Crashing Doesn’t Burn Weight Away
By ADAM BURROUGHS
By ADAM BURROUGHS
Staff Writer
WOOSTER — As a guest on “Oprah,” Beyonce Knowles told the audience how she lost 20 pounds in 14 days preparing for her role in the movie “Dream Girls” by using the master cleanse diet.
“I decided I wanted to lose weight and make a physical transformation” Beyonce said on “Oprah.”"I used a fast called the master cleanse.”
Everydiet.org, a site that calls itself “a repository of diet information,” states the master cleanse diet requires its practitioner to consume 60 ounces of water per day spread out over six 10-ounce glasses. Add to each glass of water 2 tablespoons of organic maple syrup, 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed organic lemon juice and 1/10 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. And that’s all a person on this diet may eat for a minimum of four days or up to two weeks.
The master cleanse or lemonade diet, as well as the cabbage soup, the grapefruit and three-day diets are all examples of crash diets.
Arica Harrison, inpatient/outpatient dietitian at Wooster Community Hospital, defines a crash diet as “short-term, rapid weight loss through drastic measures.”
She said crash diets restrict people to one food or severely limit the variety of foods they may consume while on the diet.
When asked if crash diets are ever a good idea, even for actors trying to lose weight for a role, the licensed dietitian replied starkly, “No. (crash diets) are not a good idea at all; even worse without professional help.”
She added crash diets are not a medical solution to obesity, saying they cause more harm than good and “a physician would never recommend a crash diet.”
Between “25 to 50 percent of my patients have been on a crash diet at some point in time. Usually what happens is people crash diet to fit into a dress and then gain (the weight) back again,” Harrison said.
Harrison lists the most common reasons her patients give for using a crash diet: To fit into a dress; in preparation for a class reunion; to get ready for a date or some major event.
She relates a story of a patient who was preparing for a class reunion. The patient had planned on losing weight the right way, but kept putting it off. With very little time left before the reunion, the patient realized the only way to lose the weight was with a crash diet.
Harrison said the patient lost 10 pounds before the reunion, but soon fell back into old eating and lifestyle habits and gained more weight back than the patient had lost. So, the patient used a crash diet again to lose weight and, soon after, gained the weight back plus a few pounds.
“It was just a vicious cycle,” Harrison said.
“(The patient) would put more weight on after the diet because (the patient) would overeat after being so deprived of food during the diet,” Harrison said.
The patient contacted Harrison because the patient realized the crash diets didn’t work — they weren’t maintainable or realistic.
Since the patient has seen Harrison, the dietitian reports the patient is on a healthier path now and is relieved there’ll be no more liquid-only diets. Now the patient can lose weight by eating what everyone else eats, but with moderation.
The irony of a crash diet is it actually forces the body not to burn fat stores. Harrison says while on a crash diet, a person’s metabolism slows down and the body uses less energy. A person’s body won’t burn existing fat stores, instead it maintains them and slows down metabolism as a defense mechanism in response to the reduced caloric intake.
While on a crash diet, a person burns muscle and not fat. The body is forced to break down lean muscle tissue to get the energy it needs to support the central nervous system, which fat doesn’t provide in the short term.
“Crash diets lead to eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia or binge eating disorder,” Harrison said.
They also are yo-yo diets, meaning a person diets for a bit, then quits, then diets for a bit and quits, endlessly repeating the same futile cycle.
“Each time you lose and gain weight, you’re gaining more back than you initially lost,” she said.
The problem with crash diets, Harrison said, is “the person is not changing the behaviors that led to being overweight in the first place.”
She talks instead about healthy dieting, but first corrects the statement saying, “The words ‘healthy’ and ‘dieting’ don’t go together.” She says diets are short-term. In place of “healthy dieting,” Harrison prefers “healthy lifestyle” saying, “it’s not just about eating, it’s also about activity.
“Healthy lifestyle and losing weight at a gradual, healthy rate is all about moderation and balance. People think healthy lifestyle equals no carbs. Unless you have some medical condition, you’re leaving out a big hunk of the food pyramid,” she said.
She illustrates her point saying a person can have birthday cake, but they should take note of the size of their piece and how often they are eating it.
“What you have to do to lose weight is change your behaviors,” the dietitian said. She asks people struggling with their weight to ask themselves some questions: “Why am I overweight? Is it because I eat when I feel bad? Am I choosing the right food? Why am I eating? Am I tired? Emotional? Out of control?”
She gives some basic advice for those seeking to lose weight. She recommends controlling food portion size, eliminating fried foods, choosing lean meats and low-fat dairy products, filling half the dinner plate with veggies at lunch and dinner and engaging in some sort of physical activity most days of the week.
When asked how much physical activity, Harrison replies plainly, “something is better than nothing.”
She reiterates an earlier point and offers reassurance to those daunted by the task of losing excess pounds saying, “It’s not about watching the scale go down. The scale will go down when you change the behaviors.”
Reporter Adam Burroughs can be reached at 330-287-1623 or e-mail aburroughs@the-daily-record.com.
Originally published by By ADAM BURROUGHS Staff Writer.
(c) 2008 Daily Record, The Wooster, OH. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.