Crash Diets Versus Your Metabolism

Synopsis: Many crash diets are very popular, but your metabolism pays for them in the long run. Find out why a crash diet is never a good idea.

One of the most important factors in having a successful diet or long term weight management plan is getting your metabolism to work at an optimal level.  This is difficult for many people as they don't have the experience or education to make informed decisions about this topic.  The truth is that a healthy metabolism burns a lot more calories both in action and in rest than someone who does not have a healthy metabolism.  And nothing kills a healthy metabolism like a crash diet.

Every person's body has a minimum per day calorie level that they need to help avoid going into "starvation mode."  Starvation mode occurs when the body hasn't received enough calories.  Back thousands of years ago our ancestors would use this to survive.  Since they had to deal with famine, their bodies would defend by making the most of each calorie and greedily hanging onto as much fat as possible.  The body burns muscle, which takes longer to burn, and also the less muscle you have, the less calories your body burns.  This was a defense mechanism for famine, but today it's the perfect way to kill your metabolism and hold onto the fat.

A basic rule of thumb is that 1,200 calories a day is the cut off mark.  Now this doesn't mean your body goes into starvation mode if you only had 1,000 calories one day.  It is a gradual thing and takes some time, but if you consistently fall below the starvation line (and many crash diets are very low calorie) then your metabolism will absolutely crash and your body will burn the least amount of calories required to function.

This is not a good weight loss strategy, and a terrible long term health strategy.  If you want a good weight management plan then you have to look at your metabolism and figure out what it takes to keep that at a healthy level or even speed it up with smaller more frequent meals, using spices, or short bursts of intense exercise.  These are also much better ways of losing weight than a crash diet, and most people are surprised how quickly a few small changes or a few intense exercises work much better than a crash diet.

So if you're thinking about a crash diet to fit into the old tuxedo, or if you ladies are thinking about fitting into a smaller dress, don't do it.  Eat healthy, move to smaller snack-like meals throughout the day, and exercise hard but do not crash diet.  All you'll end up doing is hurting your metabolic rate.  You might lose some weight in the short run, in the long run all you end up doing is losing muscle and making it easier to hold on to fat, while making it harder to lose again.