You may want to lose weight fast and embark on a crash diet for rapid weight loss for some special occasion. And the prospect of an overnight weight loss of several pounds or a 10 pound weight loss in one week may be appealing, but the reality is that if you lose 10 pounds in a week, later you will weigh 20 pounds more, the proverbial one step forward and two steps back. This phenomenon is called yo-yo dieting. You need a permanent solution.
Food, Activity, and Genes
Your weight is determined by three factors: food, activity, and genes. Of course, you cannot choose your parents, but your weight = food minus activity. And you have control of the other two factors, food and activity. To lose weight, either eat less food, or exercise more by adding approximately three additional hours of moderate exercise to your daily activities (Park, 2008, para. 4), or combine a plan of eating less with an increase (of less than three hours) in exercise.
Counting Calories
Utilize calorie counters and BMR calculators to determine how many calories that you need to eliminate from your diet to lose weight. The amount of calories that you eliminate determines the amount of weight that you will lose. Individuals desiring a rapid weight loss may opt for a drastic reduction of calories and embark on a crash diet, a diet that results in a fast weight loss but an equally rapid weight gain afterwards.
Crash Diet
According to the article “Rapid Weight Loss” from the Web MD website, “Starving yourself” while on an extreme calorie-restrictive diet or crash diet is inadvisable; however, “if you're otherwise healthy, a brief period of extreme calorie restriction isn't likely to hurt you.” The article continues and advises the extreme dieter to inform his/her physician of the diet, consume at least 10 grams of fat for function of the gallbladder and “include protein in your diet (70 to 100 grams per day). Take a multivitamin, and eat potassium-rich foods (tomatoes, oranges, and bananas).”
Rapid Weight Loss
A safe weight-loss, recommended by most dieticians, is from one to three pounds per week, but a crash dieter can lose up to a pound or more within a day; in fact, several pounds of weight may be lost overnight. Much of the weight that is lost is water, not fat. A pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories, so an overnight weight loss of 2 pounds (or more) of fat would require the expenditure of more than 7000 calories, a highly unlikely prospect unless one has a physiological disorder or has engaged in a tremendous amount of activity.
Water Weight
Because the weight loss from extreme calorie-restrictive diets consists mostly of water and fluids, the dieter rapidly regains the weight when the diet is over. Television personality Oprah Winfrey lost 67 pounds and reached her target weight of 145 pounds after embarking on such a diet (an Optifast liquid diet). She celebrated by displaying a cart filled with 67 pounds of animal fat, explaining that it represented her weight loss.
According to biographer Janet Lowe, Oprah maintained her target weight less than 24 hours. As soon as she ended the Optifast liquid diet and began to eat solid food, she began to gain weight (2001, pp 105-106). Oprah later admitted that she maintained the weight loss for barely 24 hours. She serves as an example of the short-lived results of crash dieting. Are the spectacular results worth the rebound weight gain?
The Human Body
Your body and every body part are precious. When surgical error results in accidental amputation of a limb, the patient generally sues and is awarded millions of dollars for the expensive error because one’s body is important. Take care of your body because it is worth millions; you only have one, and it harbors your very life. If you decide to lose weight quickly, you may embark on a crash diet, but if your body is really strained by excess weight, you must seek a permanent solution and seek to develop long-term healthy habits.
References
Kolata, G. (2004). Rethinking thin, the new science of weight loss and the myths and realities of dieting. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. New York, N.Y.
Lowe, J. (2001). Oprah Winfrey speaks, insights from the world’s most influential voice. Wiley & Sons. New York, N.Y.
Park, A. (2008). Can exercise trump genes? Time Magazine. September 8 Issue
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