Why Crash Diets Don’t Work: Sustainable Ways to Achieve Lasting Health

Many of us have been tempted to try a crash diet to lose significant weight in a short amount of time, but this is something I would strongly discourage. This type of diet doesn’t respect the body’s natural metabolic processes, and the consequences can include exhaustion, loss of essential nutrients and vitamins, and, more importantly, a reduction in muscle tissue rather than fat mass.

What’s more, when you return to eating 'normally', your body is likely to regain the weight – often accumulating even more than before –resulting in the so-called 'yo-yo' effect. Instead, I advise weight loss in a sustainable way via the chrono-diet. The principles of the diet are:

• Food containing high amounts of carbohydrates (such as bread, cereals, pasta and potatoes) must be consumed only at breakfast and lunch, as your body can use them more efficiently as a source of energy around these hours. Consume foods with a low glycemic index at lunch (like whole grains) which only pass minor amounts of sugar into the blood and, therefore, reduce the insulin response. 
  
• You should only eat fruit before 5pm. You can eat it for breakfast or as a snack but should choose fruit with less sugar, such as berries.
• Carbohydrates should be avoided in the evening and proteins predominantly eaten instead. In the evening, the hormones produced by the body in the absence of carbohydrates stimulate the use of adipose tissue as an energy source, encouraging weight loss and the maintenance and development of lean mass. 
• Include vegetables at lunch and dinner which are seasoned with vegetable fats, such as extra-virgin olive oil rather than butter or margarine. Avoid salt and instead use spices and herbs for flavour.
• Red meat, cold cuts, milk and refined simple sugars (it’s better to use honey) should be avoided, but you can include fish as it’s a good source of protein.
• It’s important to eat slowly so your stomach fills little by little, and you won’t need to ingest large amounts of food to starve off the feeling of hunger.
• The chrono diet is a sustainable food ‘programme’, which is far better than a restrictive crash diet. Plus, it’s easy to embed its healthy habits into your every-day life.

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