Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Why Liquid Diets Are Not Effective for Weight Loss

By Walter Marsaki

Liquid diets are popular among people who want rapid weight loss. But are they really good?

Just taking liquid diets for many days is absolutely unhealthy habit. You expect rapid weight loss based on just liquid diets, but you forget that you will lose muscles mass when you go for such dieting.

It is not possible to get the required energy needed by your body from liquid diets. So what will the body do?

At first, the body will try to get energy by burning fat then later on will burn muscles to gain more energy. So you will lose muscles with continued use of liquid diets.

Once you start eating solid food, the weight that you lost might come back again. But the muscles are unlikely to be back so easily.

In order to gain back the lost muscles, you have to do regular exercises. When you lose muscles, your body becomes weak.

As muscle loss makes your body weak, it is not a good practice to embark on liquid diets for fast weight loss.

Most liquid diets consist of low calories in the range of 400-800 calories per day. Many overweight people will not be accustomed to such low calorie intake.

Drastically reducing the calorie intake might cause unwanted side effects. A better approach is to go slowly and steadily. Wanting to lose weight overnight, can cause you serious health problems.

The major problems of liquid diets which we discussed above are as follows - muscle tissue loss, body weakness, difficulty in keeping the weight off, drastic reduction in calories.

Remember that you cannot continue liquid diets forever. Once you start solid foods, it can get pretty difficult to maintain the weight loss. The weight is likely to come back. As such, liquid dieting is a temporary solution.

Once you start eating solid foods again, it can get pretty difficult to keep the weight from coming back again. Sometimes, you may gain back more weight than your original weight.

Such rapid weight loss tactics will cause more of muscle loss than real fat loss. They might also cause reduction in metabolic rate.

One thing you have to be careful about is that you should not continue liquid diets for may days. Otherwise you may face serious health problems.

Prolonged use of such diets can cause kidney as well as lung problems. Your immune system may also suffer. Kidneys and lungs are very important organs of your body and deserve utmost care.

I am sure, no one will like to cause permanent damage to these organs. Hence it is better to try to lose weight through healthy methods.

Remember - liquid dieting is not at all effective when it comes to permanent weight loss. So it is not at all recommended as a means of fast weight loss.

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