Why starvation diets work

It sounds simple, but you have to find a healthy way of eating that you can stick with, Lowe says. So that means, for example, avoiding those diets that severely restrict calories, require you go very low-carb , or cut out entire food groups. Such approaches, he explains, are just difficult to sustain. Being prepared will help you stay on the path to weight loss , too.

He also recommends weighing yourself every few days, so you can quickly make changes if you start to see the number on the scale creeping up instead of going down. Janet Lee, LAc, is an acupuncturist and a freelance writer in Kansas who contributes to Consumer Reports on a range of health-related topics.

She has been covering health, fitness, and nutrition for the past 25 years as a writer and editor. Sign In. Become a Member. Remember Me. Forgot username or password? Not a member? Need further assistance? Please call Member Services at Will a Starvation Diet Backfire on You? Drastically cutting your calories to slim down has long-term effects on your health, revealed preliminary research presented at a recent European Congress on Obesity.

People who ate an extremely low-calorie diet calories a day for five weeks lost a similar amount of weight as those on another restricted low-calorie diet 1, calories a day for 12 weeks—19 and 18 pounds, respectively. But it was the starvation diet group that lost more muscle, and even a month after stopping the diet they had significantly less lean muscle as the other group.

Obviously both diets in the study cut calorie levels to ridiculous levels, particularly for men. Any calorie restriction for weight loss should be more tailored based on your own weight, says Christopher Mohr, Ph.

So if you're over pounds and want to drop weight, you should aim for no less than 1, calories. Extreme calorie-cutting forces your body to burn muscle for fuel instead of fat, and having less muscle mass slows your metabolism. Here are four more reasons to avoid the fast fix:. The sudden drop in sugar in the blood, as glycogen stores are diminished, will result in tiredness, confusion and mood swings. These are the symptoms that are often mistakenly thought to be the first step in the cleansing process of a detox diet.

The liver stores only enough glycogen energy to last for one day, so when fasting lasts longer than 24 hours, the body will then turn to muscle to produce glucose for energy. The amount of muscle in the body sets your metabolic rate the rate at which you burn calories. So, as muscle is lost, less metabolic work is performed, saving calories and hence energy. In short, your rate of weight loss will slow down. When you eat a meal, overall metabolism is increased due to the energy required for digestion.

Skipping a meal will have the reverse effect, decreasing the metabolism, which lasts until you eat something. Overall, the body will then save — rather than burn — calories to ensure it has adequate energy during the times of fasting.

So, meal skipping to avoid unwanted calories is a counterproductive method for sustained weight loss.