Having a close family member with a serious eating disorder was one of the reasons it took me quite awhile to be talked into this diet. I grew up seeing the effects of eating disorders and, quite frankly, I'd rather have extra weight than ever go through that misery. Eventually, though, I was talked talked into this diet.
While on the Omni Rocks page of Facebook (where all the Omnitrition droppers congegrate), I noticed quite a few people who were considered long-term droppers. They'd been selling this diet for quite some time and more than a few looked rather sickly. They'd post their before and after photos and I thought they looked far healthier (and much nicer looking) before they lost the weight. To me, they looked like they could easily have eating disorders. They looked malnourished and underweight. That was concerning.
Also, concerning to me were the number of posts by people getting frantic about their weight gain days. This is a 500-calorie diet. If you eat 500 calories a day, you are going to lose. They tell you that you are getting the additional nutrition you need from fat stores in your body. Not true and anybody who knows anything about physiology knows that is not true.
Let's break down what happens on this diet. You start by loading. That means you gorge yourself for two days. You and I both know what that means. Water weight! You really aren't eating enough to go up three to eight lbs in two days (what many people seem to gain). This is simply water retention and once you start this diet or any other diet, it will come off quickly. This has nothing to do with hCG (which in my case were 'drops' and completely bogus). So, for about a week, maybe two as with any other diet with restrictive calories, you are going to lose fairly quickly. What makes this diet different is that on only 500 calories a day, your body will go into starvation mode. Your metabolism will slow so much and try to hold on to what you have. If you upped your calories to at least 1200, you'd continue to lose but on a crash diet like this, you are messing your body up but good. So, many droppers have days where they plateau and even gain. So often on the forum, I'd see posters so upset that they were up a lb or two from the day before. I have never ever EVER been on a diet before where this happened when the diet was followed carefully.
So, what happens when these people gain on only 500 calories a day? They cut out even more food. I'm not kidding. They narrow down their food choices even more. Things like tomatoes get cut out. Let me tell you, nobody has ever gotten fat because of tomatoes. That is ridiculous.
Add to that, so many people, once they stop this diet post about how they can't seem to stop gaining. This prompts them to start the diet over or just fall away because this really isn't sustainable long term.
If you've lost 30-plus lbs and find it coming back quickly, you are likely to feel desperate (as so many of the others I saw did). Eating disorders can come on pretty easily at this point. I've talked to women online now or read their posts. They started making themselves throw up or kept on the diet and developed a type of anorexia-type mentality.
This diet is not worth what it does to you either physically or mentally. Speaking from my own personal experience, eating disorders destroy your life. This diet really does seem like a gateway to an eating disorder. Avoid it.
No comments:
Post a Comment