In this article, you will discover crash diets that work all the time and how you can use them to reach your weight goal.
Crash diets refer to quick-fix weight loss solutions. Most overweight people want to lose weight fast, and may thus opt for crash diets. These are drastic and often entail restricting certain foods or only eating particular foods.
Since calorie reduction leads to weight loss, crash diets that work must involve low amounts of calories. And these low calories have to be consumed within a limited timeframe.
You probably have heard about the detrimental effects of crash diets. First, they are unsustainable due to weight regain after the diet. Second, they can deprive you of critical nutrients or lead to metabolic changes. You should thus keep these risks in mind when crash dieting.
That notwithstanding, for purposes of this article, a working crash diet is one that causes significant weight loss during the period of dieting. Additionally, it shouldn’t be so extreme that it would be impractical to stay on the diet.
Crash Diets That Work All the Time
1. The Dukan diet
This is a low-carb, high-protein plan with four phases. It is ideal for overweight people who love meat (it has lean meat) as well as those who what to curb hunger (oat bran helps to increase fullness).
The diet works as proven in the following study. The study participants lost 33 pounds in 10 weeks. These results stemmed from the low-carb and high-protein approach.
Increasing protein intake has been shown to boost metabolism while curbing hunger. Since this diet keeps you full more of the time, you are less likely to fall off the wagon.
2. The Ketogenic diet
This is a diet that promotes ketosis; a state in which the body relies on ketones for energy supply.
Ketones are what is produced when the liver converts stored fat into a source of energy. To achieve this, you need to reduce the carbohydrates you take to 20-50 grams a day. You should not overeat protein if you want to get into ketosis.
Unsaturated and saturated fats are encouraged like nuts, tofu and butter, and coconut oil.
By burning fat, you tend to lose more weight. On the other hand, not eating carbs can cause nutrient deficiency, fuzziness, and irritability.
3. The Paleo diet
In this diet, you eat what cavemen ate. These include nuts, seeds, vegetables, fish, fruits, and lean meats.
Any foods that came after farming like dairy, grains, and legumes are not allowed.
In this study, it was shown that the Paleo diet leads to significant weight loss.
Paleo diet helps reduce calorie intake by cutting back on refined sugar, processed foods, potatoes, and grains.
4. Atkins diet
According to this diet, people gain weight because of eating too many carbs and not enough fat. It thus recommends tracking the carbs you eat. Usually, only 10-20 grams are allowed.
The Atkins diet is one of the crash diets that work because it eliminates sugar and refined carbs.
Not only do these foods have a lot of calories, but they also raise blood sugar, increase insulin resistance, increase your appetite and thus cause weight gain.
5. The Whole Foods Vegan Diet
Vegans are people who do not eat anything derived from animals including honey, eggs, dairy, and meat.
Whole food vegans take it up a notch by not eating anything processed. This approach causes weight loss since you avoid high-calorie foods.
In this study, it was shown that people tend to eat more food and gain more weight when they consume processed foods because they don’t promote fullness.
Additionally, the consumption of more vegetables and fruits reduces calorie intake.
6. The Ultra-low-fat diet
This diet does the reverse of the Atkins or Ketogenic diet. You are only allowed 10% fat, 10% protein and 80% carbs on this diet. It is usually plant-based.
The Ultra-low fat diet is one of the crash diets that work because it reduces fats, which have more calories than carbs and protein per gram.
Furthermore, since fat is used to cook, it tends to increase your food intake, so its removal makes you eat less.
7. The zone diet
In this diet, you eat in a way that minimizes inflammation. Inflammation is bad for weight loss because it affects insulin/ blood sugar, metabolism, and appetite.
You are supposed to eat 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat. This way, your blood sugar stays low, the associated hormones remain optimal and so does inflammation.
The diet works because it promotes low glycemic carbs and restricts calories to 1,200 per day for females. Also, eating 5 meals a day reduces cravings and binge eating.
8. The raw food diet
As the name suggests, you can only eat raw food on this plan. These are mostly fruits, raw vegetables, seeds, and nuts.
It is one of the crash diets that work because it has zero processed foods. As a result, you won’t deal with the effects of eating processed foods such as unbalanced blood sugar and cravings.
It also has a low number of calories which is ideal for weight loss.
9. The OMAD diet
If you are in search of extreme crash diets that work, the OMAD diet is one of them. OMAD is an abbreviation for one meal a day.
On this plan, you fast for 23 hours and eat for 1 hour.
Since you may overeat during that one meal, you shouldn’t more than a 3-inch pile. And the plate you use mustn’t exceed 11’’ in diameter.
Balance fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, and protein. OMAD works because it is extremely low in calories.
10. The Military diet
This approach involves a specific diet plan with 3 days of dieting and 4 days of no dieting.
The foods you can eat include tuna, crackers, cheddar cheese, and meat.
This diet works because there is a calorie limit for off days (less than 1,500 calories) and during the dieting days, you reduce calories to as low as 1,100. This means that there’d be a calorie deficit to trigger weight loss.
If you don’t want to spend so much time weighing or planning what to eat, then the military diet would be ideal. It also includes a significant amount of junk food like ice cream to keep cravings at bay.
11. The South Beach Diet
This is a modified version of the Atkins diet without the saturated fats. It promotes low glycemic index carbohydrates, unsaturated fats, and lean proteins.
In this study, people lost weight on the diet because of the effect on hunger and metabolism. High protein curbs hunger while low carbs reduce inflammation.
12. The Ornish Diet
The Ornish diet is yet another one of the crash diets that work because of its emphasis on food quality rather than quantity.
You can eat whatever volume but not certain foods. It promotes satiety and is accessible.
It is a low-fat vegetarian eating plan that recommends vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes or nuts. It forbids meat, processed foods, and saturated fats.
The Bottom Line
I don’t recommend using a crash diet for weight loss because they’re not sustainable. However, you can learn something from these diets.
For instance, you can use some of their approaches to curb hunger and food cravings.
The truth is it’s very hard to lose weight and keep it off if you rely on diet alone. If you want to lose weight fast without regaining it, combine diet with these 28 stunningly simple fat-burning workouts.
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