Very low calorie diets, will they make us healthy, happy, and slim?

I’ve seen quite a few clients lately that are on low calorie or very low calorie diets. Part of me feels that this is pretty worrying, yet studies show people do lose weight on these kinds of diets, often fairly quickly. It does (unfortunately for the food lovers like me 😉!) come down to a calories in calories out equation. Burn off more than we take in, we’ll lose weight (unless there is another underlying issue). Low calorie diets have been shown to work well, especially for those who are classified as obese, you can lose the same amount of weight as a steady diet and often more quickly. BUT, and it’s a big one, studies show that people put on weight at the same rate afterwards REGARDLESS of whether they used a steady diet or a very low calorie diet (VLCD).

My biggest concerns about very low calorie diets is the loss of water and the sugar that we have stored in our muscles which can affect our training, especially if we have a tendency to do HIIT (high intensity interval training) if we’re doing high intensity training we need that sugar to fuel us. We also need to be aware that around 25% of the weight lost longer term (after week two) on a VLCD is muscle mass and that’s if we are making sure we’re getting enough protein daily to maintain it, which all of the clients I’ve seen on VLCD aren’t! There is also the concern of not getting enough nutrients and minerals, which in trails is substituted with electrolyte supplementation, but most of the clients I’ve seen that are on a VLCD aren’t supplementing anything.

Lastly, It’s not SUSTAINABLE. All the information I’ve read about VLCD’s is that people put on weight afterwards. The only way to maintain the weight lost is to follow up with support afterwards. So, for some that might be therapy, or meal plans, or a trainer, in order to make that weight maintenance sustainable. For me what’s most important is that we look at our habits around food regardless of how we chose to do it or who we chose to support us. When we look at and adjust our daily habits, rules, and the conversations we have with ourselves surrounding food then we can create long term change. This worked for me and I’ve seen it work for clients too. Is it hard, yes. Though I’m not sure it's harder than living off of 800 calories a day.