Miracle diets: the danger of miracle diets. Consequences for health

Unfortunately they are everywhere: sites that publish subsistence allowance which they insure lose between 3, 4 and 5 kilos a week. They are the so-called diets miracle, and far from helping lose weight, can seriously affect the health of the people who follow them.

Why? Fundamentally because diets are elaborated nutritionally inadequate, which promise to lose kilos quickly and with little effort, either consuming a single food throughout the day, or restricting the consumption of certain groups of macronutrients completely (usually carbohydrates) .

The result is more than evident: although it is true that at the beginning an apparent loss of weight is achieved (that is, when we place ourselves on the scale, our weight is actually lower than the previous time when we weighed), the truth is that, as We will look carefully at this note, in fact there has not been a loss of weight because we have lost fat, but because what our body has eliminated are essentially liquid.

Consequently, at the end of the miraculous diet, or leaving it, we began to gain the "lost weight" within a few days of abandoning it.

What is a miracle diet?

It tends to be called miracle diet to that diet that, always supposedly, ensures the loss of between 3 to 4 kilos (or even more) per week. Basically They consist of slimming diets that promise to lose weight fast in just a few weeks.

They are characterized because they always tend to be related to the name of a particular food (carrot diet, artichoke diet, ice cream diet ...), and most of the time they are based on hypocaloric diets that, far from taking into account the health of people, they have a very serious impact on them, especially if they are extended over time.

Health risks of miracle diets

In a certain sense, miracle diets They can become dangerous or very dangerous for the health of the people who follow them because they lead to important imbalances in the body.

Not in vain, those are much more dangerous those, to the low caloric contribution, a certain imbalance in the distribution of macronutrients and a very low contribution of vitamins and minerals is added to him.

They tend to produce organic imbalances produced by the intake of food in the wrong quantity and quality, and in most cases you lose weight not because you lose fat, but because you "lose weight" at the rate of losing fluids, body proteins , electrolytes and glycocene reserves.

This is because the reduction or reduction in the contribution of calories can not be done from one day to another, drastically, and it must be taken into account that the diet that does not exceed 1,200 calories, should be accompanied by vitamin supplements. and minerals.

In addition, they have the special peculiarity that, when they are finished, the people who have followed these diets gain even more kilos than those who have lost (phenomenon known as " yo-yo effect“).

What are the risks of following this type of diet?

Risks, as we have seen, are more than obvious: they can produce certain nutritional deficiencies that, at the beginning, tend to go unnoticed. But that, however, can become a pathological condition by itself, increasing the risk of suffering some diseases such as infections(since our immune system has been altered, as it was collected in 1991 a study on cortisol and immunity), Colds and colds, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, anemiaand even some types of cancer.

In addition, as demonstrated by a study published in the Journal of Nutrition, following an unbalanced diet (whether or not weight loss) directly affects the health of our bones, may increase the risk of osteoporosis.

We tend to actually lose weight at the expense of the proteins that our body loses, and to a lesser extent depending on the percentage of fat, which would be ideal. As a consequence (due to the loss of proteins and liquids on the one hand, and the low caloric intake on the other), alterations occur in the body, being able to cause not only metabolic disorders, but cardiovascular and dermatological alterations.

Why do we gain weight when we abandon the diet?

When we follow a miracle diet there is a sudden drop in the energy reserves of our body, since our metabolism is reduced, mainly because this type of weight loss diets are mainly limited in calories.

For this reason, it is usual that during the first weeks cause a remarkable weight loss. But then, the decrease in metabolism translates into a drop in daily caloric expenditure, as demonstrated by a study published in Obesity, so that when we abandon the weight loss regimen we tend to recover lost weight.

Therefore, the key is to put ourselves in the hands of a specialist who, according to our basal metabolism, age, weight and height, we elaborate a diet of adequate weight loss, providing the nutrients that our body needs, and following healthy eating habits .

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Related information | Consumer Eroski This article is published for informational purposes only. You can not and should not replace the consultation with a Nutritionist. We advise you to consult your trusted Nutritionist. ThemesSlimming Diet

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