Liquid Diet Dangers
Liquid diets are a popular method for stimulating weight loss, due to their relative ease and convenience. However, despite these positives, liquid diets carry some risks that should be carefully weighed and addressed before blindly jumping on one of these plans.
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Insufficient Daily Calories
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Liquid diets cause weight loss, but in some cases they decrease total calories too much, which can result in an undesired loss of lean mass along with loss of fat. Loss of lean mass is undesirable as lean mass keeps your resting metabolic rate high. If you are losing more than one or two pounds a week, chances are good that you are losing lean mass as well. Thanks to their incredibly low daily caloric totals, liquid diets often do not comply with this rule.
Insufficient Nutrition
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Liquid nutrition can never compare to the nutritional quality of the foods found in nature. Thus, a liquid diet is depriving your body of both calories and vitamins. Although many liquid plans offer you the option of consuming one whole meal per day, that is hardly sufficient to cover your daily nutritional requirements. Prolonged liquid diets have the potential to lead to symptoms of malnutrition, as the body is often not receiving enough fat or protein to survive optimally.
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Digestive Issues
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Liquid diets also fail to provide your daily fiber needs to optimize bowel health. Lack of dietary fiber can lead to either constipation or diarrhea. Unfortunately, most liquid diets fail to address this, leaving you in a state of possibly perpetual gastrointestinal distress.
Unsustainable Weight Loss
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While liquid diets are convenient, as nearly every meal comes pre-packaged and pre-planned, they do little to teach you about proper nutrition so that you can maintain your weight loss at the end of the diet. Without your liquid shake "crutch," you will be more likely to revert to your old eating habits, steadily regaining the weight you worked so hard to lose.
Considerations
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While these hazards might make liquid diets seem untenable, that is hardly the case. If properly managed with respect to these four issues, a short-term liquid diet can be an effective tool for fat loss. Just keep your eyes open for these hazards and you will dramatically increase your likelihood of success.
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