Super restrictive diets have gained immense popularity in recent times, thanks to the potential for fast weight loss.

Several diets, such as the Atkins, South Beach, Paleolithic, and Ketogenic diets, advocate for low-carb intake- which can bring about weight loss, and restrict calorie intake, which leads to optimal results in a short period. Unfortunately, super restrictive diets can wreak havoc on your body as well. Let’s take a closer look at the dark side of super-restrictive diets and metabolism.

Frequent Hunger Pangs

When you stick to a super restrictive diet, you’re bound to feel hungry often. The diets often recommend cutting out entire food groups, leading to the feeling of extreme deprivation and a significant calorie deficit.

If your daily caloric intake is less than your body requires, you’ll always feel hungry, and your body will put more pressure on you to satisfy its needs.

Slowed Metabolism

When you don’t consume enough calories, your body enters starvation mode, which limits your ability to burn fat and slows your metabolism. Your metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories.

When you consume fewer calories, your body burns fewer calories, slowing down your metabolism and making it difficult for slow weight loss.

Muscle Mass Loss

When you adopt super-restrictive diets with very few calories, your body begins to use your muscles as a source of energy, leading to muscle mass loss.

When you lose muscle mass, you reduce your metabolic rate, which slows down the rate you burn calories even more, leading to a further reduction in weight loss. Furthermore, losing muscle mass can affect your strength and endurance.

Nutrient Deficiencies

Super restrictive diets can lead to nutrient deficiencies because you’re cutting out entire food groups. For instance, keto and paleo diets cut out carbs, grains, and legumes, limiting your fiber intake, while vegan diets may lack sufficient protein.

It’s challenging to meet all your nutritional needs when you limit your diet to a few foods. Nutrient deficiencies can lead to fatigue, weakness, and anemia.

Dehydration

If you adopt keto, paleo, or low-carbohydrate diets, you risk becoming dehydrated, leading to headaches, tiredness, and constipation.

Dehydration occurs because carbohydrates contain a considerable part of the water in your body, and when you restrict carb intake, your body starts using up stored carbohydrates and loses the water stored with them.

Poor Physical Fitness

Variety in diet is vital to developing physical fitness. Eating different plant-based foods, for example, can provide the essential vitamins and minerals necessary to maintain energy levels and repair muscle tissue.

While super restrictive diets can help you lose weight fast, they can limit your physical fitness, essential for a healthy lifestyle.

Dietary Restrictions and Compulsive Eating

Compulsive eating is a condition where people eat uncontrollably, often as a result of diet restrictions. People following super restrictive diets may turn to compulsive eating on occasions when they break their dietary rules.

This condition is a result of the frustration of not having a balanced diet and needing to satisfy their cravings and hunger. It also contributes to the disruption of these diets’ effects.

Increases Stress Levels

Eating healthy is crucial, but it should not be so stressful that it adversely affects your mental health. A super restrictive diet or extreme weight loss program can increase stress levels.

Research has also shown that chronic stress can increase cortisol levels, a hormone that increases the body’s fat production and leads to weight gain.

In Conclusion

Super restrictive diets may have their benefits, but the downsides are numerous. They can lead to hunger, slowed metabolism, muscle mass loss, nutrient deficiencies, dehydration, poor physical fitness, compulsive eating, and increased stress levels.

Therefore, it is important to exercise caution when adopting such diets and ensure that they’re appropriate for your health needs.