Crash Dieting as a Way to Lose Weight

Roy Thomsitt
As a whole, crash diets have notoriously had a poor press throughout the years as one plan or program after another touts exaggerated claims of rapid weight loss in a relatively quick time. Dieters are often warned by doctors and their support staff, that it can be bad for your health to lose weight too quickly, due to negative effects on the body. But, even the most health conscious individuals have often found themselves needing to drop a few pounds as soon as possible and are tempted by the promises of rapid weight loss.

Despite the warnings and the knowledge that the best way to becoming fit and healthy is through gradual weight loss that will be more likely to keep the {weight} pounds off in the long run, crash diets are routinely looked to as the solution for a quick fix. Luckily, not every single crash diet is created equal, and it's up to us to choose which method would be best and which can be modified to make it a bit healthier, but still just as effective at reducing weight.

Soup and All-Liquid Crash Diets

Instead of a one or two day fast, liquid crash diets usually involve drinking certain soups and/or fruit juices for up to 7 days. One quick diet that has been popular for years has been the cabbage soup diet, which replaces each meal for a week with cabbage soup. However, having a 700 calorie daily limit will not provide enough essential nutrients, thus making the use of supplements all the more important.

Strictly speaking, the ingredients of a simple salad are not liquid, but they are made up mostly of water. Therefore, having a salad prior to each meal or instead of a meal should cause one to lose weight, while getting much needed nutrients at the same time.


Crash Diets and Exercise

One of the largest drawbacks of all crash diets is that none of them emphasize the importance of physical activity and why it's so very necessary to incorporate exercise into your weekly routine. Exercising while on a diet programplan is the best way to make sure you will {benefit!be benefiting} the inside of your body, and not just your outward appearance.

The heart and lungs need the extra oxygen from this regular exercise to function properly, even more so when losing weight as every organ is now working overtime, either to compensate for the lack of calories, or merely in response to the actual weight loss. Exercise does not always have to mean countless hours spent in the gym, but rather making walking a part of daily life, increasing the time and speed as you build endurance.

Whether it is an upcoming wedding, your birthday, or just getting closer to bathing suit season, there's no doubt that following a crash diet will cause you to lose weight. However, it's up to you to make sure that this isn't merely water weight, or precious lean muscle mass, and that you'll also be able to continue either losing more weight, or be able to maintain your current weight.

Whether you want to lose weight quickly or over a longer time, and want to do it in a healthy way, it is a good idea to read a few weight loss guide reviews before deciding which option to take.
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Roy Thomsitt

Roy Thomsitt is an English writer and internet entrepeneur now living on an idyllic tropical island in the Philippines.

A former finance professional and project manager, with a small business in the advertising industry before he left England in 2000, Roy writes both fiction and articles.