Why Crash Diets Are A Bad Idea For Brides To Be
They can be bad for your health and hinder your weight loss goal!
It's tempting.....
To jump on to a crash diet leading up to a big event, especially one as monumental as your wedding!
However that is generally a bad idea for your health and usually even for your weight loss goal. Here, we go through some reasons why.....
Muscle Loss
Eating less energy leads to you having less energy, generally. Which means that your exercise performance may well take a hit. If you don’t use it you lose it, and on top of that you’re not eating enough energy to maintain muscle tissue. You see where this is going? You are at risk of losing muscle as well as missing out on all the health and wellbeing benefits of keeping active. This is a problem if you are aiming to be a curvy and toned bride. Unfortunately you may end up with a less favourable body shape as you lose muscle, smaller maybe but not necessarily worth the sacrifice.
Stickability?
Crash diets can be complicated, expensive and leave you downright starving! Think carefully about what kind of diet you will be able to stick with for as long as is reasonable to get the results you want. For example, if you’re setting up for a 12 week diet, please do not expect yourself to survive on 1200 calories a day or aim to lose 20 Kg in that time. You will crash and burn if you are trying to force yourself to achieve the unachievable.
Hardcore crash diets often leave you spinning your wheels when it comes to weight loss, hunger’s going to get you and your rollercoaster diet will show in your rollercoaster weight fluctuations too. Ending with you losing less weight than you would have done on a well structured, healthier plan but with all the other negative side effects of crash dieting.
Looking for some help with your healthy lifestyle leading up to your wedding?
DediKate I Do is the healthy 12 week plan to get you alter ready! For more information on how to achieve healthy fat loss and nourish yourself into your wedding sign up today!
Read on for more reasons why you should stay away from crash diets and instead nourish to fuel your body and life!
Malnourishment
Significantly cutting food intake or whole food groups, significantly cuts nutrient intake. Reduced nutrient intake affects all sorts of bodily processes and needs. Such as skin health, which needs protein and vitamins to keep collagen production high and maintain plumpness and vibrancy. Reduced calcium intake and weight loss can affect bone mineral density, which if you are over the age of 30 you are not getting back! Low iron levels lead to fatigue and irritability, and this is so not the best time for that! Low B vitamin intake can lead to reduced energy and brittle hair and nails. Nutrient deficiencies can affect your sex drive, your mental health, the brightness of your eyes! The list goes on.
Trigger Unhealthy Habits
Many of us have at some point dealt with or still are dealing with an unhealthy relationship with food or our body image. Some of us may even have experienced or be experiencing disordered eating behaviours or an eating disorder, it's not uncommon. If any of this sounds like you, you definitely should not be crash dieting! Hugely restrictive diets focusing on scale weight and your body is a huge trigger in perpetuating unhealthy emotions and behaviours around yourself and food. It is not worth it!
Stress
Highly restrictive diets take an emotional toll that you don’t need at a time like this and may very well not be worth it for you. Stress can reduce your body's immune response making you more susceptible to becoming unwell. Stress can cause skin breakouts such as pimples, rashes, eczema, psoriasis etc. Stress increases the stress hormone, cortisol, which increases water retention. This can lead to huge amounts of frustration as the scale doesn’t move and you may not look any leaner. Choose a plan that will fit into your lifestyle and support your health leading into your wedding, not one that will frustrate you and emotionally exhaust you.
Work out what is important to you before embarking on any diet!
Top priorities should be your mental health, your physical health and actually achieving sustainable fat loss. There are definitely healthy ways to work on your emotional well being and support physical health while reaching your goals.
You can do this!
