Drastic Weight Loss Measures

Obesity is a growing epidemic all over the world. As people get more sedentary and heavier, they begin to get unhealthier. Proper diet and exercise can help you attain and maintain a healthy weight. However, drastic methods are sometimes necessary to lose weight. Drastic weight loss methods are quick but sometimes potentially dangerous.

Fasting

One long-time weight loss method is fasting. Fasting is when you remove almost all vestiges of food from your diet and subsist almost entirely on liquids or minor amounts of solid food. The most common liquid consumed during fasting is water, but orange juice and prune juice are also used. The one benefit fasting offers is that it helps detoxify your body of the chemicals used in many foods. It is also a way to lose weight quickly, as your body consumes the fat in your body to survive. However, this method is also extremely dangerous. Though your body will consume the fat in your body, it can also consume muscle and, if given enough time, the organs as well. Fasting also slows the metabolism down to survival speeds. Once you begin eating again, the weight almost always returns quicker than you lost it.

Fad Diets

There are many different kinds of fad diets on the market these days. Examples are the Lemon diet, Weight Watchers diet, calorie counting, fish-only diets, diet shakes, and many more. The Atkins diet leaves out carbohydrates but lets dieters eat as much protein as they like. All these diets have a sporadic success rate. While they sometimes work to get weight off more quickly than a balanced diet and exercise program, they have a high relapse rate. Once the diet is over, people often return to their original eating habits and gain all the weight back. Fad diets are often bland and focus on one kind of food, which makes them boring and even bad for your health as you neglect important nutritious foods.

Surgery

Weight loss surgery is another growing trend for drastic weight loss. Liposuction has been used for decades to surgically remove excess fat and tighten skin. It is a quick way to lose a large amount of weight, but it doesn't fix the bad eating habits that lead to weight gain. Many people who go through liposuction gain their weight right back. There are also newer procedures such as stomach stapling and the lap band surgery. These methods close off the stomach, making it smaller, so it is incapable of taking in too much food. People who undergo these procedures lose weight, but sometimes at a price: The band may cause pain on the inside of the stomach or patients may get sick after eating. Consider surgical options very carefully before using them to lose weight.