects you could experience while crash dieting.

Dieting Deficiencies

Due to the lack of key minerals, vitamins and nutrients your body is deprived of during a crash diet you will be putting yourself at risk for a deficiency in Iron, which could lead to anaemia. You may also acquire a Vitamin B12 deficiency, as well as a deficiency in Potassium and Sodium which is particular dangerous as these electrolytes are used by your body to ensure efficient nerve and muscle function. Not only that they also regulate the way in which your heart beats. So if your Potassium and Sodium levels become lower than average you could suffer from a heart attack. Now there’s a nice topic for chatting about over lunch with your girlfriends.

Crash dieting can lead to mood swings

Mental Health Problems

Be prepared for extreme mood swings. Crash dieting can cause you to feel depressed, fatigued and irritable. So you may find that during this diet you may have fewer friends! But on a more serious note crash dieting will cause you to have extreme food cravings as you’re depriving your body of its normal food intake. This could lead you to developing an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Is losing a few pounds really worth a life-long struggle and obsession with food? Does constantly counting calories, weighing out food and having your food demons hijack your life sound appealing? I thought not.

Vital Organ Damage

Damaging vital organs including your heart, kidneys, liver and brain probably didn’t even cross your mind as you contemplated doing a crash diet. But crash diets can have irreparable effects on these organs and your body’s ability to perform vital daily functions. During crash diets your carbohydrate and calorie intake are drastically reduced, so much so that your organs can’t get enough energy from these sources. Here comes the not so fun part, as a result your organs begin to burn muscle tissue in order to get energy, and if you continue on a low calorie diet your body will eventually begin to burn the muscle tissue from your major organs leading to liver failure, kidney failure, heart attacks and even strokes.

So the next time you find yourself thinking of a fast way to lose weight don’t be tempted by the crash diet. Dieting should be done sensibly and safely. At the end of the day is your health and life really worth jeopardising, just so you can look good in a bikini for two weeks?