Crash dieting

Crash dieting
Healthy eating and weight control tips


Crash dieting
Crash dieting is dangerous! Diets can make you feel depressed, worthless and unable to concentrate. They can also make you sick. Crash dieting can stress your body and in most cases make you put on the pounds! Crash dieting in growing adolescents impairs growth and development. It is natural for your body to gain and lose weight at different times in your life.

One of the most common things to do is to diet. This can mean eating particular foods, or not eating at all. Sometimes this can become so much part of people's lives that they develop an eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia nervosa. If you remember one message, remember this: Dieting is dangerous for young people! The energy in food is essential for growth. Nutrient needs are very important in your teenage years. Food restraint can have serious effects on growth and development. These years need heaps of energy from food for bone, muscle and fat growth.

Here are some interesting information about crash diets:
Crash diets make you put on weight
When you go on a diet your metabolism slows down so you burn up less energy. When you go on a diet you lose some weight - not fat - but water and muscle, perhaps making you seem a little bit thinner. Your body goes into survival mode. Your body is likely to change, so when you do actually eat something it stores fat, just in case you starve it again. Effectively, this means each time you go on a diet, you are really teaching your body to more efficiently store fat. For this reason dieting can actually cause obesity!

Crash diets stress your body out and might make you sick.
Starving and then suddenly eating can hurt your immune system and the general well-being of your vital organs. How can you possibly continue to party without those!

Crash diets can affect your emotional well-being
You have 95% chance that the crash diet won't work and you will regain the weight. Because crash diets don't work, we often blame ourselves - "I am hopeless".

Crash dieting makes you slow and less able to concentrate.
Studies have shown that dieters perform worse when tested for reaction times, rapid information processing and memory. How on earth can you concentrate on anything when there are chocolate biscuits and bars to think about? A lack of food can shock the body's system and block the functions of important chemicals in the brain.
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Healthy eating and weight control tips
To lose weight and keep it off, a healthy eating plan, which is low in fat and high in starch and fibre is the best approach - coupled with regular exercise.

• Try to eat fresh fruit or raw vegetables, as snacks or after meals, instead of biscuits

• Eat two vegetables, in addition to potatoes, rice or pasta at main meals

• Grill, oven bake, stew, casserole, poach or microwave instead of frying

• Choose lean cuts of meat and trim or drain off excess fat

• Eat chicken, fish, beans and peas more often

• Choose low fat milk instead of ordinary milk. However, if you don't like low fat milk choose ordinary milk rather than cutting out milk completely

• Choose lower fat cheese, such as Blarney, Edam, low fat Cheddar or cottage cheese.

• Eat wholemeal bread and bran type or wholegrain cereals

• Drink a glass of water 10 minutes before meals

• Have lots of salads with very small amounts low calorie dressing

• Try having more home made vegetable soups with no added fat

• If fruit desserts need a topping, try a little natural yoghurt or low fat fromage frais

• Add less sugar to tea or coffee or none at all

• Choose diet drinks, mineral water or plain water for cold drinks

• If foods have a low fat or low sugar alternative, choose these more often

• Change everyday recipes so that you use less fat and less sugar and include more fibre

• Cut down on alcoholic drinks. Add mineral water to wine and lots of ice to spirits

• No-one should go on any diet without talking to a doctor who will advise you on making small changes to your lifestyle, which will lead to a healthy life for you in the future

For further information on healthy eating click here

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