Crash diets seem to be one of the best weight loss options – or are they? When you first start a crash diet – and literally stop eating – you might notice that you lose a fair amount of weight, but the truth is that the weight you are losing with this program is mostly water and muscle mass. Because it’s difficult to break down, body fat is notoriously difficult to get rid of, so when your body doesn’t have enough energy coming in from food it will automatically start using energy stored in your muscles. When you use this type of weight loss program you are effectively turning yourself in to a globule of fat!

Your body is a remarkable machine and one of the most advanced chemical factories on Earth. It is also extremely efficient. This is not good news if your weight loss program is simply eating less. Like many people, if you can’t understand why you are putting on weight or not losing any weight then the first thing you might try to do is reducing what you eat.

The problem with simply reducing your food you take in is that your body will soon realize that it is getting less food. This will result in your body slowing your metabolism to compensate. When you start eating normally again (which invariably happens on a crash diet) you’ll find that you end up putting on even more weight than before.

Unfortunately for us humans the only thing we’re slightly less addicted to than death by chocolate is an instant gratification quick fix solution to our weight loss problem. A diet plan which promises to shed 5 pounds a week is always going to sound more attractive than a weight loss program which has been meticulously researched and proven to reduce your weight in a healthy way over a period of months.

You might even think that there is no long term impact on your health if you partake in a crash diet and severely restricting your calorie intake, but unfortunately this type of diet plan has cost some people their lives. When your body doesn’t have enough energy to burn it places enormous strain on your internal organs as they struggle to function without the vitamins and minerals that they require. This strain can be so intense that it can actually lead to organ and heart failure.

It can be very tough to stick to a long term, healthy weight loss plan, especially if a big event like a beach holiday or wedding is coming up, but following a crash course diet will wreak havoc with your metabolism and could cause you to put on even more weight than when you started as your body is used to processing less food and if it suddenly gets inundated with calories it will attempt to grab all of them and store it as fat.

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy a combination of hypnosis and NLP and a number of e-courses including a “Weight Loss Secrets” program that you can have for no charge or obligation.