I guess I’ll start off by saying that my first ever attempt at dieting would be classified as a typical crash diet. Looking back, I can remember myself consuming an extremely low number of calories. Did I do this knowing it was a crash diet? Not really. I think everyone portrays fat loss and getting ripped as this tortuous journey which made me have this mindset of 'it probably isn’t working if I don’t feel tortured enough’. So what was the best step of action a naive kid with a drive to lose fat could take knowing only a few things he thought he knew? Eat less.

Back then, it sounded completely logical in my head. The lesser you eat, the more fat your body burns. So eating really less would result in faster fat loss, right? I mean, at least that’s how I wanted it to work. Giving no further thought, I jumped right in. If I remember correctly, my diet was completely based on fruits and milk. That’s it. Just a few fruits a day along with a cup or two of milk. If I try to approximate the calories I consumed back then, I would not be wrong if I say there were days where I was consuming as few as 700 calories. What I found out was I could not stick to this diet on a consistent basis. I mean, think about being in your teens, with your body placing its demands on you for growth, and consuming less than what you need to survive. Your body will fight back, no matter how much willpower you have. But I just thought that’s how it is supposed to be.

After failing to be consistent with this approach, I’m glad I was smart enough to realize that this was clearly not going to work. I started adding in a meal at night. Coming from a few days of eating close to nothing, this one extra meal daily made a huge difference. At least to how I felt. I think I was eating around 1200-1500 calories on most days, which for a boy in his teens, is an extremely low intake. Again, keep in mind that I had absolutely no idea about what I was doing. All I knew was that 'junk food is bad’ and that you have to keep eating lesser to get leaner. Also, seeing the scale go down, I felt like what I was doing was actually working so I tried to stick to it for as long as I could.

After the first few weeks, it was inevitable for progress to slow down. I had absolutely no idea of what I should have been expecting realistically and thus wanted to make changes once again to keep making progress, or at least what I assumed was progress back then. Also, I just kept getting flabbier, and to make it worse, I went ahead and started doing cardio. I thought that now my diet isn’t going to work by itself, so I'll start doing cardio on top of it just to give myself an extra boost. Again, I initially saw progress till my hunger caught up with me and it wasn’t possible for me to stick to how much I was eating going forward.

Thus, I added in another small meal which I could take with me to school. At this point, I was eating a salad, a small meal, a big meal, a cup of milk along with a fruit or two. I would approximate this to come around 1500-1600 calories and I was doing strenuous cardio 4-5 days a week. Even though this isn’t a lot of food, it was sustainable for me compared to what I was previously doing. I stuck with this for a few months and dropped my weight down to where I wanted it to be. The problem was that now I was at my goal bodyweight, yet I looked like a shrunken version of what I was before. Only after this was when I started to put a little more effort into learning about the very basics of dieting, which is a whole another story, thanks to all of the bad information floating on the interwebs. So, I guess I would say this is where my journey with crash dieting ended, it was short and torturous, and I didn’t feel satisfied even though I was at my goal weight no matter how many people told me I had done a great job. Now, I'll break down the pros and cons in my opinion.

The Cons

Where do I start? Crash dieting is the stupidest thing I’ve done nutritionally. I completely destroyed my energy levels and mood. Imagine being constantly deprived of food and having to do everything you’re currently doing. On top of that, I lost the little muscle I had because of general growth in the teenage years. This was a recipe for becoming skinny-fat and had a huge impact on my body composition in the long run. I can't stress how important it is to not diet down to a specific number, or at least to not keep expectations of how you’ll look at a specific number.

You can read more about why scale weight alone doesn’t indicate real progress over here: https://www.bodymindquotient.com/home/weightloss-vs-fatloss.

Even if you do crash diet to a lower weight, it is not easy to maintain. I don’t care about what anyone tells you, but if you’re not dieting down in a manner you can imagine yourself eating forever, you’re not going to be able to maintain that condition.

The Pros

The only positive thing I gained out of this was mental strength. It definitely was not easy for the short period that I did do it but it made me strong mentally so as to combat any diet attempts I had in the future. It sort of set a benchmark in my head so I always knew that if I could survive at 700 calories, 2000 calories definitely wouldn’t be a problem. And trust me, believing in yourself is one of the most important factors in determining whether you actually get results or not. You can have the best program and the best diet plan, but if you don’t think you can do it, you’re not going to reach your goals.

Should You Crash Diet?

NO! Don’t even think about it. It won’t do you any good at all. If you are considering crash dieting, ask yourself if you would be happy looking the way you currently look but just weighing lesser on the scale. If you truly want to improve your body composition, crash dieting isn’t the way to go. Not if you’re obese, not if you’re short on time for a particular event. If you want to lose fat in an effective way, just eat at a slight caloric deficit and be patient. There is no way around it. If you do plan on dieting aggressively for a short period of time, you could eat at up to a 1000 calorie deficit every day. That being said, I wouldn’t recommend men and women to eat below 1500 and 1200 calorie respectively. Most people have no real urgency of losing fat and just want to find a quicker way because they are impatient and this is why I find it difficult to generalize the answer for everyone.

If you are someone who was considering crash dieting, try understanding that there is no quick fix to fat loss. That being said, there are ways that can make the process easier for you. If you were interested in crash dieting because you find it difficult to stick to a diet plan, you could check out diet setups such as Intermittent Fasting or One Meal A Day(OMAD) which simply help you adhere to the deficit. Something I find funny is that people are willing to crash diet, but the moment you tell them to stay fasted for a certain period of the day, they lose their minds. Stop glorifying crash dieting. Try to understand that the only way to get results is by being consistent and sticking to a well-structured program. There are no shortcuts or else everyone would be walking around shredded.

Conclusion

Low energy. Bad mood. Loss of muscle. Doesn’t sound fun, right? Despite all this, you don’t actually end up where you want to be. Well, that’s crash dieting. If you truly want to lose fat and keep it off in the long run, invest some time and effort in learning to make small changes that help you improve your body composition over time. Stick with a reasonable calorie deficit and you’ll be making results in no time. There is no quick fix to fat loss.

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