Warning: This post contains descriptions of a diet similar to eating disorders such an anorexia and may be triggering for some readers.
So you decided to try to get a little healthier in 2018 and now you’re trying to figure out how? Well, there’s one diet we can say you should definitely not under any circumstances try.
It’s called the Water Diet or Water Fast. And it’s not so much a “diet” but a synonym for starvation.
Basically, the diet involves drinking only water, and possibly (milk and sugarless) tea and coffee for as many days as you can manage, and eating NO FOOD.
To us, this sounds like a ridiculously bad idea, and yet it has hundreds of people posting about it on social media. So rather than trust our own logic alone, we consulted with a dietitian to find out how this could possibly be healthy.
Initially lost for words when we posed the question to her, accredited practising dietician and nutritionist Olivia Bates confirmed this diet is not one bit healthy and is in fact, very dangerous.
“Basically that is going to put your body into starvation mode,” she told Mamamia.
“It’s literally just a fasting diet and the major issue with those is that the body can’t maintain it, because all of your organs require energy to function.”
Put simply, people die from not eating.
“What will happen in that case is your muscles will start breaking down and you’ll start wasting away and it can almost become toxic to your body because you’ll have all these amino acids around and it will put a really heavy strain on your kidneys and all your organs, and your brain in particular.”
That should be enough for people to know it’s not a good idea to try, but the Nourishing Bubs creator explained that in addition to being dangerous, it’s also incredibly ineffective.
LISTEN: Mia Freedman speaks to Wellmania author Brigid Delaney about what it’s like doing the 101 Day Detox Diet. Post continues after audio.
“The main issue is that when you starve your body, your body enters starvation-mode and fears that you are going to do it again.”
“So when you do start eating again it will hold on to everything. It will store the energy and the fat thinking that when you’re going to fast again it will have stores to eat up.
“So basically it slows your metabolism and ultimately you’ll end up putting on weight and retaining the weight when you do end up eating again.”
Bates explained the initial weight loss that likely encourages many water fast followers is, ironically, water weight and will be regained almost instantly.
She concluded that following the water diet would make you feel crappy and then set you up to regain any weight that you’ve lost, potentially doing real damage to your body in the process.
Yeah, sounds like something to avoid to us.
So what is the best way to lose weight safely?
Bates said coming out of the Christmas-New Year period, most people will likely need to “reset”, but this doesn’t require any kind of special detox.
“It’s just about having a plan so you’re not eating on-the-go and reaching for things you don’t need, so maybe doing to batch-cooking of veggies and good-quality carbs, like quinoa or barley,” she said.
“Just aim for your five serves of veggies each day, eat some lean protein, reduce your alcohol intake, not snacking so much and going back to being a bit more conscious of what you’re eating and mindfully eating.”
“But don’t do anything extreme. If you try anything extreme you’re more likely to fail. It’s more the small things rather than making huge changes.”
Top Comments
I agree with SarahMorrow; Dietitians only parrot what they learn in school and that includes little to nothing on fasting and the fasting process.
One clue here is that this Dietitian seems to believe that fasting and starving are synonymous terms and processes which is quite ridiculous.
"Fasting is a scientific method of ridding the system of diseased tissue, and morbid matter, and is invariably accompanied by beneficial results. Starving is the deprivation of the tissues from nutriment which they require, and is invariably accompanied by disastrous consequences. The whole secret is this: fasting commences with the omission of the first meal and ends with the return of natural hunger, while starvation only begins with the return of natural hunger and terminates in death. Where the one ends the other begins. Whereas the latter process wastes the healthy tissues, emaciates the body, and depletes the vitality; the former process merely expels corrupt matter and useless fatty tissue, thereby elevating the energy, and eventually restoring the organism that just balance we term health."
Quite amusing to think that this Dietitian warns us of the alleged dangers of fasting, but has probably not fasted at all themselves in their entire lives.!!!!
The lead in to this article states that this post contains descriptions of a diet similar to eating disorders such an anorexia and may be triggering for some readers, which again is nonsense, because Anorexia is a medical term for "loss of appetite" while Anorexia Nervosa" is a psychiatric condition involving thoughts of being fat even though you are extremely underweight. The terms are not interchangeable.
Fasting will make you feel what this article refers to as "crappy" for the majority yes, because these are symptoms of detoxification which include: headaches, nervousness and shakiness, weakness, lethargy, a faster heart rate and so on and so on, but for someone who does not suffer with toxemia they have what is called the fasting high, and a growth in strength. This is due to all of the bodily energies being diverted to healing and not to cleansing.
Post fast the lowered metabolic rate that fasting brings about, extends for up to a further 6 weeks, so weight gain is easy if going back to a standard american diet, but if one adheres to a low calorie but nutrient dense way of eating (Nutritarian) this excess weight gain is easily avoided whilst simultaneously eating nutrient-dense foods.
Fasting is highly beneficial to health, as long as the fast is properly conducted and supervised by qualified personnel.
Dietitians just repeat what they learned in school, which is often very outdated nonsense. (For example, most dietitians are still recommending low-fat diets, when it's been shown that these diets are making Americans obese and diabetic.) Far from being damaging, fasting is good for the body when it's done safely and carefully. Of course the person who's fasting should not do it if they have any medical condition contraindicates it. But this is true of many healthful practices, including walking and other forms of exercise. Use common sense, learn about fasting before doing it, and you'll be fine.