Instructions for Crash Diets

Vegetables are a large part of any crash diet.

Crash diets are often looked at as an unhealthy or dangerous alternative to losing weight compared to other normal diets. Crash dieting features nutritional deprivation and largely restricts calorie intake. A crash diet is meant to induce rapid weight loss, and often only last a week or two. With a crash diet, you might be trying to squeeze into a wedding dress or a bathing suit. There are safer ways to engage in these practices.

Instructions

1. Visit a nutritionist or naturopath before beginning your crash diet. These professionals will be able to advise you as to the best dieting methods for you, your health and your body. You may or may not be healthy enough to engage in a crash diet, and it is important to know how far you can push yourself.

2. Add nutrition supplements to your diet. Vitamins and other liquid supplements will ensure that you are getting the correct nutritional essentials, even though you may not be getting them from a well-balanced diet.

3. Avoid all caffeinated beverages. Drink plenty of water or tea, and avoid all sweetened and sugary drinks. These drinks add unnecessary sugar, sodium and calories that are not beneficial to your weight loss.

4. Adopt a basis for your diet. One of the most often used crash dieting strategies is the cabbage soup diet. With this diet, cabbage soup is eaten every day because of its low calorie amount and filling nature. A variety of other foods can be used in addition to cabbage soup or in the place of it, including tomatoes, carrots, celery, mushrooms and peppers.

5. For the cabbage diet, you eat all the cabbage soup you want along with other food items on certain days. Eat fruits other than bananas on the first day, and vegetables other than beans, peas and corn on the second. Combine fruits and vegetables on day three, and eat bananas and skim milk on the fourth day. Save the fifth day for a small amount of beef, chicken or fish, as well as plenty of water and tomatoes. On the sixth day eat beef, vegetables and your cabbage soup, and then on day seven eat brown rice and vegetables, as well as unsweetened fruit juice. Repeat the cycle for a second week if desired, and finish your diet by altering your new eating program to include more nutritious items.

Tips & Warnings

• Supplement your diet with light exercise or stretching, such as yoga, or with massages. This will keep the body relaxed and stress-free as you are sacrificing some nutritional requirements.

• You should not use a crash diet for more than two weeks at a time, as this form of dieting can have a negative impact on your nutritional health.

• Change your eating habits if the crash diet induces sickness, changes in skin color or other ailments.

References

• Routes to Self Improvement: Crash Diet