Dr C: “It’s never a good idea to crash diet”

A study has found that meal replacement plans can damage your heart – and Dr C says that’s the least of the problems

esearch has R found that meal replacement diets, where you suddenly drop down to around 600 calories a day, release fat from the body, which ends up in the heart muscle. That impacts heart function, blood pressure and cholesterol, which would be dangerous if someone had an underlying – and potentially undiagnosed – heart problem.

LEARN BETTER HABITS

The study is interesting, but crash dieting has other very worrying impacts that affect everyone – not just those with heart problems. Firstly, it doesn’t help you develop good habits, which is the secret to sorting out your weight for good. With meal replacement shakes you’re “on” a diet, then you’re “off” it, so you just go back to your old ways.

MAKE DAILY TWEAKS

You’ll have far more long-term success with little daily changes that you can keep up, like eating smaller portions – such as having a couple of spoonfuls less cereal or leaving the mayo out of your roll – and always having vegetables or salad with your meals to fill you up.

Crash dieting is likely to leave you feeling weak, faint, tired, grumpy and irritable – plus it’s boring, you’ll get sick of the flavours and it’s socially isolating because you can’t enjoy normal meals with your loved ones.

It’s disputed as to whether crash diets upset your metabolism, but I think it’s fairly obvious that constantly starving and feasting will, because after your body has been in a “famine” it is more likely to store fat for survival. The plans also make it hard to get your five-a-day.

BEWARE SOCIAL MEDIA

Lots of celebs and influencers promote these diets and it’s understandable that when you see someone looking great, you might want to try a diet they say they follow, but remember that people are often being paid to promote things on social media, and they can edit their images.

We occasionally put exceptionally obese people on very low-calorie diets when they are at crisis point, but they have medical supervision, which is not the case when someone buys shakes off the shelf.

THINK OF YOUR HEALTH

Losing weight doesn’t need to be miserable. Crash diets aren’t a normal way of eating, they teach you nothing and cost you a fortune. There are many important health reasons not to starve yourself on meal replacement plans, so don’t do it!